Thursday: Thursday Nancy and I went to el centro to finally mail my postcards woot! 7.50 cada uno, and so to save money it was suggested I send the 3 Whitehorse ones together to one address (my fam) and then my darling lil sister can distribute the others :P Then it's based on weight instead, and to send 4 it was 19.50 soles hahah you guys owe me! xD We went to the orchestra thingy again but they were preparing for a concert and the woman who'd asked me to teach wasn't there and the other guy hadn't heard that I was going to help teach sooo... yeah. I didn't want to play in the concert or rehearsal because I'd die of boredom, so he said next week I can start learning viola instead to make it more interesting :P Hopefully it won't be too big but yeah we'll see.
Viernes: On Friday Nancy told me at 2:45 that I was going with her to see some dance thing at Junior's colegio at 3pm, so I had to drop other plans w Louise but yeah. We didn't even leave until 3:25ish and then once we got there, found out that it didn't start until 4pm. Then we walked through Nuevo Chimbote alongside a parade of children in all these amazing, colourful, traditional costumes and ropa of Peru. Once we reached our destination, we sat and watched a dance competition (between the different classrooms) of traditional Peruvian dances until 8:30pm at night. (And we left early :P) Hahaha of course Junior's class was one of the last ones to perform, but they were super good! Even all the little tiny preschool kids were dressed up and um.. sort of dancing.. with the professor(a)s' help and stuff. I got a bunch of photos and film :P It was cool and interesting, but my butt was sore on the cold concrete.. haha 4-5 hours is a biiiit much hahahaha. But it's cool that they keep the old culture and dance traditions in the schools and that the kids all participate willingly and keep it alive and yeah! Junior's class won :)
Saturday: Saturday I went to my first dance "ensayos" for our promocion with my partner and good looking good friend Fabian hahaha. And holy crap he knows how to dance. Sabe bailar. He works as a dancer sometimes, like gets paid to be the guy that the girls dance with at quinceanos haha so yeah. But he says I learn fast and that I was better than all the other kids in my salon who'd already had a practice session the other week when I was walking into glass doors. I miss choreographed dance classes!! Hardcore. I can do all the dance moves by myself, but the partner stuff is suuuuper new to me! At one point he has to pick me up and turn around and there's even a little tango thrown in! hahah oh man. Not to mention I'll have to do it in a fancy dress and high heels. HA good luck kid. Then Fabian came over for almuerzo with me n Jhoselyn. (they're super tight)
After almuerzo Nancy, Gabo, Jhoselyn, Fran y yo fuimos a la casa de Senora Vicky otra vez to go around door to door and writing out tickets for children and abuelitos for the chocolatada that we're going to set up on December 18th. We went to the poorest section of Chimbote I have ever seen. I mean.. I knew the difference in wealth was bigger between the people here than in Canada but. You have no idea until you're surrounded by it. The higher up the sandy desert mountain we went, the poorer the people living there. At the top, the houses were short, one room shacks of weaved materials and scavenged walls. No floors, no lights, no water, no nothing. These people made Sra Vicky look rich. And she makes Nancy look rich. And then there's me feeling so lucky and privelegded and stunned and amazed and sad. I've always known I was lucky and am lucky to live the life I live, but now I really, really,
know. As we went door to door, people peeked out their houses to see the rare visitors. I played with a starving little puppy and just. I wish I'd had my camera to capture the life these people live; who don't have enough food, whose children cannot go to school for lack of money, and who have probably never seen the Chimbote that I have been living in. I was just so silenced, standing in the garbage strewn sandy dunes looking out over all of "wealthy" Chimbote below us. Going down the mountain was even more powerful, because after being with those that have nothing, every slightly bigger house was stunning. I couldn't close my mouth. And when we started seeing cars in the streets again I was just mindblown by how much money those people must have, just to own a car AND a house. And then I was hit again when I started seeing all the bustling busy stores selling packaged useless crap (and other things too) and just. I couldn't even comprehend thinking about my house back home again. Even the amount of money I spent to come to Peru, is incredible for the people we visited. Absolutely amazing moment. Absolutely, amazing.
Sunday: Yesterday we all helped fry some unidentifiable body part of a pig I think, for breakfast. It was really good. We also had salad and a super delicious juice (pure papaya, pineapple, water and sugar) and this weird green avocado relative that I don't like for it's weird texture haha. Then I washed all the dishes (I kinda like doing it. And if I don't... it won't get done haha and we need them for lunch) And then I skyped my amazing, beautiful family for over a good chunk of time and we compared bed heads. :P Then I went over and visited the lovely older ladies next door (including the mother of Mario, Jhoselyn's pop) to play my violin for her and lend them my Canada photos. Aaw it was so lovely hahaha lovely. But seriously, they're super sweet and everyday when I walk home from school we talk a bit and she always tries to give my money back when I buy something from their store :P She gave me cookies and so I played more songs after :P Then after washing some dishes, Jhoselyn and I went to our friend MyDholi's house for Fummer's Argentina going away party (hahah on a sunday..), with some of our usual buds, Andre, Fercho, Louisa, Gabo, and Chemo.
Monday: Monday I finally returned to colegio hehe and it's Advent Week or something so yet again, another excuse for lack of classes and stuff. Then at recreo Yessenia and I snuck out of colegio (by saying we needed to take out copies of our textbook; the photocopier in colegio wasn't working :D) and then we went and ate some food at the Mercado nearby hahaha. mmm I love markets here. They smell so amazing and just yeah! Mom you're gonna love it and we're going to gain 9/10 pounds, one for each day you're here :)
Tuesday: Yuriko and Yessenia thought of another excuse to escape colegio and fuimos al mercado otra vez haha. They ate combinados of tallarins (pasta noodles), potato and ceviche (and of course choclo y cancha.. two diff ways of preparing corn) and I had a fruit salad with yogurt hehe. We're going swimming on Friday, don't want a belly. Actually so scared to be "la leche entre los chocolates" in the pool for gym class hahaha anyways. I also found out (by looking and walking through the meat section of the market) that Peruvians eat horses. Yeah. Great. :S
