December 23, 2016
Colca Christmas Memories
I spent two Christmases in Peru’s Colca valley, and I enjoy revisiting those holiday memories, contrasting them with what I experience at home in Montana. In Chivay, Christmas decorations are almost non-existent, at least outwardly. Many homes and businesses, however, maintain a little home-made nativity scene in a corner, with figurines of wise men and animals. The baby Jesus isn’t present, though, until midnight on Christmas Eve, (“la Noche Buena”), when with some fanfare He is added to the scene.
