People and noise

Viva las ONGs

Shortly after launching this blog, I said to Helen “Now all I have to do is find things to write about regularly”.

“You could always make a post about your wonderful, amazing girlfriend,” she said.

So here is a post where someone raves about the astounding brilliance of my girlfriend. That someone isn’t me, but I’m sure that doesn’t really matter…

The number one social event in Iquitos is the parrillada. Parrillada basically means BBQ and whenever anyone has anything to celebrate, wants to have a get together, or (and here’s one of the ways it differs from a British BBQ) needs to raise money for something, they buy in a shed load of chicken and booze, send out invitations and fire up the barbie.

The fundraising element of the parrillada is something I’ve never fully worked out. Obviously the hosts do all the work and you come along and buy the food and beers at prices that aren’t massively inflated, but hopefully just high enough to make a bit of profit. I don’t think I’ve ever found out what any particular parrillada has been raising money for though. Then again, I don’t think I’ve ever asked, probably being too busy filling my face and getting tipsy.

Your standard parrillada (and this formula is followed exactly by almost everyone) will involve:
A bunch of tables in a hopefully open or well ventilated place (otherwise it can get swelteringly hot) where people sit and chat in groups.
Plates of food which feature a decent portion of marinaded chicken (possibly a quarter opened out into a flat steak for BBQing), some rice and some potatoes or yuca. Each table is also given a serving of homemade aji (chilli sauce) to add to their meal according to their taste. This is invariably delicious but occasionally borderline lethal.
A large tub filled with ice and beer (and the odd soft drink).
A soundsystem blasting out cumbia hits at a volume that threatens to blow the speakers and means that any conversation has to be shouted in order to be heard.

Another common factor I’ve noticed about parrilladas, is that they rely almost entirely on women. This is not just because the women do the majority of the cooking, but also because it is always the women who get up and start dancing, and shortly after insists that everyone else comes and joins them. This creates the party which allows the parrillada to continue once all the food has been finished.

One of our last parrilladas (they can happen with startling regularity) was no exception to this last rule, but in this case the dancing was led by a couple of particularly sozzled women, whose invitations to dance were initially politely refused by almost everyone except one person. Regular readers might guess who that person was.

Helen rarely refuses an invitation to dance, and was soon up bumping and grinding with the partially pickled pair. To be fair, I went and had a go too, but unabashedness isn’t my strong suit, so they soon got bored of my (hopefully) rhythmic shuffling. At the same time, Helen, perhaps with the benefit of a few moves from the dance classes she has very occasionally started going to, was positively wowing them. How did I know this? Well, because one of them was shouting it at everyone.

“Mira esta linda mujer. Ella conoce bailar. Aplausa!”
(“Look at this beautiful woman. She knows how to dance. Applause!”)

If this wasn’t enough, she soon got wind of the fact that Helen was working for an NGO, and her gushing took on geyser like proportions.

“Ella ha venido a Peru para trabajar con una ONG. Necesitamos mujeres como ella. APOYA LAS ONGs!”
(“She came to Peru to work for an NGO. We need women like her. SUPPORT THE NGOs!)

This announcement of Helen’s work status began virtually choking through tears before moving through shouted praise to what was basically a barked order. My housemate, who had been drinking with me and avoiding dancing, suggested we really should have got some video footage for an NGO promotion campaign.

Through all this Helen was blushing and laughing, but of course continuing to dance. I guess that’s the kind of wonderful, amazing person she is.

And I don’t always need to be stuffed full of chicken and beer and shouted at by drunken dancing women to be reminded of that.

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