Sucre, Stations of the Very Cross - Kaliber of Chicha - 30 Mar 2003
Sucre, loafing around
More mad dancing
What else?
We spent a lot of time learning all sorts of nouns and stuff. Interspersed was the odd moment of reprieve from lessons. The school we are attending has kiddie lessons during the afternoons and adult lessons in the evening and they are permanently on the search for new students. One of their awareness raisers was a day of local food, drink, music and dance in a square up on the hill above town.
That was Sundayís entertainment arranged for us and so we only had our one free day of Saturday to plan for. We took the chance to traipse up the same hill past the square that was to be used the next day (we didnít want to be too embarrassed and arrive late) and continued up the ìstations of the crossî to the viewpoint at the top. Like a pair of daft things we had not taken any drink with us and we struggled a bit as we gasped to the top of the hill. The lord only knows how Big Al does all of that high altitude trekking in the Himalayas and elsewhere.
The stations had obviously been built by the Spaniards being made out of tiles and stuff. For some reason that I do not understand the 12 Stations of the Cross had multiplied into 14. Whether it was that they lost count or someone important had demanded some extras I donít know. But when you are getting tired and you realise that there are 2 more stations than you had planned for it is a bit disheartening. At the top, of course, was the last station with a huge statue of a welcoming Christ on the top. Unfortunately someone in recent years had thought it would be a good idea to put a crown of light bulbs round His head.
A crown of Thorns, in fact. Ho,ho. The makeshift crown was held onto His head with a chin strap of galvanized wire, which looked quite incongruous on an otherwise serene bronze.At the top of the steps that led up to the feet of The Big Fellah, people were making offerings for whatever function they felt fit. I was quite impressed by the ëeternal flameí that was alight at the centre of all the other tat. On close inspection, it turned out to be fuelled by nothing other than plastic drinks bottles. The top step was thus covered with the black tacky residue of what one can only suppose is years of plastic bottle burning.
A short way away from the statue and at the utter top of the hill (Hippy moaned a bit on the way up to this, but I had to point out that lads to not go to nearly the top when there is an ultimate available) there was an area of rocks that seemed to have carried out various functions over the years. The huge amount of animal bones in the vicinity of this holy site suggested to us that some kind of sacrificing had been going on. I carried around visions of Satanic rites - Hippy, with a rather more genteel side to her nature, felt that maybe there had been a big barby up here when folk had come to do their observances.
We were mighty pleased to get back to the square and buy water before we turned into prunes. We took a spot of lunch at a restaurant that must have one of the finest positions in the world. In amongst bright flower beds we gazed out over the tiled roofs of Sucre to the mountains beyond and tucked into a very passable ham and cheese omelette. Nice. It was not really spoilt by the obligatory Andean pipe music band that shuffled around the tables while we ate. They were not so in-your-face as many buskers that weíve been subjected to and really rather good at their chosen profession.
Just by the square is a childrenís museum which is a museum for children. They seemed remarkably unsurprised when a couple of clearly childless people turned up at the door and requested admittance. They even gave us a guided tour around the interactive displays and patiently stood by while we got the computer to repeatedly play the mammoth noise. Itís a good thing that we were entering the spirit as the place seemed sadly devoid of children. Judging by the guest book, the vast majority of folk who come and see it are travellers and one wonders whether the large amount of cash spent on it by well meaning NGOs would not have been better spent otherwise.
The children were however having an excellent time in the cobbled square. There were 2 matches of footy in progress, one of lads and one of girls. There was a certain amount of risk in playing at the top of an incredibly steep hill. 15minutes later they began playing again with one very tired goalie. It could be a new training method for Jussi Jaskaleinen. The punishment of having to reclaim the ball after a goal maybe enough to stop him letting in another.
Women this time, in florescent embroidered skirts wearing pompom-ed sandals and be-hatted with straw boaters bedecked with more pompoms. Danced in a fashion that was a cross between country dancing and Masai. They were accompanied by a rather portly chap on the charanga. His paunch was perfectly developed to rest his charanga without the need for muscular effort. His playing was excellent, so maybe the years of drinking cervezas and eating papas fritas is a necessary part of training.
Later a rather sophis band came on stage and I must confess that the panpipe player was the best we have heard. The bass player was of the universal attitude of bass players. He stood at the back cold as a cucumber and plucked enigmatically while the rest of the band was frantically showing off to the crowds. Clearly, he had been to the Jon Bridgett, Helen Bryan, Murray Graham and Simon Hall School of musicianship. A few gringos were hauled up to dance and we were in the vulnerable position of sitting in front of the rest of the crowds (being about the tallest 2 people there, it had seemed only fair to sit down to allow others to see). When the inevitable hand was held out to us to join the dancing we declined citing our possession of ëdos pies izquierdasí as an excuse.
When the gringos tired the area was freed for a couple of more unusual performance. A couple of blokes who had been downing the local brew all afternoon took the stage. The dances? were, how shall I say, Mister Soft impressions, the like of which I have only seen before performed by dear Patrick when he is eventually coerced onto the dance floor after a serious quantity of London Pride, or the like. They reminded us of a colleague of ours in Guyana, a Gupti Narine who was strangely also renowned in this case for his rum consumption. OK, Helen, some of us just donít have the confidence to dance normally. So we dance abnormally.
There were stalls set up with local foods. Helen had been studying the names of the local fare with her teacher and so was able to steer us away from tripe offerings. We ended up doing a couple of potato dishes and a strange collection of all sorts which included chewy meat, large grain sweet corn, potato and some salsa served up on a plastic tray complete with an egg. It was all very tasty which rather shot down the claims of all the travellers we had met who were going south and informed us that Bolivia is something of a culinary black spot. We accept that the meat was no where near as good as the prime stuff in Argentina and, to a lesser extent, Chile but their concept of seasoning was like being on a totally different continent. It actually tasted of something.
We needed refreshment and braved the chicha stall. I guess we ought to explain about chicha. This is a common alcoholic drink produced in slight variation throughout South America. Generally the production involves chewing a starchy food and spitting it into a bucket. Leaving the enzymes to do their stuff for an unspecified length of time produces an alcoholic product of obviously hazardous hygiene level. It was time to sample the goods. Atop the counter where two varieties; one was labelled mani (peanut) and had a peanutty scum on top, the other, quinoa (who knows) and looked a bit safer. We selected a glass of the latter to sample.
Hippy was ëgettingí (as they say in wine circles) a sweet nose and bucket loads of raw sweet pastry. My assessment as a smoker of some years and so with a thankfully jaded palate was something of a cloying barley water with the same hint of ìflour and waterî. We did our best to make pleasant faces while struggling this brew down. In the final analysis we reckoned that there was no alcohol in it and that weíd made a dreadful mistake and drunk the wash-pot for someoneís pastry brush. (note we were informed later that quinoa is a cereal that is grown locally and that chicha does not necessarily mean the alcoholic drink that we expected).
Most of our time has been sat in lessons of one sort or another and so thereís not much to report. Most of the other gringos in our hotel are studying, too, and so we can sit around and bemoan our inability to master the difference between ser and estar or between para and por.
Perhaps the most interesting part of our time has been in the free ëconversationí classes in the evening. We have joined up with a group of 6 Bolivian students who are learning English and sit in their evening class giving them other voices to hear and vice versa. We have quite a laugh as we all make mistakes and everyone seems very comfortable to do so. The locals feel that Sucre is the capital of Bolivia and there are some pretty fair arguments in their favour. I thought that this was something of a laugh - something like Bolton trying to make claims about being the largest town in England and so inflate its own importance. When one of the examples of the use of the verb to be was ìSucre is the Capital of Boliviaî I felt it was appropriate to contest the fact - in fluent Spanish, of course. It did not go down well.
We managed not to make any more gaffs and enjoy our time with the students immensely. One of the teachers proved to be hard work, though. He insisted on ëhelpingí us out with our EspaÒol by using 25% of the lesson giving us grammatical tips. Regrettably, his short lesson was on the most basic elements which we had learnt 5 months ago. (The fact that there is no need to use the personal pronoun most of the time in Spanish) We attempted to tell him that we were well aware of the fact, but he was on a roll. Ejemplo after ejemplo followed and we really could not get him to stop even though we gave him the correct answer to each. 15 minutes of complete embarrassment for us and the other students who could see that we knew all about it. Broke the ice a bit with our classmates, though.
Time can be a funny thing. It seems odd to be donning the scarf on a Monday afternoon at 4. So much so that I forgot. Only when Helen returned from the Internet Cafe and told me that Bolton were drawing 0-0 with Spurs did I realise my terrible error. I dashed off to the room leaving behind my bemused teacher to don the required. As I returned to her appropriately bedecked she seemed a bit taken aback. Even though I explained the scarf thing to her, she looked at me strangely all afternoon. It must be pointed out to the annoyance of my good friend and one time best man Martin ëI support Brentford, reallyí Mayer that Bolton did of course perform sufficiently well in the second half in a scarf-worn-kind-of-a-way that they achieved their first win against Tottenham in the premiership. Have I said enough yet, Martin?