promoción

This past week, I attended 3 promociones in and around Julcán. Promociones are essentially a combination of prom and graduation. After completing elementary school and high school, the students get really dressed up (in their rented prom-sytle attire) and participate in a huge party with their families and teachers. These parties include a large meal (goat head included), lots of speeches, gifts, cake, and dancing, a lot of dancing. The most interesting aspect for me is the aspect of parejas and padrinos. For elementary school, each student has a padrino (godparent) who accompanies them and escorts them to the promocion. The high schoolers have parejas (kind of like a prom date?) to escort them to the promocion. I was asked by parents of both a high schooler and elementary schooler to be a pareja and madrina. Not really knowing what I was getting myself into, I accepted. I had to get dressed up (but not as dressed up as the Peruvian girls, who even got their hair styled for these events!), get a gift for my “godson” and “prom date” for the two events. Both of them were quite interesting, and didn’t end till about 4 in the morning. Needless to say, I was exhausted this week from my promocion parties. Here are some pictures from the promocion for high school, with my pareja, John.