This.. is for two weeks ago or something? I can't keep up xD

Going Backwards (yet again im 2 weeks behind in catch up mode)

Monday the ..20th.. i hope

                Okay. So it was probably my body’s way of saying that Saturday night I didn’t get enough sleep, but yesterday after we got home from el centro, I went to bed at 6pm (planning to take a NAP) and then woke up today at 7:30, late for my last day of colegio. I was soooo confused! I woke up at 7:30 and thought woohoo I only slept an hour and yet feel so refreshed! But then I started to wonder why it was soooo sunny. And then I couldn’t believe that I’d slept over 13 hours without waking up to my alarms. And then I was freaking out because I hadn’t brushed my teeth last night. And then I raced to school in a moto, still confused and half asleep. Last day ever at I.E.P. Sr de la Vida, Chimbote, Peru. Everyone was in full uniform for class photos and then we spent the majority of the day signing eachothers’ polos and gettin all teary. Now it’s time for summer vacay! Beach time. It’s hot out. But none of them want to go to the beach until after our promocion ceremony because they’ll be all black hahaha and I suppose I’d be a lobster. But AFS wants to have our gringo xmas joke gifts reunion tomorrow at the beach! If I’m allowed that is.. :S

Sunday

                Yesterday, after going to sleep around 6 and waking up at 9, Nancy, Gabo, Soledad, Jhoselyn and I met up (1h20m late as usual) with Louise and Clemens in la Plaza de Armas to take them with us to give out tickets for la chocolatada in... los Ceros? Not sure how to spell it. The neighbourhood above Sra Vicky’s house, same as last time. It was so heartwarming to see how happy everyone was when we came by with their names on tickets, for each one of them, guaranteeing each one a present, piece of paneton, and cup of hot chocolate, this Wednesday. J All the kids ran out of their “houses” and huddled around us smiling and running around. It felt like we were doing something amazing. I got some good photos I think that really capture this part of Peru. Or part of it, because after what happened we all put the cameras away. Clemens, Louise and I had our backs turned and were walking the other direction, when we heard shouts from behind. We turned to see a young man trying to grab Nancy’s videocamera from her hand and they ended up on the ground in the sand. Sra Vicky’s older daughter Lady and a bunch of other people quickly crowded around to help struggle him off of her, and luckily he ran off without it. It had been strapped to her hand but the fold out screen is now broken. I admire her strength for fighting. The rest of us (gringos) were momentarily stunned, as if in slow motion and not fully comprehending what was happening. I couldn’t believe he’d tried something like that with so many of us in a group, and how he kept fighting and wouldn’t give up! Lady says she knows him and afterwards all the kids helped find where he lived and his full name. Still hasn’t really sunk in... It makes me sad though because it shows how desperate that joven is for money. L So far we haven’t been exposed to very much of that sort of stuff.  But when Louise was in Lima, she was using her cellphone (from Belgica) in a taxi with the window open less than half way, and a man walked by and grabbed it out of her hand! And my friend Liam in Arequipa was mugged when he got into a taxi! Instead of taking him to his destination, the driver took him to another location, where he met two other men who beat my friend around a bit and stole everything he had on him. It’s so hard to believe but it’s real. And it happens to Peruvians too, that’s the thing. Don’t get in taxi’s alone... L

                After our early return to Sra Vicky’s house and a ceviche luncheon, Nancy took me down to el centro to pick up Francheska from her weekend religious retreat, where all the families were seated to receive their children. I didn’t quite understand it, but for 2 days all the children camped out in this church together without music or internet, and talked about their lives and it was this big reflection type thing. What I saw was that every kid stood up and told us what they liked about the retreat and what they wanted to say to their families based on the camp’s different themes. Almost everybody, boy or girl, was bawling when they walked forward to hug their families and tell them they loved them. It made me think of Challenge Day or something. I thought it was a little too emotional for what’s necessary, and definitely cannot picture it happening with my friends or parents in Canada, but yeah. I actually did get a bit teary just because it forced me to think about and remember my family and how far away you guys are. I really miss you. And near Christmas... it kinda sucks. I didn’t think I even liked Christmas so much, but I’ll never complain about it again. It sure doesn’t feel Christmasy here. We have a fake tree and stuff I guess. But it’s freaking boiling out! And it’s just not as big or as overdone as it is in Canada...not necessarily a bad thing. But I want to be with my family. I just know I’m going to cry this Christmas. Yay. Sometimes I still feel like a stranger here.. and yeah, still don’t have my own room. Not even worth the effort now because I’m leaving so soon. Don’t even care. Good job, thank you AFS. Yes, it will be special because it’s probably the only Christmas I’ll ever spend in Peru, but at the same time.  I dunno. L I’d prefer not to have it here.

Saturday

                Jesus why do I have to write so much! Hahahah just realized that. Again. Anyways. Saturday.. Can’t remember if I actually went to school or not actually. Oh wait- yes I did! That’s a record. I probably only made it to a total of 5 Saturdays in my time here xD. Oh wait. There wasn’t even school. Hahaha but the music professor asked me to bring my violin and then a big group of lil wee ones with musical bells and box drums and I took some combi’s (super crowded taxi van things) to el centro. There we went up on stage and played some xmas tunes for 5 channels of live Peru television in a Teleton. All the kids were super excited about it and it would’ve been cool to have had our handy pvr (which i totally forgot about cuz i don’t even watch tv anymore and haven’t since i got here) to record us! Oh well, that was cool, boiling our butts off in santa hats hahah and apparently it’s not even hot here yet, and it was 10am!! I’m seeing death by sunburn in my future.

                Then I went and bought ingrediants to make shortbread cookies for our AFS xmas reunion at 8pm. That. Was interesting. How can you even mess up shortbread cookies?! Hahaha okay first of all, Nancy wasn’t home to help Soledad and I. She definitely would have know what a “libra” of mantequilla is. I didn’t. The recipe asked for ½ libra of sweetened butter, but all we could find was normal butter. And the ladies in the store, who cook often and whom I trusted, sold me what a 1/2 libra was. Turns out, it was twice as much as necessary. That’s what I thought. So.. Soledad and I are mixing all the stuff together and it looked like it needed more butter, so we put in the full libra (THINKING IT WAS HALF, HOW THE RECIPE SAYS). Horrible mistake. Then it said we had to cut the chilled dough into cookies, but it was hardly a “dough”. So we put it in the freezer quickly, which accidentally dried it out. Then we tried cutting it up but it was disgustingly obvious that there was too much butter. Greasy. So then we tried to put it all back into a bowl and mix it again and add 2x as much of the rest of the ingrediantes to level it out a double batch. BUT the dough batter thing was too thick and messed up for our beater to handle. So we couldn’t finish our  double batch perfectly. So we added almost the right amount of flour and tried again. There was still too much butter in the end so we flattened it with our hands and made little “short-i mean butterbread” circles to put in the oven. We were very rushed, which also didn’t help our whole cookie making process. Then lighting the oven was another disaster and a half because you have to light a thin rolled up piece of newspaper and put it down a hole and turn on the propane and wuck. At first, a bunch of butter melted out of the cookies and I was sure that I’d wasted 20soles on this experiment, but we turned the heat up a lot and left them in for 45min (instead of 10-15m) hahaha. And they turned out edible!! We also made vanilla icing to cover up the buttery taste. The slightly burnt ones tasted the best, and actually pretty delish. Then we went to the reunion and ate more food from other countries and their Peru versions of their xmas dishes as well :P

                Then, for the first time with permission from Nancy, the dad, AND Jose (who said it was fine because it’s summer vacation.. which means he’s admitting it’s not an AFS rule and he just wanted me to study when school was on) Jhoselyn and I went to a discoteca. Wow. So I AM allowed. Cool, thanks.  

Friday PERU GRAD!

                Friday during the day we ate SUPER freaking good pollo a la brasa in colegio for lunch, and gave out all our secret santa gifts. Here, it’s not really secret, but it’s still cool. Everyone goes to the front and describes the person they got their gift for, and then everyone else guesses who the present’s for. So everyone finds out eventually, but it was still fun. I’m going to miss my classmates. They’re a really close group, and they really care for eachother. Then Friday night at 7 we all showed up back at Sr de la Vida to put on blue gowns and hats and walk across the stage as graduates. For each person (except me haha) there was a quick slideshow of a few baby photos and then a clip of their parents talking to them about how proud they are and stuff. Then we each walked across the stage to receive our certificates (me, giggling my ass off because I don’t deserve to grad here, not with the amount of homework I never did and exams I failed xD) But anyways. It was not as special or as big of a deal as it seems to be in North America. We had to give the rented hats and poncho gowns back to be returned after. It probably feels different for me because I can’t believe they’re all “grads” because most of them just turned 16! Asi es en Peru. Buuuut it made me think ahead to my grad and what it’ll be like and how freaking AWESOME it’s going to be !!!!

Ummmm that other week...  don’t remember or care hahah other than Nancy went to Lima and bought me my prom dress. Scary! And there was a “despedida” or goodbye party for quinto grado in my colegio and Mona and I had a blast...but only because we had a super bad hair day. Long story.