Holy Week

This week has been a real whirlwind affair and even though yesterday and today are feriados (holidays here), it certainly does not feel like it.

I will begin with last weekend, when I found myself sleeping in the Miguel Pro science lab in order to wake up at 3 am and walk with the entire school above fourth grade on a five hour hike/Stations of the Cross. It was actually a great experience as I was able to know some more of the kids, spend some time hanging out with Martin (who is the father of a student and just generally an awesome, McGwiver - spelling? - like figure who knows a ton about different crops, Peruvian politics, how to fish with nothing but some string, etc.), and witness a great view of our part of Tacna from the top of a big sand dune that we climbed at the end of the walk. I promise I will put pictures up since it was so neat. After we did the second to last station at the bottom of the hill, the woman running the show just told the kids to basically go wild and run up the sand dune. It created a massive, chaotic, and very cool free-for-all as some ran, some walked, many complained, and all made it up to the top, where we did the last station.

Today I have a big Stations of the Cross walk in the community where my school is. Basically the youth group that I co-lead was put in charge of doing this and each little neighborhood community takes charge of one station and we walk from one to the other and at each station our group is doing a little acting out of the scene. It should be a very unique and community-building experience, though it does mean three hours of walking out in the sun and dust of Viñani. Don´t worry though, I will put on massive amounts of sun block and will wear a hat.

We actually did a similar - though much shorter - Stations of the Cross at school on Wednesday. In typical Peruvian fashion, it was bizzarely organized (each class did a station, but they only came out to do their station and then when it was lunch time and we were still going, all the little kids were released anyway and so you had little tykes running up to Jesus as he was on the cross or playing tag through the entire procession that we teachers were trying to keep somber and focused). I did not find the whole experience so religious, but it was nonetheless fascinating for all its little cultural and community aspects.

Also, of big note down here has been Fujimori´s conviction recently, which I will go into further detail at some point since it is fascinating, but is a little too much for right now. So, I will just leave you now with this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/americas/08fujimori.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=peru%20fujimori&st=cse