Fun for No Money

I've commented in a previous blog entry that everything Americans do for fun costs money. In New York, for example, people hang out at restaurants, theaters and bars. (This is actually more of a necessity than an extravagance; they usually don't have the time to cook, the space to host in their crash-pad apartments, or live too far out in the outer boroughs, Jersey or Long Island, and end up "commuting" to social functions in Manhattan.)

Peruvians have some of the same hosting limitations, but don't have the financial resources to go out to eat whenever they want. Fortunately, when everybody's got limited cash, everyone has more incentive to get creative, and usually no one makes plans that cost more than about 5 soles ($1.75) without warning everyone in advance or finding ways to cover those who can't pay. Some examples of creative ways to have fun for little (or no) money:

• Take up a collection (pass the hat!) to split on a group meal, such as a pizza or a whole rotisserie chicken.
• Cook for everyone, and take up a collection afterward for the cost of the groceries (usually quite cheap. This is also, by the way, how most fundraisers here are done).
• A good old-fashioned game of fulbito (that's football/soccer, modified to play on a neighborhood basketball court).
  
• Stuff 6 people to a cab, or take public transportation, to the beach or other hangout (and bring lunch with you).
• Buy a bootleg karaoke DVD (~$1) and invite everyone over to your house to enjoy some classics of Latin pop, rock or reggaeton.
• Invite everyone over to your house for a party and play someone's bootleg MP3's, or throw a "pijamada" (a slumber party, which is surprisingly popular among adult women here, probably because it costs little or no money).

The classic example of fun for no money, however, is the Peruvian birthday party. I've been to a bunch of them, either for other American interns within the mission or for Peruvian friends from the local churches, and together they have caused me more culture shock than any wedding, church service, or other social function I can think of!

For one thing, they're often spontaneous, usually planned the day of. As in, "Hey, it's so-and-so's birthday, let's all go to so-and-so's house tonight, the more the merrier..." In New York you need to plan a month in advance if you want anyone to show up, and even so half your guest list will be working late or out of town. Also, Peruvian birthday parties start late and end even later (staying til midnight is traditional), and it's rude to leave early!

Second, almost none of the parties I've been to had gifts. It's simply not expected! Some people dress up a little, but many wear the same outfit you see them in every other day. Third, everyone always sits in a big circle. You walk in, greet every single person in the room with a handshake or a kiss on the cheek, and take a seat in one of the chairs lined up against the wall. You may try to make polite conversation with the people near you, or you may just talk across the room until whoever's serving as the emcee gets up, and the games begin.

The games, by the way, are the fullest expression of fun for no money. A game may involve anything from drawing an embarrassing task out of a hat (like getting down on one knee to "declare your love" to whoever the emcee feels like picking on that night), to "mind volleyball" where you call out people's names and they respond by calling out the next person's without missing a beat, to the "hueco", a physical game like musical chairs but more fun. One game involves borrowing two people's sweaters or neckties, and having a "race" to see when the second sweater (which each person must tie around their neck once, then pass it on) will catch up with the first sweater (which each person must double-knot and untie before passing it on, thereby traveling slower). Another game involves tossing a glove around the circle, to which the recipient responds, "Por qué me tiras el guante?" (Why did you throw me the glove?), to which the thrower must think of something clever to say which rhymes with glove, or "guante". (This game would be more fun if I knew Spanish well enough to be clever, or to understand others' clever remarks.)

The purpose of all of these games is not to win, but to punish whoever loses. It's called the "castigo". Whoever messes up their line, or gets caught with the balloon, or the two sweaters, or gets caught out of their seat during the "hueco" game, has to undergo some sort of public humiliation. If you're lucky, you'll get off with doing a little dance where you have to shake your tailfeather (or "colita"); if you're not you may end up blindfolded and undergoing a prank, or forced to leave the room while the emcee points to random people saying, "Do you want to marry him? How about him?" while you call out every insult and embarrassing reason you can think of, much to the delight of everyone in the room.

Obviously these games get very silly, and these parties in general are the polar opposite of the trendy dinner-and-drinks birthday parties that are popular in New York. I don't very much like getting "punished" in the ways described above, but I can also see how we New Yorkers or Westerners have become so image-conscious that we've lost the ability to be silly & embarrass ourselves in front of people (which it turns out is a very effective group-bonding mechanism). These parties also include everyone present from start to finish, instead of leaving guests on their own, to form cliques or choose who they want to talk to, often leaving out the rest.

Among the other embarrassing birthday traditions here are the "huevo" - cracking a raw egg on the birthday boy or girl's head - and the "mordida", making the birthday boy or girl take a bite out of the cake after blowing out the candles, and while in mid-bite, partially shoving it in their face. Cruel, or all in good fun? It all depends on how self-conscious, and individualistic vs. group-oriented, you are.

A final aspect of these parties is the speech-making. Toward the end of the party, everyone goes around in a circle sharing some personal sentiments about the birthday boy or girl. Sometimes these are pretty contrived, but sometimes they are truly touching or sweet.

At the end of the day, despite the risk of getting "punished" or feeling lost in the midst of all the chatter and joking in Spanish, I find myself looking forward to these social gatherings, and I often leave feeling a little closer to my group of friends here in Peru, and only a few soles poorer.


***Note: Since posting this blog, I have been told that the games described above are a feature of evangelical churches in Peru, not Peruvians in general, and that the custom of silly group activities may have been imported by Baptist missionaries! This is intriguing, because the Korean churches I grew up in also played silly games, which were not typical of Korean culture in general - might this also be the work of foreign missionaries? If anybody finds out, let me know...