Sat 26 Julio & Sun 27 Julio

Well, I’ll start with Saturday morning, the beginning of the 3 day weekend for fiestas patrias! It was a relaxing day because I didn’t have to wake up and rush off to the Agraria. So after sleeping in till 9ish I got up and made banana pancakes for me and the fam, def not as good as the ones my mom makes here, she has more of a crepe texture which I like better. (Though dad I still love your choco-chip pancakes the best!!) After eating I sat around for a bit reading then decided I should prob exercise after such a heavy meal and went on a run at the top of the cliff (same place where I filmed that video) and yes the time I filmed that video I was running up the hill and was exercising so that’s why I was breathing heavy!! I had lunch with my fam and also my sobrinos and cuñada. After, I had a meeting with Sophie and Camille (the two other girls in my town) to discuss our CBA (Community Based Analysis) Project. We decided on doing a young mothers group, since there are a lot of them in Chacra. We ate dinner which is basically most of the time, left overs from lunch, since that is their biggest meal. Then heading to a Peruvian baby shower at 10pm. And what’s interesting is that they actually call it Baby Shower. So that was quite funny to hear in everyday speech and then when I told my mom that we have them too she was like really? You have baby showers. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I think they got their word “baby shower” from the English language… so I let it go lol.

So, about this baby shower… nothing like the one we have in the states! First of all its at 10 till about 2am and men are invited. The father is there as well, and the whole time we play games to basically embarrass the couple and esp the father. It is a bit like a roast of the couple. One of my favorite games was when they dressed the father in diapers and made him crawl around the room to get fed from a bottle or when he was blind-folded and was given 3 sec to guess the gift. When he was wrong he would have to drink from another bottle (which was pure liquor). So it was interesting. Also, there were live clowns there who were funny but really crude humor. I thought was a tad wrong since there was kids there but my mom told me usually there not but today was an exception because the family had another party earlier in the day for their sons 7th bday party. We had soo much food there and don’t forget the cow hearts, which made an appearance as well! Gotta love them! So I headed back about 12ish and went to bed.

Sunday woke up around the same time, decided I loved my morning routine from the day before, so I had some pancakes and then after went for a run! My relatives were still here so I woke up to little children’s screams and playing, which is the best form of birth control… ever. When I got back from my run I did my usual Sunday cleaning of my room and taking a shower. In the afternoon at about 4ish me, Consuelo and Roxanna (my cunada) went to bingo at the escuela primera of her daughter for an interesting game of bingo. It's pretty serious there are about 300 people there, it starts at10 in the morning and goes all day. In between each game of bingo a liveband takes the stage and plays a set. I think they play bingo exactly the same; calling out a letter B-I-N-G-O with a numberto form a specific letter. ALthough,in reality I have never been to a bingo game in the states sooo who knows lol... I guess I'm really not the go-to girlabout this. SO after bingo I met up with Sophie in Chosica to get some dinner we had pizza andthis amazzzziiing app called Taquenos. It was like wan-ton noodles filled with cheese andthen we had guacamole dipping salsa!! Yum! Afterwords we met up with some other gringosand there host families to do some karaoke...that was a grand time... I received a standing ovation when I left lol... even here, who doesn't love me?!?!? haha Chosica was so packed for fiestas patrias... which I did celebrate with my family on MOnday...which I will write about tonight and post tomorrow
tkq xoxo
ekh