February
14th. As mentioned
earlier, Cusco is a city of contradictions. Today is no different.
Today is both Valentines Day AND the Peruvian Carnival. So at the same time that lovers are
proclaiming their amore for one another, everyone else is battling over the
sexes. Carnival is literally the
festival of water. Every person
from 1 year to 70 years hides in alleyways, doorways, behind trucks and cars,
street signs and lamp posts and
everyone is carrying buckets full of water, water balloons and massive water
guns. Everywhere you go you are
sprayed with putrefying tap water.
But it’s the women versus the men.
I watch behind the protection of Hector in a pharmacia as we wait for a
taxi as gangs of boys chase “innocent and harmless” women down the street while
whacking them with balloons and aiming their pistols at them. And vice versa of course. Everyone is soaked to the bone. And it doesn’t help when in the middle
of the afternoon pick up trucks start circling the plaza where 15 kids are standing
up squeezed together in the back and as they pass bystanders they thunder them
with liters of liquid. No one is
safe. Everyone is a target and
everyone is a predator. Its
amazing to see the teams of people who come out for this. Laughing, joking, soaking. And in the end, God wins once again
because she decides to play as well.
And then any remaining heroes fall victim to Gods spray as well as she
blankets the entire city with her joy of Carnival.
