One of my favorite days of the trip so far was the Friday of a weekend trip to a small town called El Carmen, located in the province of Chincha. When we arrived, we ate a delicious lunch at the home of the Ballumbrosio family, a family well-known in Chincha for their dancing and music. The family is full of dancers, singers, violinists, and more, and we were lucky enough to have each of our meals in their home. After lunch, we went to the nearby Centro Cultural Amador Ballumbrosio where we received cajón lessons, and bumbled our way through lessons in traditional Afro-Peruvian dance, giggling and grinning the whole way.

The week prior to our trip to El Carmen, I personally had been feeling exhausted, having to be on my toes all the time as I navigate a new place and a new culture, and I know others of the group were feeling a similar way. During and after the dance and cajón lessons, I felt this energy, joy, and feeling of connectedness with the group that I hadn’t yet felt. That feeling continued into the evening when the Ballumbrosio family put on a show for us, full of song and dance. Near the end of the show, the dancers had us follow them out the door onto the street where we all danced in a circle around a bonfire with the stars above us. That dance was an experience that I truly cannot put into words. For me, there was something incredibly special about observing these important pieces of a different culture in an intimate way and, even though we were awkward at times, allowing ourselves to engage fully in the experience together. IMG_0342

-Hannah Beck