Mother's Day in Pisac

This past weekend our group had the opportunity to travel to Pisac and experience the ruins of the old city, as well as visit the town's famous Sunday market. However, the Sunday that we visited happened to coincide with mother's day, which allowed us to have a cool insight into the role of women and specifically mothers in Peruvian culture.

One interesting tradition that I noticed while looking through the different stores was that all of the mothers had rainbow confetti in their hair, and because of this people would wish these women a happy mother's day after just glancing at their hair. I thought this was interesting as it was a public way of honoring mothers, and I couldn't think of a comparable tradition in American culture.

However, there were other differences in the celebration of mother's day that I noticed as well. The biggest difference in my opinion was that women were still working in all of the stores at the market, selling sweaters or fruit and preparing food, while the men were generally nowhere to be seen. This was interesting to me as it is the opposite of American culture, in which the man is supposed to be working/providing for the family. To me this shows the true importance of women in Peruvian culture, as they seem to be the central figure in the family.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed the opportunity that we had to visit a smaller town for mother's day, as it provided interesting insights into the different gender roles and responsibilities that exist in Peru. I am not sure if the same differences in gender roles exist in larger cities such as Lima, but it was definitely refreshing to experience a culture which so greatly values its women and their contributions to society.