MELISSA BLOCK, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
MICHELE NORRIS, host:
And I'm Michele Norris.
Easter is arriving especially early this year. And in Bolivia, early Easter means early carnival. And even though the annual street fair officially falls on the first week of February, in La Paz, it's already time to strike up the band.
NPR's Julie McCarthy reports from the party where residents inaugurate the celebrations by raising a dead man from the grave.
(Soundbite of band playing)
JULIE MCCARTHY: Pepino is carnival's most beloved character. Each year, it opens with his resurrection from the dead and closes with his burial. A simple pine box symbolizing the buried Pepino is borne through the streets of La Paz by harlequins dressed in the tricolors of Bolivia - red, gold and green. As a crowd presses in, the clowns stopped the procession before the gates of the city's historic cemetery. The music turns lachrymose while they turn on the tears.
(Soundbite of people crying)
MCCARTHY: Overcome by the fact that Pepino is still interred, they passed the coffin off to gray-suited pole bearers who include the vice minister for culture, whom newspapers faulted for wearing blue jeans. Amid much anticipation, they place the pine box on a stage swirling with blue and yellow smoke.
At this point, Pepino is actually being lifted out of the coffin to a burst of confetti. He's meant to be a jester, like a court jester, dresses in costume, and he wears a mask. And he could go up and poke the patron. He could go up and poke the important people in town and get away with it on this day, the only day.
Dressed in a disheveled suit he had on since his burial last year, the fun-loving Pepino quickly changes costumes and plunges into the crowd with acrobatics and antics, his identity unknown until he removes his mask. Two years ago, Bolivia's first indigenous president, Evo Morales, delighted the parade by playing the part.
Local folklorist Javier Escalier says when Pepino first arrived with a traveling circus from Europe, Bolivians made him their own.
Mr. JAVIER ESCALIER (Folklorist): (Speaking in foreign language) Here in Bolivia, Pepino reflects the mestizo mix in the culture. He's an urban figure, but we also have given him campesino, peasant, characteristics. So he really reflects the combination in Bolivia of the urban and the rural.
MCCARTHY: Pepino was a classic ladies' man who competes for attention along with the Chuta, the folkloric (unintelligible) male character that struts around with two chuletas(ph). The stylized (unintelligible) women, their bright skirts, beautifully embroidered shawls and bowler hats help define the landscape of the Bolivian highlands.
One of this year's official Chutas, Franz Guido Maldonado(ph), wears, not just two women on his arm, but the frills and finery that recall the Spanish colonizers.
Mr. FRANZ GUIDO MALDONADO (Chuta): (Speaking in foreign language).
MCCARTHY: This is the complete satire of the traditional mores - customs - and the Spanish crown, Maldonado says. Everything that the colonizers brought we're poking fun at. The dances, he says, are all rebellion, an alcohol-soaked rebellion.
Unidentified Man #1: (Speaking in foreign language).
MCCARTHY: By mid-afternoon, local spirits have slurred the speech and unsteadied the step of many Pazenos, as La Paz residents are known. Drooping eyes flutter open for the fireworks that blazed just feet from the over-served patrons of the parade.
Unidentified Man #2: (Speaking in foreign language).
(Soundbite of fireworks)
MCCARTHY: Even the music starts to sound slightly off key as inhibitions fade and men grab women to dance. Before long, the streets are drenched in alcohol. Male suitors manage to twirl their petticoat-clad partners and still reach for a beer, taking pains to pour some out. Parade organizer Romero Lazo(ph) says the ritual of pouring liquor on the ground before drinking dates back to the Incas.
And once again, Pepino inaugurates the opening of carnival season with his mischief and merrymaking, releasing the happiness that locals say is buried in the subconscious of every citizen and that awaits to be awakened by the cacophony of carnival each year.
Julie McCarthy, NPR News, La Paz, Bolivia.