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:
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| here we are in the hostel post filming our awesome dance moves |
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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 4th
of July.
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| This is called a castillo, it shoots of fireworks |
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| 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!
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| Betty did my nails, aren't they pretty??? |
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| homemade pineapple salsa, cost me less than $1.00 be jealous |
if it makes you feel better, when i find hair in my food when i go out to eat i just take it out and keep on eating lol. hair, ants...it's all good! :)
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