How the Jardín’s Carnival began

    SULLANA, Peru – The carnival used to be expected so excited every year, who knows if like a way to resume the heat, or to enjoy a time of kind amusement. It uses to celebrate between January-ending and February-beginning matching to the hottest time at the Peruvian Northern.

 

There is any particular on the Sullana’s tradition. Teams of boys or girls throw water to their contenders in something likely the strategy games, which the ambushes and the assaults (understood in their most innocent meaning)are able through the day… and the night. However, as the years passed by, the situation was almost degenerating and many episodes outlined like vandalism forced the authorities to restrict and forbid the game in the recent years.

 

Former Sullana’s subprefect José Carlos Carrasco said this is caused by the unsafety climate the town lives, so an uncontrolled carnival game was to outbreak some chaos. But, a youth’s initiative  motivated Mr Carrasco to think the rule could be less hard, and that just for one day, a simple tradition may turn into the prettiest and warmest celebrations in Piura Region.

 

    At least until mid-20^th century, the habit consisted in bunches of boys and girls expecting each other to stain or soak. Everybody joined. Before Ash’s Wednesday, Club Unión offered the most attended carnival party in the city where the sound of the music and the fireworks fused. At the bourghs, who could not attend the Club Unión, organized their own party.

 

The tradition was recurrent until about 35 years ago. The introduction of luaus (a Hawaiian party)at Colán Beach, Paita Province (about 30 miles to the west), moved the older audience of big parties wherever, and in the rest of the city, the tradition reduced to cut-off the yunza or a previously cut-off tree. In the most recent years, that tradition simply disappeared.

 

    Let the donkey to walk on

Everything began like a joke play, repeated once and everytime, Renzo Gutiérrez, the only past-president of the Association of Young Residents of Urbanización Jardín  (AJR Jardín, as its acronyme in Spanish), an organization wwhich we produced a workshop to fight racism and other discrimination ways across Sullana City, in 2006

 

That’s the way how Mr Gutiérrez begins to tell that a hot summer night of that year, the guys decided to play carnival and started to throw water each other. As the result left a revenge flavor, they planned a ruled new combat – two teams, one green, another yellow, everyone with a queen and its carnival group.

 

As Jardín borders to Loma de Teodomiro, a former farmer village now part of Sullana Metropolitan Area, both teams contacted farmers and hired such as donkeys with their carts to drive the queens. The noise summoned the residents and some visitors who joined a BBQ-party at the sports field.

 

    Both teams paraded. When they got to a large sand lot (almost the whole urbanization still has no asphalt), the captains of every team decided the ultimate details. Then, the queens greeted, threw wáter each otehr, and the combat began.

 

The idea excited many in their 50s who thought the best times of their lives returned for an instant. Quickly, AJR Jardín’s people produced other celebration on February 17^th, 2007. To give a significant aspect, they wanted to highlight the inclusive spirit of the carnival and organize a party which nobody gets out. And when they said nobody, they mmeant any discrimination criteria was used.

 

The production was made almost like the movies, as the organization used – other experiences include turning the sports field to a stage, a conference room, and a big dance club, or an abandoned house into a witchcrafted residence with its own private cemetery. Since that experience, the carnival became a tradition of that bourgh.

 

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