Dia 13/ 3 Llamas

So it’s been a busy couple of days and if you’ve see any of my pictures you’re probably really curious about some of them so ill rewind to last weekend. Saturday was Dia del Corazon de Jesus which meant our town was going to have a fiesta. Having a fiesta in town also means shooting off bottle rockets starting at 6am. On a side note, I have so far only woken up to noises outside and not my alarm clock. Usually it’s the roosters, that day it was bombs, and yesterday it was the tamale man. The tamale man goes around at 6 and shouts taaaaaamaleeeeeees in the streets because he sells them in the morning.

Anyway, back to Saturday. Since Sunday was father’s day all the elementary schools had some sort of event to celebrate. Father’s Day is pretty big and mother’s day is way bigger so I can only imagine what that’s like. My host cousin’s daughter, Angeline, had a big fathers day event Saturday morning at the big park area in Chacrasana. The theme was Copa Mundial so all the different levels represented a different country. They did some folk dancing which was fun to see and dance competition with the parents. 2 couples from each classroom danced in a last man standing type deal. It lasted like an hour before anyone was actually eliminated. Then, in the afternoon they have a big soccer tournament between all the classes. Some people drink all day to prepare for the fiesta but my host sister and I napped and watched movies for the rest of the afternoon. We have cable so we went with some subtitled American movies.

The people hosting/running the fiesta started shooting off fireworks around dinner time at which time they were also giving away free plates of food. There are 13 volunteers in Chacrasana and we basically invited everyone else to this so around 10/11 a ton of other volunteers from other communities showed up. Maybe around 11/12 (its hard to know the time frame because the whole thing was pretty dragged out) a procession started from the host’s house to the elementary school. They stopped occasionally to eat and drink and im sure something religious was happening as well but the only thing I saw having to do with anything religious was the fact we were carrying mini alters in the procession. Anyway, we got to the school and the drinking began. Drinking is really important part of Peruvian culture and it accompanies most activities and events. There’s also a whole ritual to go with it ….which we were happy to practice. There was some dancing but it seemed to be the consensus that the band that was playing was terrible. My 80 year old host grandpa also agreed with this. Some of you may have seen some photos of fireworks. That, my friends is the Torro Loco (Crazy Bull). It was basically a guy running around with a mock cow on his head. This cow though was strapped with dozens of fireworks. Yeah. Absorb that. It was pretty ridiculous and awesome. There were 2 that night but according to my host mom they usually have like 6. Then to top that was the castle. This was a maybe 15ft high structure loaded with fireworks. They set this off at like 230/3am and it was AWESOME. I have a video of it I’ll post. Then a lot more dancing until my host sister and I left at 5 but that party was still going till 9 the next morning when the booze ran out.

Sunday was of course father’s day so we had a ton of people at our house for lunch. Lunch is bigger deal here than dinner so if theres ever an event or celebration it will usually occur at lunchtime. We ate a really nice lunch that they spent all morning preparing. It was a good opportunity to figure out who the heck everyone is. I found out my host dad has another son working in Spain and I met his wife and kids. We drank, talked, and watched the Brasil v. Ivory Coast game. Later my family put on a dvd with just a ton of music and dances from the selva (that’s where my family is originally from). They love to talk to me about the selva and show me things like that. It was nice and I had the opportunity to try Peruvian wine…think alcoholic grape juice with sugar. Today was Dia del San Juan which is a huge holiday in the selva so my mom spent all yesterday cooking juane (sp?) fr todays luch with family and friends. Its basically seasoned rice, chicken, olives, and egg all wrapped in a giant leaf. Delicious.

I also met the girl who lived here before me the other night! Lisa is with Peru 14 and is an environment volunteer. Peru 14 is in town doing one of there in service trainings. She and the other Peru 14 volunteers were really awesome and they definitely looked like environment volunteers who have been in site for almost a year. Ha ha.

Life’s going pretty well. No sickness and I’m still loving my situation. We’re preparing to start short term youth groups which is kind of crazy. Should be fun and a good learning experience though. I’m also currently in a fight with our shower which means my showering has become fairly irregular. While I’m lucky to have a “hot water” It never seems to end up working out. It’s extremely temperamental and you really cant turn it on past a trickle or you overwhelm the system and you get freezing water. Oh and the thing will shock you when you turn the knob. I got in today and managed to get the water to be really hot but then tempted fate by trying to turn it past trickle. I ended up getting shocked and had freezing water so I said screw it and threw in the towel for today. Oh well one of the those enviro volunteers I met showers in a river so I probably shouldn’t complain. Could be me in 9 weeks! As you can see i have seen 3 llamas! I saw one llama in the park by my house (not sure what was going on there) and then 2 in someones front yard in Chaclacayo.  The first of many im sure!

Were off to Lima this weekend!  I cant believe i didnt bring my Argetina soccer jersey. Biggest packing mistake thus far.

Peace Out Amigos

Kim