Hey everybody! So this last week was another busy week, on thursday I started Foklore classes, which is a traditional dance of Argentina. There are many dances of Foklore, but they all use the same moves only in differnt orders and to a little different beats. The class went really well! I learned "el gato" dance and "la chacarela." The steps are very simple, but put together with the music, and when a lot of people do it together, the dance is quite impressive. My teacher talks a lot, but she knows a lot about Foklore so I am learning from her. Another plus to dancing foklore: I get to dance bearfoot! haha.
On friday night we went to a Carnaval festival, which is a holiday (im still not exactly sure what it is, but I aasked and they said it was to dress up) that used to be celebrated a lot more in Argentina, but now is celebrated less, and more in smaller towns than in the city. Well after a 45 minute ride to the little town on Unquillo at 11 at night standing in crowded lurching bus, we got off the bus ready for carnaval. The first thing I saw when we got off the bus was a huge asado next to the road, over an open fire. There were about ten different kinds of meats layed out grilling, I knew then I was in rural Argentina.
We got to the entrance of the festival, and payed to get in. It was a whole long street that was blocked off. As soon as we set foot through the gates I felt something wet land on my arm. I looked down and it was covered in white foam... I took a second to really look around me, and I realized that the whole street was covered with foam, and there where poeple spraying eachother everywhere with this foam-in-a-can stuff (it kind of reminded me of silly string). We bought a couple of cans, and fought our way through the crowd to the end of the street where there were a whole bunch of people selling their crafts. After we had seen all the crafts, we left the safe heaven of the artists space and dove back into the mass of foam sprayers. Then the most random, short parade I have ever witnessed came down the street. First there was a pupet float, whith a huge pupet on it, behind came some drummers, a group of boys drmming Murga music. Then came the Murga float with the murga dancers and more drummers.
Murga is a type of brazilian dance that is danced to a fast beat of drums. It is really quite cool to watch. The other day I was talking with somebody, and we were talking about tango. The lady I was talking with comented that she didnt like the Tango, she said it was too melancholy, in fact, she said that the whole culture of Argentina was more melancholy than the rest of south and central america. She mentioned that Argentina needed a little of Brazil's "alegria," happiness. I had to think of this when I saw the murga dancers in the street. They were quick, agile, and barely on the ground. The festival was indeed very lively, and differnent, and now that I think about it, it had very little to do with any kind of traditional Argentinean dance.
After the murga dancers came the mots random of all the floats: the Mexico float, complete with a huge paper mache dude in a sombrero, stalks of fake corn, and a giant bottle of tequila made out of an old bike rim, siran-wrap, and tape. I still have no idea where this came from, but now I at least know what the Argentineans think of when they think of Mexico. Then the attention was on the main stage as a couple of local Cordoban rock bands palyed. I thought that was about it when out of nowhere we were all rushing back to the street to get a look at the parade of "feather girls" that was coming down the street. Basically it was a parade of about 30 girls, one aftert the other with almost nothig on but these imresive headresses and fans of feathers, in all different colors, and arranged in all different shapes! It was pretty funny, they danced down the street in their little high heels, some of them accompanied by men dressed up in glittery outfits with crowns on, and let people walk up to them and take pictures with them.
Finally at around three in the morning all sticky from the foam we walked back to the little tiny bus station and got back on the crowded lurchy bus back to Cordoba. Talk about a cultural experience! :)