This Peruvian Life: November 2012

This will be a short post (well short compared to my other posts) and when I have more time I'll write an update and what I've been up to but just for now I wanted to give a virtual shout out to everyone and everything I'm thankful for.

-I'm thankful I haven't pooped my pants yet
-I'm thankful that I haven't been robbed
-I'm thankful I haven't been in a horrible transportation accident (I'm pretty terrified I am risking my life every time I get on public transportation here)
-I'm thankful that I'm going to see Lady Gaga in concert tomorrow woot woot!

Ok on a sappier note:
In case it isn't obvious I am very thankful for being here in Peru as a Peace Corps volunteer, I can't believe I've made this far I am so proud of myself and so thankful for all things,good and bad, that have happened in my life to bring me to this place that I now think of as my home. I am so thankful for my all my families: in Pimentel, my Lima family during training, and my states family. Without their openness, love, and caring this wouldn't feel like home; and of course thankful for my states family especially my mother she is an amazing woman and I feel so lucky to have been raised by her and for raising my brother Bryan who is a great father and so glad I get to skype with my nieces and nephew every once in a while. I am thankful for my friends back home who are continuing to keep in touch and am even thankful for the ones who I don't stay in touch with as often because life is a crazy long rollercoaster ride and at some point we were on it side by side enjoying the hell out of it and hopefully now they are side by side enjoying it with others. I am thankful for my Lambayeque volunteer family, I can't imagine living in any other department you are all awesome and we are probably the best department just saying but I'm jealous of other departments who have my best girls Brittany and Morgan who should probably just move to Lambayeque ;P just kitten
I am thankful for everyone in my life who got me to this point, I am even thankful for the people who didn't think I could do it because I am a stronger person now and can recognize that I don't need people like that in my life.
I'm a lucky gal, I hope you guys all have a wonderful thanksgivng love you mucho!!!!!

Disclaimer: There is no cohesiveness to this entry, I’ve just had a word document open while my pictures are uploading and when I remember something I stuff it in here.

October FLEW by. I can’t believe it is November already and that I have been in Peru for 5 months!

There were a couple times I got reallllly homesick this last month: UNI’s homecoming and Halloween; however I ended up having really fun experiences here that helped me miss them less. On UNI’s homecoming weekend, I went into it really bummed out; I saw everyone’s facebook updates about being in CF and I felt pretty low but then on that Saturday we had going away festivities for Peru 16 and I had a fucking blast!!!! We learned the ganam style dance on the rooftop of the PC hostel and then we went out into the Chiclayo (our department’s capitol city) and performed the dance in the plaza, on the street, in a restaurant, it was pretty great. I still can’t dance but I was having so much fun I wasn't embarrassed at all! You can view these performances here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTuCX3CetVI

here we are in the hostel post filming our awesome dance moves

On Halloween I wanted to host a “Celebración de Halloween” and play games like bobbing for apples, mummy wrap, pin the nose on the Jack-O-lantern, make some masks, and the best part: show Hocus Pocus (in Spanish) in the main plaza in Pimentel. Unfortunately in Peru things don’t always work out the way you want them too so I had a small group of students from one school (out of all the students from about 10 schools in the community) and they showed up late (of course) and the teachers couldn’t stay late enough for us to watch the movie so the games went pretty well but I was pretty bummed about not being able to show Hocus Pocus, oh well hopefully next year!!!! But that wasn’t what made Halloween awesome, I actually went to visit another volunteer’s site and some of the volunteers came too and we had a BLAST. We danced, drank some beers, and then in the morning we went to Chongoyape which is a B-E-A-UUUtiful part of Lambayeque; I saw a monkey!!!! I got to hold its leash and it tried drinking out of my water bottle, I wish I had my camera on me but another volunteer snapped this:

Seriously, if you know me at all, you know that is like a dream come true! Can’t wait to go to Iquitos-Monkey Island, it’ll be magical.

Still running!!! I had to stop for about a week because I was sickly but I’m feeling better so I’m starting up again and it feels so great!!! I’ve also added some ab work outs and yoga so I’m hoping to look hot for Mancora come New Year’s!!!!

One reason why October went by so fast was because it was Pimentel’s anniversary and in Peru, town anniversaries are a BIG DEAL. It’s like a two week celebration, they didn’t completely stop working for the whole two weeks but they had a lot of activities going on during those two weeks so it was hard to get work done at the municipality which I think is partly why my Halloween plans weren’t very successful because the anniversary festivities had just ended. Anyways here are some pictures from Pimentel’s serenata; it was pretty fun Marisol was there and apparently they are a big deal in Peru. I was also pretty stoked to see fireworks since I missed out on them for 4^th of July.

This is called a castillo, it shoots of fireworks

this is a dance that represents the Legend of Naylamp, don't ask me what the Legend was I have no idea but the dance was cool

OK I have two stories about how small this world is. First one, in transit to visit another volunteer I met a little girl from Iowa!!! She spent the first 8 years of her life in Oskalooska and her family is Peruvian and recently moved back to Chiclayo. Craziness. Second one, a few weeks ago Sam (volunteer in the community next to mine) and I were in my super market and this girl calls out his name and they start talking and she is from his hometown of San Antonio but they haven’t seen each other for like 7 years because she went away to study in Spain and is now living in Pimentel with her husband teaching in Chiclayo!!!! Mind blown.

I’ve started reading Harry Potter in Spanish, I’m only one chapter in but I LOVE it!!!! There are so many words I don’t recognize but I am able to decipher what they mean because I know the book so well. I got all 7 in Spanish and English downloaded on my Kindle so if I’m really stumped in the Spanish version I can do a quick check for meaning in my English version! Yay. Weird translation side note: “He-Who-Must-Not be-Named” becomes “Quien usted sabe” in Spanish which directly translated means “You know who”.

Election day is almost here, I hope you guys are getting out there and voting!!! I’m pretty bummed I didn’t get my absentee ballot back in time L Hopefully Obama will get another 4 years!

When I eat food it is not uncommon for me to find that my food still has a face, skin, bones, and yes hair. By face, skin, and bones I’m referring to being served an entire fish- head, scales, and its insides; I can’t bring myself to eat the head or skin but I the meat on the bones is YUMMY! By hair I don’t necessarily mean that there is human hair found in my food (that does happen) but I’m more referring to when I get a piece of meat with animal hair still on it *shudder* I just took my spoon (Peruvians eat with spoons not forks, I’m the only one who uses the one and only fork in my house) and ate around the hairy parts. Also when I eat food I’ve come across an ant or two, you know what I do then? I shrug/sigh and pick the little guy out of my food and keep eating. Can you imagine? Life has a changed.

Thanksgiving is coming up and there is sooo much to be thankful for this year! I will probably make an entire blog post about everything I’m thankful for next!!! Keep it weird guys, love you!