Chinese New Year in Lima

On the eve of Chinese New Year, I thought I'd share these photos taken by Liz in Lima's Chinatown during the Chinese New Year holidays in 2008.

Tickets

My tickets for this year's trip to Lima are purchased!

Happy Holidays!

Ornaments on this year's tree.

La Tarumba!

Near the very end of our stay in Lima Willy, Elba, Toya, and Orlando invited us to the La Tarumba circus show in the southern district of Chorrillos.

La Tarumba is a locally developed circus that seeks -and manages- to combine circus with music, song, and dance.  Among its directors and performers, for example, they count Amador "Chebo" Ballumbrosio, of the famous musical family from the city of El Carmen.  Ballumbrosio, son of his much-admired namesake, brings an Afro-Peruvian musical sensitivity and rythm to La Tarumba.   

La Tarumba started in the 1980s as street performers.  In the early 1990s they managed to establish an HQ in a house in Miraflores, and in 2003 they were able to purchase their tent.   According to their website they felt at  then that they were finally "a real circus", and committed themselves to putting on a show a year, every year.

So far, they've kept their word.

This year's installment was Quijote, based, of course, on  the story of Don Quixote de la Mancha written by Miguel de Cervantes.  It is a story that is well-known in Latin America, Cervantes holding a similar place in Spanish-language literature as Shakespeare does in English.   Moreover, Quijote's tenacity of struggle against all odds and his daring to dream of a better world resonate with Latin American's own history of struggle.

The windmill scene

La Tarumba did a wonderful job at creatively bringing the elements of the story to life in the circus ring

Don Quijote

By the end, the audience was visibly moved by the show and Quijote's longing for love and a better world.  It really was quite moving and sad, but La Tarumba was not about to let people leave on a down note:  Ballumbrosio led the musical ensemble in a rousing number drawn from traditional Afro-Peruvian music celebrating the harvest and celebrating life.

This was my second time attending a La Tarumba show, as I had also gone with Willy and Elba during last year's season.   I loved the show each time.   I do have a hard time, however, deciding whether first place in the audience's hearts is taken by Ballumbrosio and the musical ensemble, or by La Tarumba's troupe of trained horses.

Convent of Santa Catalina de Siena de Arequipa

One of the main attractions in Arequipa is the old Convent of Santa Catalina de Siena. Santa Catalina was built in the 16th century to accomodate the desire of the townsfolk of Arequipa for a convent in their city.  Informed of thi wish during a visit, Viceroy Toledo, granted the necessary licenses for the establishment of a Dominican convent.  As few years later, a young widow, Maria de Guzman, decided to take the vows and enter the nunnery, and in 1580 the convent was formally inaugurated and Maria named "the first inhabitant and prioress of said Monastery."

For four centuries, Santa Catalina was community closed off from the rest of the world, enveloped in a mantle of silence and mystery, which contributed to both idealized imagining of life behind its walls and to lurid rumours.  Pehaps each had some measure of truth.  Santa Catalina, it is true, was a female-run world that lived by its own rules, laws and customs, dedicated to prayer and religious duty.  On the other hand, many of the nuns came from wealthy families and sought to preserve their status and comforts within the convent's walls, bringing servants with them, building -or buying- large personal "cells" with sitting rooms, private kitchens, and running water, and continuing to wear jewelry and gold.  One prioress, who tried to curb these practices, was the object of three separate poisoning attempts during her tenure!

At its peak the convent housed some 400 women, about 180 of them being nuns, and the rest servants, slaves, young women boarded there for their education, and women who had been given asylum by the order.  In the 1870s by order of the Pope, the servants and slaves were released, being given the choice of remaining and taking religious vows, or leaving the convent altogether. 

Several dozen Dominican nuns still occupy  a closed portion of the convent.  However, earthquake damage in the 1960s led the nuns to construct new quarters at the north end of the convent, fitted now with electricity and running water -in accordance with municipal regulations- and the majority of the convent was largely restored to what it looked like in days past (although most of the upper stories and roof accesses are now long gone) and opened to public tours in 1970.

I have to honestly say that the convent was one of the more memorable places we visited.  It is utterly fascinating to imagine the world that its walls must have encompassed, one little changed the course of the centuries.  A veritable city within the city, the 5 acre convent has streets, plazas, fountains, a cementary, and districts as any town would, as well as a hospital ward, a laundry, and a communal kitchen. The frequent need for repairs has made Santa Catalina a veritable catalogue of Arequipeno architectural styles through time. I think we took more pictures there than at any other single site