The panel
Door: Gilles
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Gilles
24 Oktober 2009 | Peru, Huancaya
David and I are sitting on 30 cm high chairs, behind a desk too chiquitito to harbour eihter of my inmense legs. We are waiting for the first girl in miss-outfit to enter the catwalk. Right ahead of us, on the other side of the catwalk sits the governator. Judging from his face, he is the brother of my ex-host-dad. He is jury member number one. David, my new housemate, is number two, and as it turns out, I am jury member number three.
The reason for this fine event, is the fourth aniversary of the secondary school in Huancaya. Unlike the neigbouring village Vitis, the Huancayans don´t tear their school down at that age, they do a miss and a poetry competition between the pupils. Every village it´s style, n´est ce pas?
The room is filling up with locals in their traditional clothes. I know quite some faces already, and they seem to recognize me too. It is 8.30. The show was supposed to start at 7. Peru.
A lady comes towards us. ´Hey can you guys also judge the poetry competition?`.
´Yeah, let the Dutch guy do that` I think, and I nodd without further comments. We receive a few breads with mountain cheese and some hot tea. That last one is a blessing, because the room we are in is open, and it isn´t exactly hot outside.
Last week was fun. I had missed two 5.15 am busses, meaning a two day delay. In Vitis, I met a few people who were carrying around 15 kg bricks.
´Hey do you want to help?`
Why not, I thought, and I started carrying adobes with them. When the truck was empty, the guys opened a bottle of Pisco: 30° grape juice.
Synchronous with my thought ´That was fun`, they let me know that this had been truck number one out of three. Two to go. 600 bricks each, three carriers to load them in and out. I didn´t want to leave my new made friends just like that, so on we went. Driving on the truck through the village singing songs from all over the world, we loaded the bricks in and out. The ambiance got jollier by the sip. At nine that night, the job was done. I slept before I hit my bed. The next couple of days I noticed I had more wounds on my hands than I could remember, but manly wounds are cool, so no worries. I rearranged my new house - it has a kitchen and a closet now -, and carried out some interviews with the people here. They get more interesting by the day, yet the expert healers are still to come.
At last, I hear music. This looks like a start. Oh. It´s not.
David and I have an other chat. Holland is a great conversation topic for a Peruvian. Luckily, this guy is my housemate, so we will soon have handled the themes: the language of Holland; where did you learn Spanish; are all Dutch people so tall; what is holland generally like and is it true that there are a lot of cows in holland? After that we will be able to have some original conversations, which is good for a change.
The show starts at 9.30. We have about 10 forms to fill in. Every thirty second show has ten evaluation points, for which we have to score between 0 and 20. Everyone here has the same name so getting it all structured, proves to be quite a struggle. I soon get the feeling that the organisation is trying to make up for the delay we have.
The poems are about the village. I give the highest points to the cutest boy. So did the others. He wins.
The miss competition is a different story. There are three rounds for about 15 girls. School suit, traditional clothing and the night tenue. We have to score for sympathy and clothing. I know one of the girls, Eliana, because she used to live in my house. David knows her too, and she is the niece of the governator. Will this be to her benefit?
When all misses have past three times, the process of evaluation is unescapable. What may appear to the public as a controlled discussion about all aspects of the clothing and the appearances of the participants, is in fact a soup of numbers that have to be added and ranked in as few minutes as possible. It turns out that both David and I both have a tie for the first place: Eliana and another girl.
Eliana wins. The governator decides. We agree. She is the best dancer anyway, and her reply to the question ´what properties should a model woman have?` was flawless.
The next day, the girls on the street look at me angrily.
The reason for this fine event, is the fourth aniversary of the secondary school in Huancaya. Unlike the neigbouring village Vitis, the Huancayans don´t tear their school down at that age, they do a miss and a poetry competition between the pupils. Every village it´s style, n´est ce pas?
The room is filling up with locals in their traditional clothes. I know quite some faces already, and they seem to recognize me too. It is 8.30. The show was supposed to start at 7. Peru.
A lady comes towards us. ´Hey can you guys also judge the poetry competition?`.
´Yeah, let the Dutch guy do that` I think, and I nodd without further comments. We receive a few breads with mountain cheese and some hot tea. That last one is a blessing, because the room we are in is open, and it isn´t exactly hot outside.
Last week was fun. I had missed two 5.15 am busses, meaning a two day delay. In Vitis, I met a few people who were carrying around 15 kg bricks.
´Hey do you want to help?`
Why not, I thought, and I started carrying adobes with them. When the truck was empty, the guys opened a bottle of Pisco: 30° grape juice.
Synchronous with my thought ´That was fun`, they let me know that this had been truck number one out of three. Two to go. 600 bricks each, three carriers to load them in and out. I didn´t want to leave my new made friends just like that, so on we went. Driving on the truck through the village singing songs from all over the world, we loaded the bricks in and out. The ambiance got jollier by the sip. At nine that night, the job was done. I slept before I hit my bed. The next couple of days I noticed I had more wounds on my hands than I could remember, but manly wounds are cool, so no worries. I rearranged my new house - it has a kitchen and a closet now -, and carried out some interviews with the people here. They get more interesting by the day, yet the expert healers are still to come.
At last, I hear music. This looks like a start. Oh. It´s not.
David and I have an other chat. Holland is a great conversation topic for a Peruvian. Luckily, this guy is my housemate, so we will soon have handled the themes: the language of Holland; where did you learn Spanish; are all Dutch people so tall; what is holland generally like and is it true that there are a lot of cows in holland? After that we will be able to have some original conversations, which is good for a change.
The show starts at 9.30. We have about 10 forms to fill in. Every thirty second show has ten evaluation points, for which we have to score between 0 and 20. Everyone here has the same name so getting it all structured, proves to be quite a struggle. I soon get the feeling that the organisation is trying to make up for the delay we have.
The poems are about the village. I give the highest points to the cutest boy. So did the others. He wins.
The miss competition is a different story. There are three rounds for about 15 girls. School suit, traditional clothing and the night tenue. We have to score for sympathy and clothing. I know one of the girls, Eliana, because she used to live in my house. David knows her too, and she is the niece of the governator. Will this be to her benefit?
When all misses have past three times, the process of evaluation is unescapable. What may appear to the public as a controlled discussion about all aspects of the clothing and the appearances of the participants, is in fact a soup of numbers that have to be added and ranked in as few minutes as possible. It turns out that both David and I both have a tie for the first place: Eliana and another girl.
Eliana wins. The governator decides. We agree. She is the best dancer anyway, and her reply to the question ´what properties should a model woman have?` was flawless.
The next day, the girls on the street look at me angrily.
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25 Oktober 2009 - 18:59
Dirk:
Ha Gilles, ik lees met plezier de avonturen van langbeen in Peru. Ik begin me als fotograaf wel een beetje zorgen te maken over dat lege linkje linksbovenin waar foto's op staat. Zou graag wat zien, of heb je in het geheel geen camera bij je? Want dan zul je (een) tekening(en) moeten inscannen. Nou, ja, zie ook maar.
Groeten.
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