Cloud 9

I will now be including my 24th birthday on my list of favorite birthdays. Yesterday was absolutely amazing and I couldn't have asked for anything better.

I'll start the story with the eve of my birthday when a fellow Lambayeque volunteer, poured me a glass a wine (which she neglected to remember a cork screw so we spent a good half hour or so trying to open it with a knife) and asked me two questions ..First...'What was your favorite memory of being 23 years old?' After a long pause, she said 'You can have more than one.' This made the question easier to answer because when I think over the time since my last birthday it is split into two parts...the time before I left Peace Corps and the life I've led since being in Peru. They are completely separate...4 months of being 23 in the United States while the last 7, almost 8 months have been here in Peru. Since January 26th, 2012 I have had many swell memories, a few stick out.
1) My going away party in Cedar Falls. While I was a sloppapotamus at the end I have fond memories  of that night.... hugs, kisses, bloody marys, beer garden flip cup, and dear dear friends.
2) Peru 16 despidida in Lambayeque. So much fun! Rocking the flash mob gangnam style and yummy pizza!
3) mudbaths! I really don't think that needs explaining.

The second question was, 'What are you most looking forward to for being 24?'
Answers:
1) creating health promoters in Pimentel. I feel that I will have been successful as a volunteer (and as a 24 year old woman) if I can improve the self esteem of a group of teens who then can educate their peers about their sexual health.
2) traveling to the Peruvian jungle. I need to get to the Amazonas before January 26th, 2014.

The rest of my birthday eve was spent drinking wine and chatting about life.

Yesterday morning, I woke up excited. I was expecting it to be a good day: I had invited the Lambayeque volunteers to come visit my host family house for tacos, planned beach time, visit another volunteer event, and had proposed we go dancing at the end of the night.

My day started with my host mother stopping me on my way to the bathroom telling me that she wanted to give me an abrazo fuerte; she exclaimed that even though I was far away from my real mother that she wanted to wish me a happy birthday because she considered herself my mother and I her hija. This woman has a beautiful soul and I'm so lucky to be living with her.

To continue the day I made my way to the market to buy ingredients for tacos...I anticipated to feed between 15-20 people so I loaded my market bag with avocados, tomatoes, onions, cilantro, etc. I spent about 50 soles for all the ingredients I needed minus the rice that was provided by my host family. That is less than 20 US dollars!!! This would be impossible to do in the states, even though I've been in Peru for almost 8 months it still blows my mind how cheap fruits and veggies are here. I returned from the market and my wonderful friend Betty and I started work on making the tacos. Here is when I start to ascend to cloud 9 and  I really haven't come down since then. I was so happy to be preparing food...not just any food either, TACOS-which come my favorite category of food. Betty, Erin, Amanda and I sliced, peeled, chopped, shredded, boiled, stirred, seasoned and I was in heaven.

here is Betty slaving away

I absolutely love preparing food, it pleases me to bite into something yummy and know that I helped create those flavors and at the same time I get to please the taste buds of others. I do have to admit there were moments when I felt a little overwhelmed because guests starting to arrive at the house and I'd have to pause what I was doing to hug, kiss, greet friends and family. We had planned to eat around 1...we started about 2ish probably closer to 2:30, lawd help me, I've started following hora peruana. Finally, I was able to eat and drink some much loved Inka Kola and was able to relax a bit while everyone enjoyed the tacos.

I didn't get to sit down for too long before my host family called me to the back of the house where they were all sitting and we took pictures...

apparently my family was fascinated by Casey because they wanted a picture with just him...probably the tattoos 

Shortly after, we all gathered in the kitchen to do a toast with a copa de vino. Next thing I know I am face to face with two delicious chocolate cakes that say "Feliz Cumpleaños Ali" ...so there I am, thousands of miles from my parents and close friends but at the same time I am surrounded by family and close friends. I can feel the tears well up in my eyes as I'm looking at the two beautiful cakes, at least 15 members of my host family, 10+ volunteers all there to celebrate my birthday...the birthday plans had barely begun and I was already having one of the best birthdays of my life and had nothing to do with getting presents or chocolate cake. I was with people who cared about me and who went out of their way to make this day special. As a PC volunteer it's easy to get caught up in judging your service by the work you do... but personally for me, the best part of my service so far has just having the privilege to be a part of my host family. I probably could have bawled my eyes right at that moment but I just took a deep breath, wiped the tears away and thanked everyone for being there. 

cloud 9

wiping away my tears of utter joy

It is tradition to push the birthday person's face into the cake...I'm glad I've been here long enough to know so I was expecting it

Next we made our way to the beach. Let me tell you how excited I was to going to the beach on my birthday...there have been times when Iowa's freaky weather would grant me with a warm day and no snow, but I can safely say that it was never more than 70 degrees outside and that I had never swam in the ocean on my birthday. After gracing the sea with my presence for a bit, I sat on the beach with my friends, played a little volley, and drank some beer. 

Hallie, one of the business volunteers in Lambayeque had invited us all to the grand opening of a business she helped open in Reque last night.  A woman in her site had dreamed of opening a cafe... she ended up winning a regional competition and finally a national competition to receive funds to begin the business. It was inspiring to be there...you hear so many stories of volunteers trying to get projects started that don't work out, we also tend to bitch and complain about our frustrations when we are together so it was so beautiful to see a success story in person. They provided entertainment (dancers from another volunteer's site) and free samples of yummy treats.

Grand opening of Cafeteria Dulce

Finally we went back to Chiclayo...Thankfully one of the volunteers had made delicious hummus so I had something other than pringles and a hershey's cookie and cream bar for my birthday dinner....Around midnight we took a taxi to the discoteca and danced the night away. I had such a great time, didn't sit down at all...well, except to pee.

Thank you everyone for your birthday wishes and to all those who celebrated with me yesterday. I love you all so much. First Peruvian Birthday- NAILED IT!

this was from last week, doing a vuelta around the plaza with my host nieces who are more like sisters

SQUIDWARD!

isn't she adorable!

Being Mary

The day after Christmas I was happily cleaning up the kitchen after making frosted sugar cookies for the family (which just so you know it’s ½ cup of butter to ½ kilo of powdered sugar not ½ kilo of butter-needless to say that was very buttery frosting) and  I got called into the front room by my host family; they told me that they had something important to talk to me about- I braced myself when my host brother turns to me and says, “We want you to Virgin Maria and your friend Sam to be San Jose for the Bajada de Reyes celebration.” I proceeded to burst out laughing and in my head thought “no way, no way, no way” but out loud I told them I would think about and talk to my friend Sam. At this point the only knowledge I had of the’ Bajada de Reyes’ was from a home video that my host niece had showed me previously that included a parade, some sort of competition, fireworks, dancing and of course baby Jesus.  So I called Sam and I say,” my family wants you to be the San Jose to my Virgin Mary.” I pause thinking he’ll have the same ‘no way’ reaction as I did but he was stoked on it and so ultimately I became stoked as well. Later I found out that on January 6^th they believe that is when the Three Kings went down to see baby Jesus and while it isn’t widely celebrated in all of Peru it is celebrated very much so in my family. I felt as if there was more celebrating on January 6^th than on December 25^th.

Here is how the day proceeded: Sam arrived at my house earlier in the day so we could rehearse our “scene”. Then we ate lunch and hung out for a while. We then put on our awesome costumes and began to parade around the streets. I was handed an actual baby and after cradling the baby Jesus in my arms for about 6 blocks (the whole time terrified that I may drop the baby- you all know how clumsy I am) my arms started to shake so I handed him back to the mother. Side note: When I first got to Peru and had seen a few parades and never saw any candy being passed out I thought what’s the point?! But in this  parade- people in the streets handed me candy! Who knew you had to be in the parade to get the candy? Any who so after parading the streets for a couple hours we rested while the other groups went for the competition. There were 5 groups in total and we ended up with 2^nd place!  We were only 1 point away from first place- but it felt so great to be a part of it all. After the competition Sam and I became instant celebrities. People were crowding around us wanting to take pictures. Before this day Jan 6^th, 2013 I could count on one hand how many babies I had held- on this day I lost count. So many parents just handed me there babies and took our picture it was if I was the actual Virgin Mary. It was pretty fun to tell you the truth-except some of the babies were soiled- not so pleasant. We walked back to my house in our 2^nd place glory and changed into normal clothes (this was protested by some) ate dinner, drank beer and danced and danced and danced. It was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits.

Since then I have started my summer projects. I am doing 4 classes. On Mondays and Wednesdays I am doing fun activities for improving critical thinking like scattegories, pictionary, checkers etc. The turn out for this class hasn't been great so far so I may change it to something else. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have a sports club where we just play volleyball and soccer, pretty laid back and fun. On Fridays I have a environment/art club and a culture club.  Last week was my first week so I'll keep ya'll posted on how the rest of the summer turns out. Love you all! Thanks for reading!!!!

here we begin the parade

part of the parade is boys dressed up as girls in masks.. 

the kings

the dancers...which was what I was going to do originally before I got asked to be Mary

castillo- a firework contraption that is so awesome but I am certain it is dangerous