Arriving in El Carmen

Last weekend, we took a much anticipated trip to El Carmen, a small town located about 3 hours south of Lima near the city of Chincha. El Carmen is known throughout Peru as the heart of Afro-Peruvian culture, and especially Afro-Peruvian dance. I probably never would have ever heard about this place if it hadn't been for a friend of mine from high school named Aaron Davis. Aaron studies dance at Connecticut College and discovered El Carmen when studying abroad in Peru last year. He returned to town this summer to live with the Ballbumbrosio family there and learn the traditional dances that have been passed down for generations. While African culture has clearly had a huge impact on all of Latin American as a result of slavery, I did not realize that there were slave plantations in Peru. However, this area of Peru is very dry, but flat and apparently had very good conditions for growing sugar cane and cotton. Therefore, Spanish colonists owned huge haciendas (plantations) with hundreds of slaves. One of the haciendas has been restored and converted to an elegant hotel, which we visited and I will describe later. Anyways, Aaron gave me the contact information for his friend Rolando, a man from the area who works with non-profit organizations there and is used to showing foreigners around. Rolando very graciously took us under his wing, brought us around the town and introduced us to people. When embarking for this trip, I had done some research about the area and talked with Rolando, but I honestly had no idea how the trip was going to go. I'm usually very concerned about planning trips, so this experience required me to have faith and let go, but this was definitely a challenge considering that 8 of my fellow volunteers were relying on me! I am very grateful that they were all willing to go with the flow and risk coming with me! Anyways, getting to El Carmen was an experience in itself. We first took a big coach bus to Chincha and a smaller combi to the town, which is located in the country, out in the middle of many massive agricultural fields. Today people in the area mostly grow asparagus, artichokes, and fruit, and agriculture still dominates the economy. El Carmen, has a beautiful plaza with palm trees and an elegant bright yellow church, but it very much feels like a small sleepy town, especially on the weekdays (we were told that some tourists tend to come on the weekends to see the shows.)

The majority of the people who live there are direct decedents from the African slaves that worked on the plantations. After meeting up with Rolando, we met someone who gave us a spontaneous dance lesson in the middle of the street and then we went to a restaurant to eat the traditional dishes called Carapulcra and sopa seca (A potato, meet, peanut, tomato stew with seasoned noodles). In the afternoon, we got to see the rehearsals for a local dance school that teaches teenagers the traditional afro-peruvian dances to pass them on to the younger generation. The girls dance using a lot of feet work and hip shaking and the boys learn how to play the Cajón. The Cajón is a drum that the slaves developed from fruit boxes that was based on a kind of drum they used in africa made from a hallowed out log. The drummer sits on the top of the box and then drums on different areas of the box for different tones and rhythms. I got to try playing one which was awesome!