Yaniel Ayala Velez
March 29, 2022 6:48 AM
Parranda! by Yaniel Ayala Velez
“Did you brush your hair at all whilst you were away at school?”Yes. Yarielis bit back the bitter response. But the answer was ‘yes.’ Every single day, enduring the particular type of torture of getting a brush through the thick curls, thinking about all the more interesting things there were to be doing. Again, and again, every day, fantasising about taking a pair of scissors to it and cutting the whole lot off… Okay, so, maybe some of those brushes had been more perfunctory than they should have been.
“Sorry,” Yarielis muttered, as Mama tugged firmly against the knots.
“We’ll give you a trim before you go back to school, make it easier to manage, eh?” Mama said, and again the vision danced through Yarielis’ head of grabbing hold of the whole ponytail and
snipping above the hair elastic. “Anyway, it’s not like I mind the excuse to play with your hair. It’s so beautiful.” The little bubble with the vision burst. Mama would never agree. Perhaps that was unfair… After all, she could never agree if Yarielis would never ever ask. But mama loved playing hairdresser, and turning it into a girly day and doing their nails too… And there was months of catching up to do, from being away at school, which meant smiling and saying ‘yes, yes, yes’ even more than usual. They only had these few weeks to spend together, and Yarielis wanted to make them perfect. For Mama. And for Papa, though it wasn’t a sacrifice to spend time in the bakery or play ball in the park.
At least this evening was something Yarielis genuinely looked forward to. It was easy to forget the hair-related torture as the three of them made their way out into the street, Papa with his guitar on his back, and Yarielis and Mama holding simple percussion instruments, ready to join the neighbourhood parranda. Mama always told stories of growing up in Puerto Rico, where you really would sneak up to people’s houses, though Yarielis wasn’t ever sure how they wouldn’t see or hear it coming, given that it was both tradition and very loud. Here, they did it a little differently, not wanting to disturb people who didn’t want to be part of it. Rather than a stealth-surprise by music, it was more like a moving party, going between each of the houses that had a golden trumpet hanging on the door. And rather than being on any given night of the Christmas season, there was a specific evening.
Yarielis stuck to Mama’s shadow as they entered the first house, where plastic lights in the shape of snowflakes hung across the window, recalling the kind of Christmas that none of them had ever had. The neighbours and the songs were familiar, though after months away, it was hard not to feel like a bit of an outsider. Would they ask about it? What were any of them supposed to say if so? But the parranda had a life of its own. A steady beat which wove around all of them. As soon as the first drummers started drumming, Yarielis fell back into rhythm. It was the kind of music that brought laughter from those who laughed easily, but also coaxed smiles from those who stuck to edges of the room. It was hard not to light up, and to even shout out and sing out, because the blur of voices all around was loud enough that your own would just be happily lost, one little sound disguised by the many. Yarielis was never going to be up with the ladies dancing in the middle, but could smile and sing.
And snack. Yarielis paused for a second in scraping the güiro to receive a tray of mini pork sandwiches, and to help pass it on its way, after taking one. Earlier in the bakery, all three of them had had their hands to the pumps, filling up trays of tembleque and putting them in the fridge to set, along with turning out extras of all the usual favourites. For some reason, their home was a popular place to end the evening.
Still, it would be many hours before they returned. Yarielis leant on Mama’s shoulder, enjoying being part of the whole thing, but especially enjoying being the two of them.
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Yaniel Ayala Velez
Parranda!
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