Christmas came early

While I'm extremely excited to go home for Christmas this year, I've realized I'm simultaneously more than a little sad that I won't be in Cajabamba. Because all my host family, friends, and counterparts know I'll be missing the majority of the Peruvian Christmas season this year, they have gone out of their way to make sure they celebrate with me before I leave, so this week has been full of holiday treats and cheer. I've been invited to coffee by some of my community bank ladies, invited to lunch by a restaurant-owning couple of friends, and invited to various other Christmas festivities involving copious amounts of hot chocolate.

Having tea with some of the Sercofe bank ladies

I've also received gifts! One of my students shyly presented me with four avocados from his family's farm on our last day of class. Another student stood up and gave palabras (made a speech) wishing me a nice Christmas and safe trip home. And of course Lourdes and Javi, not to be outdone, gave me a very special early Christmas present: a hand-made statuette of a Cajabamba diablo (devil). The diablos are a tradition unique to Cajabamba - they are even listed in Peru's national register of cultural patrimony. Every year during town fiesta (and on other special occasions), men and boys put on the ornate and colorful embroidered costumes, don the heavy ceramic masks, and dance el baile de los diablos all around the plaza. Diablo statuettes are thus a hot souvenir commodity in Cajabamba every October, and my host mom makes the best ones that I've seen. The entire costume is handmade, and she spends hours doing the stitching, beading, and embroidery, as well as painting the specially designed mask. Javi also contributes by cutting and polishing each statue's cedar base in his carpentry workshop. The result is a recuerdo that I know I will always treasure - assuming I can get it back to the States unharmed!

My diablo