Halloween Weekend

Halloween weekend was a blast down here in Peru - and in retrospect, a great mix of cultures. Interestingly, in order to combat the external cultural influence of Halloween, the government here made October 31st Day of the Cancion Criolla. It didn´t stop us - and many businesses, nightclubs, and little kids - from having a little spooky fun though.

To start, despite high expectations from last year´s successful Haunted House (the students have been asking about it all year round), we pulled off a great one this year. We raised money for the upcoming Mes de Mision by turning our house into a dark, spiderweb-filled, scary graveyard (thanks partly to a neighbor who set up some dark lights and strobe lights that he usually rents out for parties). I took on the role of a dead person who the crazy scientist (Mo) was operating on. My guts spilling out were made of red food dye, oatmeal and spaggeti - and after the three hours of kids coming through and having this goop just sitting on my stomach, I was very much ready for a nice shower. Nate was a gravedigger, Cara a mummy, and Seamus some sort of goblin-like character that everyone joked looked like a tomato. The kids were very scared and enjoyed their little american candies we gave them at the end (some came through many times just to get more).

Sunday itself was more tranquilo as we went to the Dia Familiar for Cristo Rey (basically the big school celebration). There was good food, some good dances (the best were definitely the traditional ones, instead of the moderny Hip Hop types), good company (we went with Martin, Edith, Carmen Rosa and ran into many friends there), and good relaxation.

Monday - and All Saints´Day - was another impactful cultural experience for me. I went to accompany Martin and Edith to the cementary to visit Jason´s grave. Usually, it has been a very peaceful trip for me personally, but on Monday, the cementary had almost a party feel to it as many people (especially those from the highlands) were visiting and celebrating the life of those in their family who have passed on. Many of these groups (some of which had upwards of twenty people) were putting flowers, manna (a sweet kind of popped corn), a special kind of ¨dead¨ bread, and other trinkets on the grave while drinking and chatting around it. I think it sort of disturbed Martin and Edith because for them it interrupted the tranquility and sacredness of the cementary, but I at least enjoyed seeing what it was like and being able to be there with them.

Now, in less than one week we have the seven new volunteers descending on Tacna (a little gringo invasion) and life is planning and preparing for that. It will be another great time and really make this next month and a half fly by as I say goodbye to Tacna and its wonderful people.

Peruvian Cultural Fun

While admist an impressive stretch of birthdays (Saturday was that of a 10-year-old student of mine from last year, Yessenia, who has an incredible and welcoming family; Sunday the lunch for our school psychologist, whose actual birthday is today; and yesterday we celebrated with an ex-JV volunteer who has been down here for awhile with her husband, J. P., who was a Peruvian volunteer a few years ago) a fun Peruvian cultural experience surprised me yesterday.

When I arrived at school, the fourth grade teacher came looking for me and began to ask me about my schedule. Uh, oh, I thought, she was going to ask me to take over her class today. I don´t mind helping out a collegue at all, but this particular class can be a bit movido (all over the place), especially when their regular teacher is out or their schedule is thrown for a loop. Any anxiety, however, was for naught, as she asked me if I wanted to be the judge for a contest.

I jumped at the opportunity - I love interacting and being involved with my students in non-teaching (or rather, non-class hour) activities. This particular contest turned out to be better than I could imagine as the teacher had done a contest with the class for Day of the Potato, which had come and gone this past Saturday with little fanfare in my life (too many birthdays, I guess).

When I arrived for the event just before lunch, I was stunned to see that each student (32 in total) had prepared a dish made in some way with potatoes. The culinary variety (almost assuredly prepared by the parents in probably 95% of the cases - one or two unintentionally funny students even mistakeningly said something along the lines of ¨my mother fried the potatoes¨ when we asked how they prepared it) included different types of pastel de papa http://imagenes.mailxmail.com/cursos/imagenes/5/3/pastel-de-carne-y-papas_24935_1_1.jpg, papa rellena http://peru-recipes.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/papa-rellena-stuffed-potato.jpg, causa https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqlnnJU4NMbw-fLQTu4qOJlxhNn3lea96vRaj0M2jvG2BtUeISpbPFIOP4-vXy94i7AgmoBnq4eX3_1LQ-7jLoS4iNAy-GX0X9R8wvMiGuU5wwWXg4hzXPxuIuHexxKZlTf1vkgy4g3Inf/s400/causa-peruvian-cuisine-01.jpg, and many more.

As the judge, I listened first to a short explanation of why the potato rocks as the nutritional base for any meal (so many varieties and so many vitamins!). Then I had to judge each student in three categories: presentation, exposition and flavor. I sampled each and every plate. Oh, to be a food critic! Though in all honest, I don´t have the palate for it and yesterday I think I gave almost everyone at least a 5 out of 7 in flavor because I was too happy and enjoying myself.

The two joint winners turned out to be the first and last dishes, which were a papa rellena prepared with much detail by the daughter of the school cook (hmmmmmm, surprise surprise) and a pastel de papa that went along with its rocotto relleno (which is one of my infrequently eaten, but favorite dishes down here....). Also, as more than half of life down here focuses on food (those Peruvians love their food and are quite proud of it as I have noted before), I of course went from judging this contest straight to lunch.

More Dancing Pictures

After getting involved with this dance group, we have now found ourselves ministars and have been invited (the group has been invited, I mean) to dance every weekend in this month. The nice plus side? Lot´s of good pictures and unforgettable memories. This past Saturday, we danced at a concert. So although people were not paying to see us, we preformed at a pay-to-enter event. Maybe the first time I have done that in my life.....

Even though it was at night and we are entering winter, Seamus and I were sweating like crazy.

We got to lead the way for our group and clear a path through the drunk concert goers, while stepping over bottles of beer on the ground. And even though we were not always coordinated, I think we did a darn good job.

This photo is from May 3rd, and the quality is low, but its the best shot of us dancing and in our full get-up.

ONE YEAR - WOOHOOO

Well, yesterday passed my one year anniversary of stepping off an airplane in the early morning sun of a quiet, humble, patriotic and southern Peru city of Tacna. Actually, I did not feel anything particularly special yesterday. If anything I was definitely having one of those days in which I was yearning a bit for home and the organization and structure of schools (in general) in the states.

I did, however, give myself a little one year present and I went to get my teeth cleaned. The dentist also told me I have three little cavities! I have never had any before in my life, and I most certainly blame eating habits down here. Well, if I were to be honest with myself, obviously it is partly my fault, but the do love their sweets down here and you really cannot say no to anything offered to you. For one thing, it is a bit offensive to refuse whenever anything is offered to you. Also, if you turn down any sweet or food, people automatically assume you are on a diet or are worried about getting fat and will not stop talking about it. But, I must admit, that is a pretty endearing part of the culture down here.

I just wanted to update everyone that it has been one year and that I am still alive and well. The most exciting thing to happen lately was a trip I took with the youth group to do some volunteer work at a retirement home run by some nuns. I really enjoyed talking and interacting with the elderly and I think they appreciated the energy the kids brought, even if the kids were pretty much having a dance party since they had not planned out well what they were going to do to entertain the adults.

Wild Weekend of Tacna Day

Last Friday marked 80 years of Tacna rejoining the republic of Peru after a little interlude (of about fifty years) as part of Chile. It ended up being a pretty wild weekend because of this, and it almost felt like a minivacation because we stopped with classes at 11 am on Thursday (and everyday I teach from 11 to the end of the day so I missed a lot of class) in order to have a little celebration in the school. Here is a little day-by-day breakdown, with photos to come if I can figure out how to get around the password protection they have put up on these computers.
Thursday: The ceremony at school was definitely a little interesting bit of the whole weekend. The kids mached in with the flag, but dressed up as citizens of the city from 1929. People threw the typical Tacna flower, the bugambilla, and we all sang the national anthem (which I have memorized by now and I am quite proud of). The secondary students read some poetry from famous poets of the city and danced a polka (I have no idea how this became a typical dance of here, but I found it quite funny and enjoyed the way the boys got to just basically rock back and forth while holding their suit jackets). Afterwards, we shared some picante - a typical Tacneno dish that has cow´s stomach in it. Apparently it comes from the time of the Chilean occupation when the Chileans would take all the good cow´s meat for themselves and give the local people the stomach to eat, and so they cooked it with a ton of peppers and a thick sauce to make it less disgusting. Now it is the dish of local pride - funny how that works, no?
Other highlights of the day were a three to four hour school meeting where each person individually talked about their thoughts of how the school has been since the fire (the director made his monthly trip down from Lima and it was the first time he was around since the fire), and going out at night to celebrate a friend´s birthday. The band played 80s rock and randomly at like 1245 a military procession passed by outside on the main street.
Friday: Big old parade that was proceeded by lots of different organizations making these ¨carpets¨ along the parade root. Using different colored sawdust and flowers, they basically made these elaborate designs on the ground (I will put up pictures when I can), and until the big giant flag processed down, no one could step on them (so the first few groups had to crowd the sidewalks and step carefully as they paraded down to the main plaza). The highlight of the parade was a huge flag, followed by all the local politicians - and actually as it stopped for a second by us, Cara´s host family (I was watching it with them) rushed out onto the street
to serve a toast (or brindis as it is called here) to the main characters. Then there were a number of bands and many different groups from all the municipalities. And if one group was parading down without marching, the crowd would literally boo them and get angry (which I found quite humorous).
Also, I saw across the street a friend who had hosted us for lunch last weekend (and used to be in the military and is an older guy with tons and tons of Tacna pride. In fact, the week before at his luncheon, he shot his gun off into the air after singing the Tacna anthem and yelling Viva Tacna), and he shouted ¨Que viva las mujeres tacnenas¨(¨Long live the Tacnena Women¨). He then, using only improvised sin language, motioned to me that I needed to marry a woman from Tacna. He was quite forceful about it and everytime we made eye contact across the parade, he would do it again. He might have been a touch drunk and after seeing him with the gun last week, I figured it was better to just keep rolling with the joke and appease him.
Finally, the parade ended with all the military marching, from the military schools (not so intimidating) to the cavalary (not intimidating to me, but some people definitely backed away from the parade when the horse´s came down) to the commandos all painted up and armed to the teeth (very intimidating to me). I went with Nate and my host family to have lunch and we had some good picante and some delicious arroz con pollo (chicken with rice, but its a green rice that is super delicious).
Ok, so I will finish up the rest of the weekend later since I probably should get off to school now.

Elaboration

To elaborate a bit and to fulfill two of my promises, I figured I would take advantage of a lazy Sunday after my youth group (we talked about upcoming encuentro juvenil activities and the order of the liturgy - and things went smoothly, which was nice after the group split in two because of my other two co-leaders not being able to work together).

So first of all, the Fiestas de las Cruces in which my community mates did the whole dress-up-and-dance-with-a-group (see picture) thing was an incedible experience. On a side note, incredible is a word I catch myself using a lot here (increible). Anyhoo, it basically involved them dancing for long stretches of time (but the morenada dance is a very easy and not so tiring dance), all of us recieving food and bastante beer (at one point, a truck pulled up an unloaded fifty cases of beer that someone was giving as a gift to the padrino of the party. What I really enjoyed the most was the spirit of camaraderie and sharing that penetrated everything. People just had fun, talked for long hours, danced, watched others danced, listened to the band and just generally enjoyed life. The darker side I guess would be that drinking within this context is not just to enhance the enjoyment or to be social - for many, it is to get to the point where they are no longer in control of themselves. This leads to such problems as drunk driving - I, for example, tried to stop a random guy I saw getting on his motorcycle and tipping back and forth as he tried to drive away. I failed in preventing him from driving off drunk, though my friends said they saw him the next day (so at least he survived).

On a little bit less of a mixed note, Chile was a great trip and I loved getting a new stamp on my passport (it helps my little jokes that I am making my way south down the continent - the first country in SA that I ever visited was Colombia, then Ecuador, now Peru and Chile). Arica is right on the beach and has the aura of a beach town. The houses are all low and many are brightly colored (in some ways, it reminded me of Florida in this sense). It has its huge supermarket - and I later found out that the chain is in fact owned by Walmart since this past January. It has a nice strip right in the middle that is closed off the cars and ends in a McDonalds and Blockbuster (oh my god!). I shared the experience with Nate and my host family, and we probably walked over five miles all told in the day (wowy). But it did finish with a stop in an artesanal ice cream shop where we had some sick dessert and cracked open a bottle of beer - which was a great relaxing way to end the day.

On a last, completely random note, this song has made many many many appearances in my life here recently. I´ll leave it to you to figure out: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1328k_boy-george-karma-chameleon_music

Weddings, Mother´s Day, Grupo Femenino Bolivia = Fun

You will all probably be glad to know that while I have been very busy lately, it has not simply been a work fest (although the wide variety of English classes I have been teaching definitely keeps me constantly thinking and planning the next one. I actually find that the way I am able to handle the load - I mean, essentially I teach 9 different levels/situations - is to use similar concepts, ideas, and even at times worksheets, but to tailor them to the specific level I am teaching. I feel like this works very well and I am slowly becoming an expert on teaching certain topics that keep arising, such as commands in English). This past weekend, I definitely got to have a lot of fun and take advantage of the windows into Peruvian (and other) culture that life down here affords.

First Thursday. At night we went to a concert for this Bolivian folk/rock group that is composed of all women and was in town to celebrate Mother´s Day. It was actually a real blast and was held in the old Municipal Theater in downtown Tacna. The concert left such an impression on me just because it was such good music, it was definitely a cultural experience (hell, the singers even chose to drink the Peruvian Inka Cola over water when they needed a hydration break), and just some great moments, laughs and songs to share with my community. If you are interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n1fRj2lUvQ

Saturday night we went to a Peruvian wedding, even though I personally did not know anyone from the two couples who were getting married (a brother and sister were both getting married, so they held it jointly). It went all night long - though we left at 3 am. The dinner was served at 2 am and the progression of alcohol was from a chapagne toast to pitchers of this fruity mixed drink, to pitchers of Pisco sours, to pitchers of wine, and apparently later there would be tons of Whiskey (oh boy). But what I really enjoyed was just all the fun dancing and good spirits - though Peruvians really are sticklers for the dancing only in two lines.

The rest of the weekend was mostly Mother´s Day celebration stuff - which definitely made me miss home and my own mother in New York a lot. Down here it is quite the big deal and is celebrated in schools and in workplaces on Friday and Saturday as well. I also remember the International Day of the Woman being a much bigger deal down here and I wonder if because it is such a macho society in today´s modern world that these ¨holidays¨ which would offer some recognition to all that women do do in this culture have become days of great importance. Or maybe they just love their mamas (not mamacitas - though it was fun to make that joke all of yesterday).