Bricheros and New years

First off...HAPPY 2012!

Carlos and I celebrated with his mom and dad at his mom's house.  We ate take out Chinese food, drank champagne, popped our 12 good luck grapes, and watched fireworks.  They were much better at Christmas than at New Years, which was a little strange.  But still pretty good.  It was a nice low key night and it was good to spend the time with his parents.

I also learned a new word this past weekend.  Well its not actually a new word, but I learned the enty-something-ology of the word.  First a little background.

In Peru you have certain people that latch onto foreigners.  These people are called Bricheros(male) or Bricheras(Female). /bree-che-ro/  They are the Peruvians who like to meet foreigners and use them for money and sex and to leave the country. Until recently I had never thought about the word very much.  I knew what it meant and that was fine for me.

The other night I was teasing Carlos that to the outside world he probably looks like a brichero.  Its even better because we are going to the US and he is going to be a resident.  He then asked me if I knew what it meant.  I was stumped.  Something to do with...leeches??  He asked me about those things in English that you use to cross from one place to another.  For example, the Golden Gate.............  I had forgotten that we were in the land of Spanishized English words, like "Huachiman" (watchman), and "Sangüche" (Sandwhich), and "Carro"(car).  That thing that we call a bridge, gets translated to a "brich" and a person who uses this "brich" becomes a "brichero", someone who uses foreigners to cross the bridge into another country and then, ciao!

Searching on the internet, I found that this word originates in Cusco, with the young men who serve as tour guides to females, usually Caucasian females.  Whatever is truely means, and where ever it came from, it is pretty much applied to any Peruvian, usually of a darker color, who pursues foreign women for their own ends.

Fortunately, Carlos is not a brichero.  He explained why not and its because he has already lived in another country, and so he cannot be a brichero.  But all joking aside, I know that he isn't one.  So don't worry people!  But I still give him a hard time when he points out bricheros on the street.  I remind him that maybe they aren't, and that they probably think the same thing about us.