I’ve certainly never had a Shabbes like this one. We arrive right at 7:30pm at the house of Sra. Carmen de Holzmann.
The street, Jirón Mayro, on which the Holzmann house is located
She and her grandson, Rolando (Rolo as a nickname), are waiting at the gate to their house, and greet me warmly with hugs. We enter the house and I see that a room has been prepared for me. It’s very quaint and cute and I assume it’s much nicer than most of the other shacks I’ve seen around Huánuco. This house has electricity and lukewarm water to shower in. They have a 1998 computer and no internet-access in the house. Sra. Holzmann is proud that her deceased husband was the founder of the Peruvian Chamber Orchestra and was a composer who studied under the auspices of Benjamin Britten. They have many cassettes of classical music from her husband and from others like Mozart. The whole family is musical. Rolo plays flute, and Carmen sings in a Huanuqueñan choir.
We wait till 8:15pm to do Kabbalat Shabbat, once we give up on waiting for a minyan.
The Holy Ark is covered with this beautiful embroidered sheet. (Notice that the Hebrew is backwards.)
Interestingly for a community that affiliates with the Reform/Renewal movement, they don’t count women in the minyan.
Juan and I lead the service together because if I do it alone, I wouldn’t know the melodies that the community knows, and I would just confuse them.
Nonetheless, halfway through, Juan allows me to sing whatever melodies I choose. We go through the rest of Kabbalat Shabbat and then, for Maariv, it’s clear they really don’t have any idea what I’m doing. The problem is that they can’t read Hebrew and their siddurim are limited. Only certain parts have Spanish transliteration so they can read/sing along.
There are some interesting people that come to pray with us. There is a man Miguel, who wants to become a Reform Rabbi; he received a pending scholarship to attend, but only once he can read and write the Hebrew alphabet. He joins us with his non-Jewish girlfriend, who seems open to converting to Judaism. There are very few Jewish women in the community. Most people intermarry or have their wives/girlfriends convert. There’s an old man named Santiago (nickname: Shanti) who is an active member in the community. He speaks very quickly and I often find it difficult to follow what he’s saying because of my lame Spanish vocabulary. Nonetheless, I’m pretty sure he works with indigenous people because he’s always telling stories about their festivals and trying to make the point that ancient Israel’s society and the Incan society were very similar. He seems to have done research for a paper that claims that Hebrew and Quechua (the language of the Incas) are related, due to their similarities. I’m almost certain that the few similarities are coincidences, and in fact, I’ve asked linguists at Penn and they tell me its linguistically impossible, but I play along with Shanti’s hypothesis. He also really likes talking about the similarities in Jewish and Incan cultures with their egalitarianism and the importance of family. A professor of the technology of agriculture, named Antonio, also comes. Then of course, Rolo, the almost-Bar-mitzvah and his grandma with whom I’m living, pray with us. Also joining us is a 10-year old, Derek Bauer, whose father is the vice president of the community.
Rolo and Derek playing El Ahorcado, aka Hangman in Spanish.
After an abbreviated Maariv, we make Kiddush and Hamotzi. Everyone reassures me that everything is “kosher” even though there isn’t a kosher symbol on the bottle. I trust them, though if I were ultra-orthodox, I wouldn’t. I’ve never felt like more of a foreigner than at dinner. Everyone is telling Spanish jokes and I actually have no idea what’s going on due to my tiredness and the fact that they use a lot of Peruvian slang, which frankly isn’t taught in American Spanish classes. I just end up nodding my head a lot and saying, “Sí” whenever I think someone’s talking to me; that technique doesn’t work well. My mouth actually doesn’t want to speak Spanish; during dinner, I find myself trying to say one thing and I end up saying something totally different. For example, I try to say “I’m really tired”, but because I’m thinking in English I say, “Estoy triste”, as “tired” and “triste” both have a t-r. It’s really embarrassing and I decide not to speak for the rest of the night because clearly I am really tired.
In the morning, we have Shacharit with 6 people, at which we sing a few songs from their transliterated siddur/shiron. “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav” and “Am Yisrael Chai” are big hits. We can’t really do the Amidah because they only have it in Hebrew letters, so that’s no good. I try to summarize Parshat Balak in Spanish, and they are as confused as I from the talking donkey incident.
I explain that I don’t use public transportation or money or a telephone on Shabbat and they don’t really seem to understand, especially the kids. They want to go somewhere in the country with me by car, but I convince them we can do it on Sunday. Instead, we decide to walk into the center of the city to show me around. We walk 10 minutes towards the center of the city, across a river, until we find the Plaza Mayor, the main plaza, which is cute and has nice benches. It’s the nicest block in all of Huánuco. We head to a farmers market, which has a lot of indigenous ladies selling interesting produce that I’ve never seen.
Meals at the Holzmann house are great. They’re all made up of toast and weird Andean tubers and veggies that I’ve never heard of, like Kishu. It looks like a soft green cactus and tastes healthy.
Chicha, sweet fermented corn beer is quite delicious.
At around 8pm, we make Havdalah and sing a few more songs from their book. I try to give a dvar-torah in Spanish about solitude as a blessing and a curse in relation to the Parshah, the Huánuco community, and the state of Israel. They nod and seem to more or less understand. I really need to write out in transliteration some of the important prayers so we can institute Shacharit.
I am starting to feel comfortable as a “member of the family,” but it’s clear that my Spanish really better improve if I want to understand anything in the next month. I guess I’ll be spending my days, when the community is at work, reading my Spanish dictionary.
