Noche de Paz

So I haven´t posted since before Christmas and would just like to start by saying Feliz Navidad y Prospero Ano to all of those out there who are still reading over a month and a half into this adventure.

Also, as a forewarning, I will be on hiatus from January 4th till the 31st, but not because I am giving up on my blog, but because I will be out of contact on Mes de Mision. So please come back and read in the beginning of February - I promise whatever thoughts will come out of it will be exciting.

So Christmas - wow. Everyone here stays up until midnight, and on the radio they play this grand countdown (which always used to be live, but then apparently they got worried about the age of the announcer and it is taped now - remind anyone of Dick Clark...). Then, everyone is together in one room (can range from immediate family to 30-40 people) and when the clock strikes 12 and the countdown ends, everybody hugs, there is a champagne toast and then the whole city - and I mean the whole city - goes outside to light fireworks. From the roof of where I was, we could see the whole city and for like fifteen minutes it is just a grand display of everything from bigger booms to the little firecrackers. I thought it was pretty amazing - though I have heard that in some places in the US it is celebrated similarly. Then, everyone has the big meal afterward and people spend most of the day of the 25th itself resting.

Other interesting traditions include having manger scenes that are chaotic as possible (with as much Christmas junk and snazzy, but real tacky lights - that blink in bizarre ways and play really crappy versions of Christmas carols), using a real baby and real involved costumes in the presentations of the first Christmas, and sharing a chocolatada many many times (a chocolatada is basically making hot chocolate - usually super greasy - and eating paneton - which is basically fruitcake, but more doughy. It might sound delicious and it can be, but also remember that it is the middle of the desert here....

Two other events to note:
- They finished building the roof to new classrooms at my school and in celebration cooked some local fare - picante al la taquena - for the workers. This overlapped with the Christmas dinner amongst the teachers that was shared. I have to be honest - I was a little disappointed with it as a party as it started super late (and so I and many other teachers couldn´t stay late because it is hard to get back to the center from there) and was divided into like three groups: the workers who were in a circle drinking beer, some of the teachers - all males ones and almost all of the male ones who were there - standing around in a circle and drinking, and then the rest of the teachers - mostly female - inside eating and drinking a bit. Food wasn´t particularly good and people were not really dancing, which I was hoping for (I have come to really really enjoy dancing). The most exciting part of the night was when I hung out with the workers for a bit and made fun of my gringo self and just generally bonded with them. The school doorman, who was drinking with them, also was still drunk at 9 am the next morning when school started and then still drunk or maybe redrunk at 3 pm when he passed by my house to introduce me to his son (who was thoroughly embarassed). That whole experience definitely reminded of some of the cultural norms (if that´s the right word for it - I don´t know, I feel like I am losing my english sometimes, haha) of Latin American cultural.

- I went yesterday to check out the petroglyphs that are nearby Tacna in a town called Miculla. They are pretty cool and really old, and according to my host mom, are part of a magnetic center that attracts extraterrestials or something like that. At the least, wack job groups who believe in that stuff make pilgrimages there from time to time. I had one of my lowest moments yet though when my host mom took off down the road without me when I was exploring the rocks. I felt really abandoned and upset as I saw her practically running down the road (and everytime she turned around and I tried to wave her to stop and wait, she ran faster). I got angrier and angrier (also, I was pretty hungry by that point) and was annoyed at myself for acting a little childish instead of just running to catch up and play the whole thing as the joke I knew she meant it to be. When we finally reached the road where the buses passed about a half hour later, she told me it was all just to get us to lunch faster. A good lunch of choclo and grilled lamb, accompanied by a malta beer, definitely did the trick for making me feel better.

Lastly, there are MORE pictures up on my facebook, so check them out!