The Fiestas Patrias celebrations came and went a week ago, although the celebrations don’t officially end until the last day of September. I went to three different parades, ate what felt like a thousand empanadas, drank my fair share of chicha (a homemade fermented drink) and ponche (white wine mixed with peaches), and danced the cueca again and again and again. It was wonderful.
The highlight of this second week of festivities was definitely my trip out to the inaugurations of the Ramadas with my host mom’s folklore group. The outskirts of Los Angeles are smattered with small, rural communities known as the campo, or country. During Fiestas Patrias every campo community puts together its own ramada complete with music, food, lots of space for dancing, and palm fronds (ramadas) lining the walls and ceiling. Each year the alcalde, or mayor, goes to five or six different ramadas in the campo communities to cut a ribbon, dance the cueca, drink chicha out of a cacho (a bull horn I think…) and officially inaugurate the Fiestas Patrias celebrations. My host mom’s folklore group, which sings and dances traditional Chilean music, accompanies the mayor on this annual tour to perform and play a cueca while the mayor dances.
Her group has pretty much adopted me as one of their own, and I in turn have become their unofficial photographer, so I got to join them on this adventure around the campos. It was great fun for me to go out to all of these smaller communities and see their different ramada set ups and eat all of the delicious food that they had prepared in honor of the mayor (and which they happily offered to the visiting gringa). The experience again showed Chilean pride and patriotism at its best and kicked off four straight days of celebration, with a bit of rest tossed in. I’m now back in school with only eight more weeks left, if you can believe it! These last two months are gonna fly by, packed with classes, travel, our different community activities, and despedidas, or good-bye parties. Not ready to think about that last one quite yet, though!
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