Christmas!!!!!!

 

          Monday, Christmas Eve, I went out with Charleys and Lucía in the morning to go get my report card, but the school did not have it ready. This got me a little upset, but I can understand that it is difficult to make up a whole new document because I am not in the program. After that, we went to buy some gifts for the family. Still, I had not purchased anything. I was able to find a gift for Lucía and Kristhel, and we would return again in the afternoon to buy the other gifts. When I got home, Mamá was preparing the turkey and the others were decorating the house. We then ate lunch and then took the turkey to a place so they can bake it because our oven is not big enough. To finish our Christmas shopping, Charleys, Lucía, and I went out again to get the rest of the presents for the family. These included a present for Papá, one of Mamá, one for the two of them, one for Angela, and one for Charleys. Then we returned just as the others were returning with the golden turkey. Next we watched TV until midnight when we all gave each other hugs and said Merry Christmas and then we turned on all the Christmas lights, put Jesus in the Nativity Display, and put the presents under the tree.Then Papá’s brother showed up with his wife and three kids. We all opened presents and ate turkey and potatoes.
          One thing that kind of annoys me about Christmas here is that the little ones get everything. Kristhel got two gifts to open up during the time that everyone else opened up one present, and then while we were eating, Kris continually went upstairs and brought down another one of her presents to open up. She had a total of 4 presents just that night. And that is not to include the presents that she got the next day. I am not jealous or anything, I do not need any presents, I am just sticking with the popular thing that if you are on Santa’s naughty list you should not be able to get presents, but apparently here, if you eat way too many sweets and candy, you get double the presents of the good kids.
          After we ate, we socialized until around 2 and then I went to bed because I felt a little sick and the others stayed up until around 3. The next day, I woke up late and Kris magically had two more presents that she was playing with. You can see that I was slightly confused. We did not do much that day. Mamá went to her mother’s house early in the morning alone before I woke up for reasons I will again not say. I also made an ice cream cake again for the family. I do not really like making them because Kris eats it all. On Thursday she ate three pieces. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were not anything grand, also. Kris got two more gifts during those days, we ate leftover turkey for every meal, and we started to decorate the house in yellow for New Years. Yellow is the color of New Years here.
          Saturday the 29^th, I left this morning to go and buy ingredients for Christmas Cookies that I did not have time to make for Christmas. If you read my last blog, you will see that I had literally no time. Then I checked my internet again, and for the first time in about a week or so, I have internet to right this blog. Unfortunately the internet stopped halfway through the time that I have been writing this and I will now have to upload this another time. Also, on Saturday I made Brownies that I am also afraid Kris will eat.
          Sunday I was really bored. I helped to decorate some more and we went out clothing shopping. On New Years in Peru, parents have a tradition of gifting clothing to their kids, so we went out to try on some clothing that my mom could buy for me. We ended up buying skinny jeans which are really popular. Kris ended up eating two brownies this day. Today, Monday, the 31st, we are going to be making another turkey or maybe making pig, and then we will be decorating the house and we will stay up until about 5 in the morning today. I am also planning on making two types of cookies today.
         

Fiesta de Promo and a Big Saturday

          Again with a lot of internet problems this blog is about the week of the 16th to the 22nd. Monday morning, the 16th, came with more exams, but luckily the schedule was changed a bit because it is near the end of school. For this reason, kids will come to school for the exams in the morning and then leave during the recreo, so the teachers changed the exams to the afternoon so the kids will have to stay the whole time. Monday's exams were Biology and Physics which are not too difficult, but are really annoying at times because of the amount of information you have to know. Biology was about the systems of the human body which is not to bad, but there is a lot of information in each system. Physics was all about mirrors and the different types of mirrors like concave and convex spherical mirrors and their different rules of reflection. Also, on Monday, I turned in my 30 page project to my Language teacher which she was overjoyed that I was able to do, and it gave me a huge relief to know that I had finished that.
          Tuesday was Language, Literature, and Persona. This day I do not like, because it is a lot of memorization. Mainly the problem is Literature and again we had to memorize two time lines. Luckily we did not finish the other time line in class or we ould of had to memorize three. I memorized the time lines for the entire night before, which is the main reason that I did not study for the other tests which fortunately were not to difficult. Language was all about different types of words like pronoun, verb, adjective, and conjunction type things and then we had to know where to put accents on different words.
          Wednesday was our last official day of school even though we had another day more. A lot of kids did not come on wednesday, but it was an official day. We just played games that I brought from the US in the morning. Left Center Right and cards were the most popular (yes they do have cards here, but they did not know a lot of the games that I had played before). After the first two hours, I went to the back of the room with Sol (a girl in my class) and Miguel (a boy in my class) to practice for the singing competition. Sol and I were going to sing Feliz Navidad and Miguel would play the guitar. We ran through it a couple of times and then we had to all go outside for recreo which only lasted about 15 minutes because then we had the singing competition and the rewards from the competitions in english. I am guessing that they did not count me in the competitions because it was unfair because I did not win anything. The prizes were English Dictionaries, which would have been nice, but it will benefit the other kids more. The teacher did gift Claudi and I a hat and scarf for participating in the different events with the other kids.
          After the rewards, we had the singing competition. There were only two groups including us that were going to sing which was really sad seeing that there was supposed to be a group from each class. The first kid from the third year sang Jingle Bells in english and Rudolf in Spanish. If you have not heard Rudolf in Spanish you have to listen to it. Even if you do not understand it, the tune is really different and to me, I like it better than in english. After him, Sol and I sang our song. I do not know if you guys have heard of Feliz Navidad, but there are two parts, the first part is in Spanish and the second is in English, and then they repeat it. Sol sang the part in Spanish and then I sang in English. When I came in, all the girls started cheering which really helped the nervousness I had. Then when we repeated it, we sang together.
          After the singing, we all had this little ceremony for the kids in the 5th year. We all circled around them and then some kids spoke words of encouragement and everyone ater cookies and drank soda. Then the director let us all leave school early at 12 so we went home which really helped because I was able to change and get ready for Lucía's graduation ceremony which afterwards I would be going directly to a Christmas dinner for AFS. The ceremony included a speech and the introduction of all the kids with their candles and then a special call to each kid to receive their diplomas. It was kind of exciting, but it was nice to see my sister graduating. I was basically the designated photographer for my family during the ceremony because the video camera ended up not having a cassette so they did not capture any films of the event.
          After the ceremony I went to buy my gift for secret Santa that I needed to bring to the Christmas dinner that evening. Then after that we went to the suit shop to look at suits I could rent for the Fiesta de Promoción on Saturday for my sister which I was required to go to because I was her pareja or date. After finding a good suit, I left for the restaurant. I arrived first, and I sat for about 20 minutes until another person showed up in Peruvian time. Peruvian time is what they call the time in Peru because people are always late. I do not particularly like that especially for events that have a start time, but it is what it is. We all ordered food, which I ate Pollo a la Brasa. After we all finished eating and talking, we took turns giving our gifts to our designated persons for secret santa. This was really enjoyable because everyone would take turns saying stuff about their person and people would try to guess who their person was. After this we all took a group photo and then left for our respective homes.
          Thursday we did not have school which functioned as a rest day. On Friday, I had a Clausura, which I think is something like a closing ceremony for the year. We all went to school at 9 and sat and listened to the directors talking and then sang songs and at the end we all received our grades for the year. Unfortunately, my name was not on the official list and I had to wait until the next Monday, Christmas Eve, to go to the school and get my notes. After the Clausura, Lucía and I went to the costume shop to rent my costume for the following day. Friday afternoon, I did not do much but put clothing in bags for the whole afternoon and evening. We only needed to bring about 10 kilos of clothing to give to the poor kids on Saturday morning, but I received about 30 kilos from all the kids at school, so I had to put each item in an individual bag with the age and gender of the person that could wear it. This took the whole night and I fell asleep at around 10:30.
          Saturday morning, I left for the park with my sisters and niece at around 9. We arrived with our four giant bags of clothing and then Lucía and I went to the costume shop to pick up our costume while Angela and Kris waited with the bags. When we returned, Marcus and Jenca had shown up and then shortly after Sofie and her sister showed up. We loaded up the car and then Yenthe showed up with her two brothers to go. It was really tight because we had 10 people in a 14 person combis and each person’s amount of clothing and costumes for a 2 hour drive. Once we arrived we unloaded the clothing and then began to dance with all the kids that were showing up. Dancing in costumes is not the easiest thing especially when you are Santa and have big fake shoes over the real ones. This, along with the rain made it not so pleasant especially since it gets really hot inside a big Santa head. After dancing for about an hour and not being able to see much in my costume, we started to give out the clothing and hot chocolate to all the kids. This was the saddest part. There were about 100 kids looking for clothing not to count the mothers who wanted clothing for their kids. All the kids were wearing aged clothing and their faces and hands were really dirty. We tried to give clothing to everyone, but we did not have enough to give to all of them, especially the teenage boys. We had a lot of clothing for girls, but older boys we were lacking. Kids came up to us and asked if we can give them clothing and toys and mothers and fathers were asking for clothing for the youngsters at home.
          We left at around 3 to arrive home at 5 and I ran home from the bus stop because I had to get home and change for the Fiesta de Promoción. It turns out that I arrived home in good time because Lucía was still at the hairdressers getting her hair and makeup done. I ate and then put on my suit which actually looked really amazing. When Lucía arrived home with Kris and Papá, they all changed and then Lucía and I left with Angela and Kris at around 7. We ended up sitting down for about a half hour before they called all the couples to go up the second floor to get ready to start the ceremony. The ceremony started with them calling each kid down one at a time with their date and then they walked across the dance floor and stood in a line until all 100 and some kids were called. This took forever and your legs start to ache from standing up. Then they reads some words which seems more like some books, and then they give each person a small glass of wine and they talk some more and then we are instructed to drink the wine and then dance with your partner. After about two minutes of dancing the fathers of mothers of the students of the promoción come in to dance with them. After dancing, you can continue dancing or go talk with friends and stuff. I ended up going with my family and talking with my cousins and aunts and uncles. This continues for a while and then they open up the disco Tec where there is music about 10 times louder and all the kids are smoking cigarettes and marihuana and drinking beer. I did not go into this place very often only when my sister wanted to go in to dance. I did not like this place very much. The same thing continued and I would socialize with teachers and family until about 2 in the morning when Lucía wanted to go home because her feet were aching. In actuality, I wanted to stay longer with Papá and Charleys and the uncles, but Kris was tired and Mamá wanted to go home. Angela stayed with the now drunk Papá and Charleys to take them home. After the long day, I wanted to sleep but was not really tired. I ended up thinking until about 3 or 4 in the morning and then I fell asleep.
          Sunday, the 23rd, I slept in and did not do much. The only thing I ate was a bowl of cereal and Chicken at around 10:00 at night. There was a lot on my mind that day that I do not feel at ease to right about because it involves some personal issues with the family (and no, my family is amazing, I do not want to change families).
          This week was really long and this blog is really long, but if you want to read it all you can. It is what I did the whole week.

 

Final Exams

          Last Sunday, we did not do much. We just stayed home because my sister and mamá were still in Lima. Monday and Tuesday we spent our last days reviewing for the fourth bimesters exams which started on Wednesday. School is finishing up, but we still have projects. I have a 30 page paper to write for next Wednesday. It is so annoying, because Claudi does not have to write his, but I do because the teacher thinks that I am capable of it.
          On Tuesday, I woke up with the flu, but I had to go to school because I needed to get the information for the tests the next day. I spent the whole day with a couple boxes of tissues and I drank a whole water bottle during the half hour recreo. On Wendesday, my head a muscles felt better, but I still had a runny nose. Again I still had to go to school because I did not want a zero on my exams. I ended up drinking a whole bottle of water during the 25 minutes before we have to go to formation in the morning, and then another during the school day. The only default of doing this, is that you have to go to the bathroom alot which means that I have to go down two flights of stairs to the bathroom and because we have exams, I can not leave during an exam because the teacher thinks that I could go to look up information. Then I have to sit through an entire exam while trying to keep my mind off of my overly filled bladder which is actually one of the topics on the exam for Biology.
          The exams on Wednesday, Civics, History, and Geography, were not that difficult. Unfortunately for Civics, I spent my entire time studying the three branches of government when none of the questions were about them. In fact, there were not questions, only three charts that you have to fill out with the information. I ended up knowing the names of the constitutional organizations, but I did not know the other information to fill in. I just wrote educated guesses like for the National Bank of Peru, I wrote that its primary function was to guard the money of Peru, and for the Public Defense, I wrote that its function was to defend the public. It may sound stupid, but it works better than leaving them blank. History, which I think is one of my hardest classes, was really difficult. The whole test is fill in the blank, true and false, and then time lines and organizers that you have to complete. And there is not just two or three themes, there are like 50 years of history on the exam and about 5 different peoples government and maybe 3 or 4 different wars. It is really unfair what the teacher has to do. It is obvious that in Peru, memorization is taken into account much more than in the states. Geography was not too difficutl. A map part, which is really easy for me, a multiple choice question section, and a read a paragraph and answer the qusetions. This was the easiest test on Wednesday.
          Thursday came with Trigonometry and Arithmetic. I wrote in my other blog that this day was the most difficult for the third bimesters exams. This does not relate to thursday, because Trigonometry is now one of my easiest and favorite classes and Arithmetic is not too difficult. Only formulas to memorize. I believe that I only missed maybe 1 question on Trig and Arithmetic was about the same, but a little more difficult.
          Friday was the easiest or maybe right behind Thursday, because we had Algebra and Geometry.These exams are really easy. I have only gotten one exam back from Geometry this whole year that did not have all 20's, but had one 18. Geometry is the easiest class that I have had because it is just repeating all the stuff I did in the US, and only adding a few things like some formulas which are different in the US. Algebra is a bit more difficult, but it is only about imaginary and complex numbers, so if you know the formulas like i to the exponent of a multiple of 4 -2 is -i, and 2i is equal to the square of 1+i. These formulas are really easy, and the only problem I could of had was if I wrote somthing wrong of forgot an exponent or something.
          Friday night I went to the center to meet up with Claudi to go to a party, but Claudi ended up leaving with his friends to buy something and when they returned, I had left with Lucía to go to a restaurant with two of her friends. We ended up buying drinks and a platter of fries and hot dogs to share. Then Emia, Lucía's friend, ordered what I thought was Fanta, and then Lucía wanted one. It turns out that it was fanta with alcohol in it, and Lucía did not know, so the rest of the night heKrr head felt horrible and she could not remember what were talking about and such. She was really scared that her parents would find out, but I understood that she did not know and so I did not tell.
          Saturday, I slept in and then after lunch, Kris had a party for her school, but I had to take a photo with my family for AFS. I ended up taking it around 3 right before they left, and then fell asleep. I was supposed to take the photo on a USB to the park to give to the AFS director at 5 that day, but when I woke up at 5:10, it was a bit of a dilema. I got in a taxi and drove to the park which was actually not the meeting place because it was changed via facebook and I did not know. I waited there until 6 and then Lucía and I went to a restaurant and got a milkshake. It was actually really good. When Papá, Mamá, Angela and Kris returned from Kristhel's party, we got to open Papá's gift. Each year, the bank gives every employee and big box fo stuff which is more of less the same ecah year, but small things change. This year, he got a backpack, four panetones, chocolates, champaigne, hiskey, wine, milk, jelly, apple sauce, olives, Pringles, crackers, cookies, and a few other things. Most of the stuff we save until Christmas, but the Pringles we ate right away.
          On Sunday, after lunch we went out to the country to see some more places. We went to a church that was older than Peru itself. This church was built by Pizzaro ( I thnk that is his name) before Peru became a country. After that we went to a new supermarket that is huge. It is a lot of stuff, and there was a lot of stuff that was 3 for the price of 2, so my parents were going crazy and we bought a lot of stuff. Then we went to buy bread and Papá and Mamá went out of the car and Lucía, Angela, Kris, and I were stuck in the car for about an hour and then Angela and Kris left to help Papá with somthing, which I did not know what, but it turns out that after another hour later, they returned with this giant stereo that he had bought because the one in the house is really old. Finally we returned to the house and I got to sleep for monday morning with more exams.

4 month update and homemade food

          Wow, I have been in Peru for four months. It seems like so much longer, but I am enjoying my time down here. My family is amazing and they love when I make cookies or cakes for them from the US. Sometimes they do not turn out perfectly because of the ingredients, but they are usually great. After four months, I can basically say that I can speak Spanish. I have grammar errors like any person learning a language, but I am speeding up my talking, and I am broadening my vocabulary every day. English class believe it or not, is the best class for me to learn, because while they are learning words in English, and I am sitting there bored, I can actually write down the spanish translations of the words they are learning and I do not know. This really helps to increase your vocabulary. I can take a taxi and a combis by myself and am able to tell them where to go and where I am getting off at. I am able to buy things at the stores, and baking without measuring cups is really helping me to increase my visual measuring skills. Also, because the oven we have is a gas oven and the temperature is really weird, I am able to tell when things are done by smell and look.
          School is going really well for the most part. I think I have A's and B's in all my classes. I have A's in all the math and science classes, am getting A's and B's in my lenguage and literature classes. Trigonometry, which was my hardest class to begin with, is now my second favorite behind gym, and I am doing really well in it. Schoolwork is slowing down, but finals and final projects are coming crashing in. I now have two folders due in different classes and the one in Language is 30 pages minimum. The Fouth Semester's exams are this coming week and the final two placement exams will be in the next two weeks. The teachers are now correcting our notebooks and organizers, so I am rushing to fill in any missing gaps that I do not have completed. I am going to be really relieved when I finish school on the 21st.
          This past week there was not a lot of stuff that I did different then other weeks. I basically did homework and relaxed after school every day. On Wednesday we had a author come in a talk about one of his books and then he offered the book to us at a discounted price with his signature. So I bought a book called "Zhamir Landre y Los Secretos de Los Lineas de Nasca". Zhamir Landre is a name, and secretos is a cognate for secrets. Los Lineas de Nasca are the Lines of Nasca or Geoglyphos. They are ancient lines in the ground that are really big, so you can not tell what they are without being in a plane or something. This book with his signature was 20 soles or around $7.50 in US money. The book is not too difficult to read, and it is only 200 pages, so I am excited to read it.
          At the end of the school day on Friday, Claudi and I took home the clothing and food that kids had brought in for us to take to the poor kids in another town. There was over 20 kilos of clothing, and that is only from the first week. Kids are going to be bringing items this week, also. I was really grateful for their kindness to help us.
          On Thursday, after school, we stopped to pick up stickers for Kristhel's album. Kristhel has this album for Monster High, a TV cartoon. There are about 220 spaces for stickers, and each pack comes with 5. The only problem is that you get a lot of stickers that repeat, so we found this one guy that sells individual stuckers, and so we go to him with the list of the ones we need and we buy them for 10 centimos each. It seems like a kiddie thing, but it is kind of fun to try and collect them all, so Lucía and I do that every once and while after school. We have a little over half of them right now.
          Also, on Thursday, I made homemade peanut butter, which cost about 4 soles plus labor. First you have to roast the peanuts a bit to be able to peal off the thin brown papery shell. This is the hardest job. Then you roast the peanuts some more until they are a nice brown color, and then you can put them in a blender with a tiny bit of oil and after about 5 to ten minutes depending on how much you are making you have peanut butter that tastes the same and costs way less then the 22 soles jar at the supermarket. I used this peanut butter to make Peanut Butter Cookies on Friday which turned out great. Another ingredient that they do not have here in Peru is light or dark brown sugar. To make this, I had to find molasses which I guess they call Agarrobino (I think that is how you spell it). It might not be molasses, but it tastes the same. So if you mix a small amount of that with white sugar, you get light brown sugar (more molasses, dark brown sugar). So these cookies were truly homemade, the eggs were even from the chicken we have in our garage. The only thing I did not make is the butter, white sugar or flour.
          This morning, after waking up late and taking a shower, Lucía, Mamá, y Papá left for Lima. I was invited to go, but studies took precidence, and I could not leave. Instead, I stayed at the house with Angela y Kristhel. We went to the zoo, which was really sketchy, but it was nice to see a Jaguar. However, it was really sad in some of the exhibits. The size of the cages for the animals is more or less fine, but the environment is not the greatest. In one of the fox cages, there was one fox and all that was in the cage was a little house to sleep in, and bowl for food and water, and a a big rock to climb on. Also, in one cage, there was some Monkeys, and one of the monkeys threw rocks at me. Wow, did that scare me. It just lept from one side of the cage and landed on the fence in front of me and chucked a handful of rocks at my chest. I do not think I want to go back to the zoo, but it was nice to spend a day with Angela and Kris.
          One thing I have noticed is that Kris loves sweets like any other 4 year old, but Angela lets her have them. We brought jello and cookies along to the zoo, and before we even entered the zoo, Kris wanted ice cream, so Angela bought her an ice cream bar, and then we entered the zoo. While walking through the zoo, Kris ate two jellos and a cookie, and then when we left the zoo, Kris wanted another ice cream, so Angela bought her another ice cream bar, and then in the combis on the way home, Kris ate another cookie. Then after she ate a little bit of soup and a fried egg and left the rice and vegetables, she ate another cookie. I am not her dad, but it really annoys me that Angela lets her do this.
          Peruvian life is I guess a bit more dangerous than ours, because Lucía, Angela, nor Charleys have ever had a friend over when they were growing up. Mamá said it was because she does not know how the kids are, and she does not want to risk the safety of anyone in the house. I think this is really weird because I do not know how she has not known any of the friends of her kids well enough to have them at her house, but it is fine I guess.

Competitions in English and a Tour

          I am now writing another blog for the week of the 25th till the 2nd of December. So this week was a bit special, but not during school. School on Monday commenced with the usual reciting of the pledges and singing of the anthems. It is getting really annoying, but I am glad that it is only one day a week. I spent most of the day catching up on work that I missed from the week before. Literature class was special, because the teacher was not there. Unfortunately his mom was not doing well, health wise, and he went to be with her. Instead, the teacher of Lenguage came to our classroom to monitor us. She made us answer questions in the book about different famous spanish works, and then we had to memorize a poem. I was the only one who was able to memorize it during the class time. She was pretty happy.
          Tuesday was nothing new, and Wednesday was the first of three days that we had more competitions in English. After school, at 4, we had a different aspect of English. Wednesday was Reading. This day was the easiest. We read a paper and answered 7 simple questions. Well, at least for me it was easy. After the competition on Wednesday, I went immediately to an AFS meeting. We just discussed all of the upcoming events with Christmas and such. Apparently, on the 22nd, we are going to deliver clothing to a poor town, and each person needs to bring like 10 kilos of clothing. In order to do this, Claudi and I decided to make an announcement at our school to help us. Also, we are all going to go in a costume of a character from Christmas, like Santa, Mrs. Clause, an Elf, Rudolf, the Grinch, Mary, or an Angel. I am not going to tell you who I am going to be because it will be a surprise.
          Thursday was Writing. We went in the room and had to write either a conversation, an essay, or a poem. I think I was the only person to write a poem, but with rhyming and all, I can understand the difficulty. On Friday, in the morning, Claudi and I announced that we need clothing to donate to poor kids in front of the whole school. It was a bit nerve wracking, but we did it. After school, we had the competition for Listening and Spelling. First, for the Listening we had to Listen to 30 small conversations and then a question and then mark the write picture that answers the question. After that, we had spelling, which for me was the hardest and most annoying. I finally realize what the downfall of learning a language in the classroom can be. The teacher is a native spanish speaker, so he is teaching the kids in a spanish way. The pronounciations of the words was totally demolished, and it took all I had not to scream or beg the teacher to help. For example, the word swum was pronounced like swoom, and hidden was pronounced like hi-den, and meant, was like meent. It was quite annoying, and I left half the words blank.These were all opcional activities, and none were mandetory. Also, on Wednesday, I received my grade on the second exam for placement in the coming year. I was 32nd place this time. Which is a big increase from 95th the last time.
          Saturday, we had another soccer game, but this time, I swear the team was all 17 and 18 year olds because they were huge, but we played strong and only lost 4-0. Afterwards, I went to the park to wait for my parents to come and pick me up. While waiting, I got bombarded with a group of teenage girls who all wanted photos with me. During this, my family showed up, and Kris saw me with the girls and once they all left, she ran up to me and hit me and said that I was bad. I take it she was jealous. After that, I got my first haircut in Peru. It actually turned out really nice, and i got some compliments from the girls at school. That night, I kind of just relaxed because the next day was an event with AFS.
          Sunday, was the tour with AFS, which started out in a way that was quite scary. At 9 we were supposed to meet at Cruz del Sur, the bus station. When I showed up, I was the third person, but Yenthe and Shirley showed up soon after. We had gotten a message that Yenca and Marcus were not coming, but we were positive that Claudi was coming. We waiting for about a half hour and then we decided to call his grandmother. She said that he was in the Parque Constitucional, so Yenthe and Laura went to get him. Unfortunately he was not there, so we called Laura's sister thinking he was at her house looking for everybody. We found out that he was not there either, so then we all started to worry. We ended up calling a couple more people and then decided to walk to the Park again. On our way, we ran into Claudi's uncle and he said that Claudi is waiting on the corner in the park. He was there and after we all joined up again, we found out that Claudi had left for Laura's house about 2 minutes before Yenthe and Laura showed up for the park, then Claudi showed up at Laura's house about 10 minutes after we called, and Laura's sister did not call us to tell us that. After that little mishap, we went to the store of Yenthe's mother. We all got Panetón, which is a sweet bread like cake thing that comes in different flavors, and sizes. It is really popular in Peru, especially around Christmas time.
          After loading up on food, we got onto a bus to Jauja, now about 2 hours late. which was our first location that we went to. This bus was big, but the seats do not provide much leg room. In fact none of the public transportation provides enough leg room for someone with long legs like me. So after riding in this bus for an hour, my legs really hurt. Once in Jauja, we took a taxi to the Laguna de Paca. This Lagoon is a big tourist destination in Junín. It is also really dangerous and has many stories. One story states that there is a town underneath the lagoon with Mermaids and such. Also, there are lots of dead bodies in the lagoon because of the dangerous currents and the ground underneath the lagoon is like quicksand.
          After getting on a boat for a tour of the lagoon, we returned in Mototaxi (basically a motorcycle that has two wheels in the back and a big box around the whole thing to seat people) to Jauja where we took a bus back to a restaurant to eat lunch. The restaurant was between Concpetion Mountain and Jauja. The food was really good. I ate Chicharron de Trucha again, which is Trucha (a fish) cut up into small pieces and then fried like chicken fingers, but not as crispy. After we all ate, we got into a combis to go to conception, but I told everyone about the ice cream factory with really good fresh ice cream, and we ended up going there first.
          At the base of conception mountain, we bargained with a taxi driver to take us up the mountain for a good price. Unfortunately, that good price also meant that 7 people were sitting in 4 seats, so it was really tight, and I (being the smallest, but the second tallest behind Claudi) ended up laying halfway between the front and the back of the car with my stomach scrunched between the two front seats. Not the most comfortably situation to drive up a mountain, but it worked out. At the top, we all ate Panetón and drank Inca-Cola, and took photos of everyone in different letters of the sign. After Conception, we drove back down the mountain, the same way as before, and took a big bus back to Huancayo, which conveniently passed by most of our houses so we could get off and walk the rest. When I arrived at around 7:30, I ate and we more or less finished the decorating for Christmas. I then fell asleep pretty quickly.
          There are a couple TV shows that are popular here, and are not in the states. One is called ¡Yo Soy!, which means I am! Basically the idea is sort of like X-factor in the US, but the goal is to sound and look like the singer of the song you are singing. For example, if someone comes on and they are singing a Shakira song, they have to look more or less like Shakira and sound as close to her voice as possible. Then the judges decide if the person is going to move on, and once they have like 8 or 10 people, they start eliminating them once every week, and the last week, they decide who wins the money. It is kind of interesting, and a lot of people are singing songs in English, too.

Family Thanksgiving

          Okay, this blog is from November, the week of the 18th till the 25th. This is really late, but more internet problems have delayed the update of this blog. On Sunday, the 18th, we went out to the country to eat dinner. We brought our food which was pork and potatoes and ate it in the field. There was fields of potatoes and beans. We also saw lots of animals such as cows, pigs, donkeys, horses, sheep, goats, and of course dogs. The food was really good, and I enjoyed the fresh air. Unfortunately, I ended up not going to school in Monday because of my stomach, but fortunately that sick feeling ended for Tuesday and I went to school the rest of the week. I was a little bummed that we did not get the grades back for our second examination for placement in the coming year.
          Another unfortunate aspect of missing school is that you have to make up the work during the week by borrowing notebooks from classmates to get the notes that you missed. Also, because I missed two Mondays now, I was stuck trying to make up the lost class time to prepare for exams, in particular, Algebra. I did not understand the Complex numbers part and I ended up not taking that test or the one for imaginary numbers. I now have to make those both up.
          On Thursday the 22nd, there was a holiday in the US called Thanksgiving, I really enjoy this holiday and the family interaction that comes with it. It was not difficult to think of things I was thankful for because of the situation I was in, seeing that I am in Peru, with a family that loves me. I was a bit saddened that I was not going to join my family int he US to celebrate this holiday. I guess my peruvian family realized that I was missing out on something I loved and decided to surprise me. I walked down stairs after talking with my family on Skype and on the table of a Thanksgiving meal. There was potatoes and turkey for the main meal and then for dessert there was massamorra morada, arroz con leche, jello, upside down pineapple cake, and chocolate, vanilla marble cake. All of this was homemade and none of it was store bought desserts. I really think my mafily here is the most caring family ever.
          During the school year, we had missed a Friday, and we had to make it up. This make up day was for some reason a Saturday. The nice thing is that I like Fridays because I have gym, so I got to have gym two days in a row. Saturday, we did not have to wear our uniforms, we could come in street clothing. I guess it was not mandetory because about half of our class was missing and most of the promotion was, also. Also, for the second half of the day there was a singing competition in English. Claudi and I were asked to be judges for this competition seeing that we knew English. The competition was more or less really boring because we sat in the hot sun and listened to like 25 groups or indiviuals sing 3 to 5 minute songs. This lasted for 3 hours. It was kind of fun to hear all the Peruvians attempt to sing in Spanish. There was only one 13 year old girl who's accent was not attrocious. Anyway, I enjoyed being able to give my honest opinion on the kids English via points on a score card.
          On Sunday, which was my only day off to sleep in, I had a soccer game, so I had to get up at 7:30 for a game that was at 9, I did enjoy playing, but getting up early every day of the week is not very appetising to me. Anyway, we lost again, but my team is really new, so time will show how we work together.
          A couple things that I find strange in Peru: First, kids in my school suck on cough drops as candy, I do not like the idea, but I guess they never get the cough. Another thing is that the sports in Peru are not very broad. Kids know how to play volleyball, basketball, and soccer. It is not like in the states where kids grw up playing baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis, track, and the multiple other opcions. Anyway, I guess soccer is good enough for me all though if I knew kids that played tennis, I would be a bit happier.

Mom's birthday, Soccer, and Internet problems

           Well, again we did not have internet in the house and I could not right this until now. Since I did not go to school on the 31st and we had a long weekend until the 5th and I was sick until the 7th, everone at school though I had traveled back to the US to help my parents after Hurricane Sandy, so that was quite a shock knowing that I was in Peru. School that week was nothing grand except that our map was due for Geography. I had worked on the map all week and when Geography came on Saturday, I found out that we did not need it because we did not have time to present, so then I took the map home and stuck it in my room for another week until the next Thursday.
          On Friday, I went to a soccer field with some of the other kids in my class. The field was really nice. It was called Poli Deportivo and was actually turf. It is about 30 minutes from my house, so it is quite annoying to go to, but it was a great fiel to play on. Since the last time I played with all the kids, The kids on the other team wanted me to play for them so I switched to Claudi's team. We ended up winning 5-3, and it was quite fun. The next morning I went to play soccer again at a different field in Coto Coto which was really far away also, and the field was not incredibly beautiful, but there were refs and actual uniforms, which I just threw on a blue shirt and played for my team. I played defense the whole game which I do not extremely like, but I had much more action than if I was playing offense. We ended up losing 0-2, but the 2 goals were scored both the first half. We played much better in the second half. Even though we lost it was really fun. Claudi plays goal keeper which he is not extremely great at, because he does not have the experience, but his height definitely helps. He used to play keeper when he was 6 or 7, so now he is trying to remember all the details.
          When I returned home on Saturday, it was around 1 and I had to immediately start helping to get ready for the party that night. It was Mamá's birthday, so we were all having a big party that night. I started out preparing the ice cream cake which was not for the party, but for the next day. Then I relaxed a bit because I was tired from playing all morning. After, I helped make Ají con Ricota. This dish was really good. It is an Ají pepper stuffed with meat and vegetables and topped with ricota. It is really spicy, but good. A bit later, Lucía and I went to a little market to pick up some milk and stuff and then I realized that we had a meeting for AFS that day, so Angela came and we went to the meeting. It was a really short meeting basically just to receive a paper for emergencies, and then we left to go pick up some more items for the party. We got streamers and balloons, and then we picked up the cake which I had the opporunity to carry home. Talk about nerveracking! I even had to get into a taxi and out of a taxi while carrying this cake. However it got home safely and we continued to prepare the garaje for the party. Charleys and his girlfriend arrived at this time and they helped us get ready. Charleys and Papá pulled out this really nice table from storage, and then I put up some streamers and curtains. It is quite amuzing, but every time my family needs to get something from a high cabinet or put something up high, they always ask me to help because I am the tallest one in my family.
          At this time, the rest of the family members started showing up: aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, the grandparents, and grandkids. There were about 25 or thirty people in total. There were only a few kids not including Lucía, Kris, and I. The rest were mainly uncles, aunts. My parents introduced me to all of them and then we all just socialized until the food was finished cooking. During this time, Charleys passed out shot glasses of wine to everyone and then we all stood up and everyone started saying what they were thankful for about the family. This took about 15 minutes and then we all ate. We all started with the Ají and those that did not want the spicy food got Chicken. I got to be the waiter. After eating, we all started dancing and I started playing cards with the other kids and Kevin (the youngest brother of mamá) After we brought out the piñata and did the tradicional dance. We all got in a circle and started dancing in a big circle and the first person with the club would hit the piñata once and pass the club to the person behind him or her. Then we would dance in the circle again until that person would reach the piñata and hit it. This would continue until it broke.
          After the piñata, everyone started leaving and saying their goodbyes. Once everyone left just the family, Charleys and his girlfriend and one of Angela's friends were there and we continued dancing although by this time my energy level was basically nonexistent and I was stuck trying to dance with the effort I had left in my brain although there was not much connection between my brain and my muscles. Then we all cleaned up a bit and I went to bed. It was 3:45 in the morning. Talk about a party, I can't wait to do this for my mom in the US!
           On Sunday I did not do much after I woke up at 1. After school on Monday, Lucía and I went to the center to pick up a gift for mamá's birthday which was actually on Tuesday, but we celebrated it on Saturday. We picked up chocolate and flowers and stored them in my bedroom over night, which made my room smell like roses and lilys, so then Lucía wanted to switch rooms with me. Tuesday morning I got up at 5:00 to help Angela prepare the birthday drink for Mamá. We put milk in a big bowl and beated it for about 5 minutes until it was all frothy and had doubled in volume and then  we added whipped egg whites and sugar and beated those with the milk for another five minutes while adding red wine. Then we put this into cups and when Mamá y Papá came down at 6, like they do every morning, we all had the drink which was more like a foam, and gave Mamá her gifts. After this I went to sleep until 6:30 and then got up and ready for school really quickly. I was really tired!
          The rest of the school week went by pretty fast. On wednesday we had our second exam to decide which class you will be in the next year and then that afternoon I had my first soccer practice with a different team at Poli Deportiva. On Thursday we had another simulation for earthquakes in the building. On Friday, I woke up feeling ill in my stomach again, and did not go to school. I spent the whole day in bed and in the bathroom, and then today Angela figured out the internet problem on my computer, and now I can right this blog. I basically just plugged my computer directly to the internet with an Aux cable. I am getting pretty excited for school to end here on December 20th. One more month!!!!!

2 Month Update, Halloween, and Long Break

          Well, I am sorry this is late, but I could not have posted this earlier. In my last blog, I noted at the end that I was going out with my family. We went to this restaurant first where we all ordered the same thing. It is really odd down here, but there are a lot of restaurants that only serve a couple items, for example, one restaurant I went to the other month, only served Pollo a la Braza, which is basically routisery chicken with french fries and this Aji sauce, which is really good and spicy. Well, this restaurant we went to the other week served only Truchua based dishes. Truchua is a fish that is really common down here, so I have eaten that alot. Anyway, my family all order the same thing which was Chincharon de Truchua, which is really nice, because it has no bones. The bones in Truchua are really small, but hard, so it is really annoying to pull them all out.
          After the meal, we drove up to this mountain, which was really steep, and my dad likes to play jokes and start screaming like we are falling, and then Kris always cries and screams. The mountain was called Concepción, which really does mean Conception in English. There was a great view of Huancayo at the top, and you could even see a soccer game going on way down below. Also, the main attraction was this giant statue that you could clime up . You could go into the head and get an even better view. After we left from Concepción, we went to this giant factory where they make only dairy products. They sell yogurt, cheese, and milk, but they are most known for their ice cream. The ice cream was only in one flavor, and that was natural. The ice cream tasted like the milked a cow and then froze that raw milk into ice cream. It was one of the best ice creams I have ever tasted.

          This last week of school was not anything special except that we only had school for three days. We had off on Thursday and Friday because of holidays. On Wednesday, which was All Saints Day, Lucía and I stayed home from school to get ready for the halloween party that night. We slept in and then after eating lunch went out with the family to go to a couple of different places. First we went to the cemetary to visit a couple of graves. This cemetary is not like the ones in the US, because it is basically large walls that have caskets slid into them. We brought flowers and decorated the grave of a kid that I believe dur to the last name was actually another sibling that died in 1990 when he was 2. I did not ask due to respect, but unlike people that visit graves in the US, my family was not crying.
          After the cemetary we went to go get our costumes. You can only pick them up the day of the party and have to return them the next day. After picking up the costumes, Lucía and Mamá returned home with the costumes and Angela, Kris, and I went to get my face painted or so we thought. That morning, Angela had made a reservation to get my face painted for my costume, but when we arrived at the store, the painting lady was not there and was at another event. So now, the time is around 6 and the party starts at 7, so we went to another place in a taxi, and then Kris had to use the bathroom, so we had to make a detour for that, and when we got to the other place, the could not paint what I needed. At this time, Kris really wanted her face painted like a butterfly to go with her costume, so we stopped for that. Then we tried two other places and ended up just buying paint to paint at the house.
          When we finally arived at the house, it was around 7:30, and Mamá was preparing the food to take. So I sat down and Angela painted my face, and then after that we all got the rest of our costumes on and once we piled into the car to leave, it was about 8:45 and the party started at 7. I was a little annoyed at a couple of aspects of the day, but when we arrived at the party, it turned out that they had done basically nothing for the whole first 2 hours and had not even eaten. All of the kids and the siblings had costumes on, and everyone was laughing and pointing out different costumes they liked. Yenthe was a dead bride, Yenca was a vampire, Laura was catwoman, Claudi was spiderman, only because that was the only costume that fit him, Sophie was a traditional Peruvian dance with this giant costume and metal hat, and I was the mask. My costume was great, and I even had to get my pants custom made because the ones for the costume were too short. You may be asking where is Marcus, but he was not at the party because he was on his way back to Peru from visiting his family. His grandmother had died and he had left for about a month and would return on the 1st of November. There was tons of food at the party, because each family had brought an item to share. My favorite item was the Lomo Saltado, or the Anticuchos, which are skewers with cow heart and potatoes on them.  After eating a dancing, we got out the piñata. Everyone got a turn to hit it, and then Yenca broke part of it, but I had not gotten a turn, so I got to break the rest of it and watch the candy fall to the ground. I got like 2 pieces of candy, and Kris was basically hording all of it for herself. She had a giant container full of it at the end. At the very end of the party, Shirley, the AFS director in Huancayo, announced the winners of the costume contest. Yenthe got third, I got second, and Sophie and her sister placed first because the had the same type of costumes.
         

          On Thursday we went back to the cemetary because it was the Day of the Living. Basically we put more flowers and made the grave look nicer. Then we went to the grave of the mom of Papá. I don't think she is really his mom, because he is her politcal son, which I do not fully understand the meaning of. Anyway, Papá's sister was there along with Lucía's cousins, and we paid a guy to make a flower arrangement and then paid another guy to sing for her. After this we returned the costumes and returned home. Friday and Saturday were pretty boring along with Sunday. On Friday, Peru celebrated the Day of the Dead, and on Sunday we all went out to go to a religious site. There was this tree with a knot in it that resembled a praying woman, and a long time ago, some people say that they saw a giant light from the sky zap into the woman, so now it is religious.
          Once we returned home on Sunday, I went to bed pretty early, and it turned out that I really needed it, because I woke up in the middle of the night with major stomach pains. I was basically up  the rest of the night and then in the morning I could not finish my breakfast and stayed home from school. At around 8 I threw up, and had a fever the rest of the day. I took a bunch of pills for different things, and Mamá prepared herbal tea. I went to bed really early and when I woke up this morning and felt a bit queezy, so I stayed home again from school.
          We finally got internet at the house and I can finally right this blog. For an update after 2 months, I would say that it rains alot, is cold alot, and every single meal my family makes has a full plate, like if they make potatoes, chicken and rice, It will be served along with soup and cold onions and peppers. My spanish is really improving, and homework is being piled on. The worst part is that most of the homework is on the internet, and there are often times that we don't have internet for a couple days in row, so then I am stuck not being able to do it.

Getting ready for holloween!

          So, on Wednesday I found out that out of the 140 kids in the fourth year, I am 95. I am not very happy with this score, but I have three more tests like it to bring up my ranking. I asked a kid in my class, who is really smart and is 11th on the list, to help tutor me for the next tests, so I might get a better score. The good thing about this is that I can basically not go down and there is only room for improvement.
          The rest of the school week was pretty boring. Lucia did not go to school two days of the week, because of college stuff. Remember the exam I told you about that she took last sunday, well she passed it with a 15 out of 20, so she is able to go that college for business. Another college in Lima wants her to take an entrence exam, but that is not until December, and she only had to have a meeting this last week.
          On Thursday, we had geography and my group was supposed to present, but it turns out that we did not have time, and we will present this next thursday, which I do not know what is going to happen since I don't think we have school this thursday or friday. I drew a map of Africa for our group, and another kid in my group painted it, but he did a bad job, so yesterday I ended up making another one. I only have to paint the water. It is looking much better than his.
          Yesterday, I went to the park with the other AFS students to rent the lights and music for the halloween party. After that, Lucia, Claudi, and I went to the costume shop to look for a costume that is good. The shop got my costume in, and it is looking nice, but the pants are way too short, and we do not need the mask, because we are going to paint my face. Later, my family came and we payed for the costume and picked up fabric to make the pants, or give to a tailor to make the pants. We are going to pick up the costume on Tuesday or Wednesday morning, and I can't wait to see how everything looks together.
          This morning Kristel and her school had to march in a parade thing, so we all went to that his morning at around 10, and we just got home. We are now going to eat something small and leave to go somewhere, which I really don't know what it is. All I know is that it is far away, and sitting in a small car squished in between Lucia, Kris and Angela, is not that fun, especailly since the car seat is not that comfortable.Anyway, I am going to make the best of it, and hope it is fun.
          I believe that this week we don't have school on Thursday and Friday, and I might stay home from school on Wednesday to get my costume ready for the night. I will upload a pic of my costume when I get it all together, but right now I have to leave to go out with my family.

Hard week of school!!

          In my last blog I had said that I was going to an AFS event. At the AFS event, all seven AFS kids and at least one family member for each was there, except Marcus. Unfortunately his grandmother died and he was returning to Germany for the funeral and is coming back at the beginning of November. Everyone brought some type of food. We brought bolitas de yuca, Claudi and Laura brought pancakes and apple sauce (which was my favorite because it reminded me of my grandpas applesauce, but was not nearly as good as his), Yenthe brought orange cake with chocolate chips, Sofia brought cookies, Yenca brought this dish with mashed potatoes and chicken and peas and corn, and Shirley, our director, made a cake for everyone. We all ate and talked for the beginning and then about half way through, they put on some music so I started dancing. I was the only one willing to dance in the middle, so then I walked around and just started asking the AFS girls or the Peruvian girls to dance. All of them gave in to my request except one, go me!!!! We ended up dancing Shakira and some other bands that I do not know, and then we all ate the cake at the end. It was really entertaining and tiring. Also, I think I ate way too much, but I don't have a scale to see how much weight I gained.
          This past week of school was really difficult. School is picking up even more and now that we are in the last bimester ( I don't know why it is called a bimester if there are four but that is what they call it) we are getting a ton of homework, and since we just finished the exam week, I have to do corrections for all the tests. For every exam that I get back I have to right down all the questions all the responses and then mark the correct answer. There is a lot of righting here. It is so different from the US. Another difference here, is the amount of memorizing you have to do. For example on Thursday we had Geography. We all got into groups. Then the teacher told us that the group at the end with the highest combined grades will win money (I think this is great idea for anyone from NL with authority). Our first assignment is Africa. We have to memorize all the countries of Africa, their capitals, and populations. Also, each group has to make a poster with the map of Africa. I am in group 1, so I have to do all this with my group for the next Thursday. Homework is another big difference. I get tons of homework, and that is not as much of an exageration as you think. For example, for History, I have to do the correction for my exam, answer 10 questions in my notebook, do a page in out textbook, and using the computer I have to investigate about 5 different groups during the cold war/latin american crisis time period and right about a paragraph for each. All of this is for a week later, and then for the same week I have to do the correction for Physics, investigate about 5 different types of light, do two diagrams about different spectrums, answer an open ended question, and do an organizer for the two types of spectrums. Also, that is only for one class. I have homework for every class except when we have a test or a project.
          This past weekend was, I thought, going to be exciting. On Saturday, we walked around town to try and get my holloween costume for a party with AFS, but it turned out that none of the stores had the costume I wanted and we have to wait until Thursday to get it. Then, on Sunday, I got up early to go to an AFS event, but because Lucía had a college entrance exam, Shirley told us we could wait and go at 10, we would only be an hour late, and the main events would not start until way later. So I went to work on my homework and drawing Africa (I volunteered to do this for my group, because I don't trust that anyone else in my group can do a great job- I am one of those people that like to see things get done right). At around 9:45 I got dressed and went downstairs only to find that everyone else was still getting ready and we only left the house at around 10:30. I then found out that Lucía's exam was until 11:20, and we waited at the university for a half hour. When Lucía finally came, we jumped in the car and drove to Miraflores where the AFS event was to be held. When we got there (at 12:20), all of the AFS kids had already started to play paintball and I had to sit and wait till they finished knowing that I was not going to get to play.
          After paintball, we were all going to eat, but since my family packed a lunch, we sat down to eat and the rest went to get something. After my family finished eating, I walked around Miraflores looking for the others, but had no luck. I then walked down the road about a half mile, and passed four restaurants but the other AFS'ers were not there. We finally ended up leaving and driving home.
          While driving home, my family stopped at a soccer field to play, but my family is not very good at soccer, so that is one of the only reasons it was fun. Also, try having a 5 year old on your team and teaching them to pass it to you, not to use their hands, and to kick it at the goal not pass it to the defence. So much fun!!!!!!!Anyway, I went to bed early because I did not want to be tired for the next day of school
          Today at school, we had a test that I did not know about. This was not just any test, it was the placement test for the next year, to see which room you will be in (basically to see if they will put you with the smart kids or the dumb kids). It was for the first 2 hours of the day, and it was a hundred questions about all the subjects we have learned and will have in the next year. I knew just about nothing, because even the subjects that I am good at, were questions that we will learn how to do in the next year of school. I basically relied on pure luck and guessed on over 60 of them. It was probably the saddest exam that I have ever taken. I think I will be with the dumb kids next year, basically the ones who do not want to try, which for is not what I want because I need to learn here.
          After getting home from school and eating lunch, I began homework and preparing for the next day of school. I think I am going to go to bed early tonight.

Week of exams

          Well, it turns out that about an hour after my last blog last sunday, I fell ill. I had a fever and my stomach was upset, so I ended up sleeping all day sunday. My family was really helpful, and brought me soup and water. Luckily I had brought some Iboprofen with me to Peru, so that helped relieve my fever a bit. After waking up on Monday at around 9:00 I was feeling much better, but I was still a bit queezy. I got up and joined my family for breakfast and then layed down again until lunch. After lunch, I was beginning to feel myself again and was able to join the family in their activities before school started the next day.
          The last week of school was alot different. Four times during the year, the school has a week f exams where for all your major classes you have a big test. There are three tests a day, and the last period of the day is normal. This schedule is nice, because I do not get as much homework, but it means that I have to study every single night for three different classes.
          On Tuesday, I started out with Language, Literature, and Persona. For Literature, I had to memorize two timelines with the characteristics, representatives, and classes of each time period, which, between the two, there were 15 time periods. Because of this, I spent most of monday night and Tuesday morning memorizing for Literature and decided to just wing Language, which after all, it could not be much different than the verb, adverb, and adjective rules in the US, or so I thought. Language turned out to be really difficult, because I had to right a whole bunch of sentences using different aspects of grammar. I basically just tried to use the english grammar and then translate it into spanish. Literature had two parts, which I did not know about, so I think I got a pretty good grade on the time line, but I knew only one or two of the questions from the first part. For Persona, it was basically a bunch of questions about your future and what you need to do to plan for the future, so it was basically all common knowlege, like you need to have goals, and know what you need to do to accomplish those goals, and then what you want the outcome to be.
          On Wednesday, we had Civics, History, and Godgraphy. Civics was kind of difficult because I had to know the all of the basic human rights, like the right to live and the right to a job and the right to a residence. Unfortunately I was not in the school to learn all of those, so I did not know I had to study them and basically I used my bilingual dictionary to help translate the definitions and then come up with an educated guess of what the human right could be. Also, there was not a word box, so I am pretty sure that some of them are close but the wording was wrong, Like for the one I put the right to have an opinion, but I think the corect answer is the right to freedom of speech. For History, I thought I was going to do pretty well because all we had learned was about the second world war and the cold war and the conflicts in Asia. Unfortunately the whole second side was about the Indians in Peru and I did not know any of it. Fortunately it was all true or false, and I could just guess on all of the problems. Geography was I thought easy, but it turned out that I did not read the instructions well and missed out on about 10 points, which out of 20 is a lot.
          Thursday was probably the hardest day up to that point because it was Arithmetic and Trigonometry. For Arithmetic, I did not study because I spent all my time memorizing the formulas for Trig, and it turns out that I did pretty well on the Arithmetic test anyway, but that is just what I think and I have not gotten it back yet. For trig, I though I was going to cry on the test. I fortunately knew all the formulas, but had written some of them wrong. Aparrently + or - is not the same as - or +. After the formulas part, I knew nothing. It was all just tan, sin, csc, and stuff that I did not know how to do. I basically just plugged in the formulas and rewrote the problems and just hoped for a lot of luck. Also, we had a earthquake or fire drill. We all had to run to a side of the room when the alarm wrang and then we all ran out the door and got into circles in the recreation area outside the building. It was really funny, because the people on the fifth floor had actually planned this little demonstation and a couple people put bandages on their heads and arms and then got carried down in a stretcher by these other kids. It was kind of cheesy, but it was comical.
          Friday was the easiest day I thought. We had Algebra and Geometry. Algebra turned out to be more difficult than I thought and I ended up leaving a couple blank. Geometry on the other hand made me feel smart. I knew all the problems and put and answer down for all of them. The only problem that I think I might have gotten wrong was just a stupid mistake.
          On Saturday, in the morning I went back to teach the third graders English, but this time the real teacher was not there, so I was stuck reviewing the insects, animals, fruits, clothing, vegetables, and sports with the kids alone. Despite the fact that I was a little nervous because I did not really know what they had been learning or were supposed to be taught, it was fun. Later in the afternoon, Lucía and I went into town to get a flag for a reunion on sunday. I needed to get a US flag to show or something. I really don't know what it is for. After, we went out as a family to visit my dad's brother. He was really nice, but I was tired, and slept the whole way home. This morning we woke up early to start making an appetizer for the AFS event today, so I was pretty busy earlier. Also, my famiily is makin cerviche right now. It is a dish with raw fish and lemon, so I don't know if I will like it or not. I am excited to try it though.
         

1 month update

          At this time 1 month ago, I was having an orientation in Miami before leaving for Lima. After 1 month, things start to get settled in, school is no longer really weird, even though it is so different. My family is starting to stop acting like I am a new person and that I am part of the family so I am able to do more stuff that one of their kids would be able to do. School is going well, even though there are a few classes that I do not like and a few that I love, but I guess I am going to have to get through it until December, because we have a break from January to February.
          I think that right now, unless anything changes, Geography is my worst favorite class. The teacher is really old, and I can't understand him or his handwriting. Also, though his actions I am getting that he doesn't want to geve extra help to a foreign student, so it is all on me until I can start understanding the class better. Also, there is a lot of memorizing in this school, especially in Geography. We have to memorize all the countries of Asia, their capitals, and their bordering countries and oceans. Talk about difficult. Also, the countries names and stuff are different here. For example, the capital of Russia is Moscú, instead of Moscow, and the country of Turkey is Turquía. So that is a lot to do by next Thursday.
          On Saturday morning, I was invited to help teach an English Class for third graders in the primary section of my school. At around 8:30 we left for the school, and when I got to the class there were about 10 kids sitting in the room. I introduced myself, and then got two papers. One was a wordsearch for items of clothing, and the other was for sports. I just had to write all the words on the board, and then pronounce them fr the kids so they could repeat it. For the sports I even drew pictures of the fields and courts that are used for the sport. It was actually really easy and fun, because all the kids were really interested in what I was doing. I felt really appreciated and was even asked to come back the next Saturday.
          Well besides school, my life is going pretty well. I am making lots of friends, and I am really enjoying my life here. On Tuesday, Claudi got sick with a stomach infection and left school early. The doctor said that we will be out until Tuesday. If you don't remember who Claudi is, he is a German kid in my school wth AFS. So besides feeling bad for him, we could not go to the mall and see a movie as planned this weekend, so we invited Laura, another Geman kid here in Huancayo. Unfortunately, due to misscomunication, we ended up not being able to schedule a time, and Lucía and I went to the mall alone. We saw this movie called The Watch, which I forget the neme in Spanish, but it was funny. Ben Stiller, Jonah Hill, Vince Vaughn, and Richard Ayoade stared in the film about a Neighborhood watch. Lucía and I were laughing the whole time.
          After the movie we bought ice cream from this really nice ice cream place in the mall. I got Fresca chip, and Choco maní, which was strawberry chip and chocolate peanut ice cream. It was really good, I am going to try and taste all the flavors, instead of just sticking with one and coninually getting that kind. After we ate our ice cream, we realized that we had forgotten to eat dinner, and so we bought pizza from pizza hut to eat, It was definitely not better than the kind in the US. It had way less chease, and the dough was really sweet. After we finished, we had to walk 8 blocks to where my dad and mom were waiting to pick us up, so I fell asleep in the car and at home, I died in my bed after a really long day.
          I woke up on Sunday really late, and after eating breakfast, took another really cold shower, the water just doesn't get hot. Because of a holiday tomorow, we do not have school, so I am excited to get some rest. School really gets you tired with the language and the material.

Parties and more parties

          Yesterday, we had this big event planned where we would make a big meal. Two German exchange students here, Claudi and Laura, came over and brought ingredients to make a German meal. My sister, Claudi's sister, and Laura's sister planned to make a Peruvian meal, and I was going to make the dessert. At 11:30, Claudi, Laura, and their sisters came over to our house. Immediately we all started making our food. Cladui and Laura had vegetables, potatoes and meat to make their version of Shishkabobs, and Lucía and the other girls were going to make Papas de Huacallina (I think that is how you spell it). It is basically cooked potatoes that you cool down and cover with a spicy chease sauce and a hard-boiled egg. Everyone was cutting up their vegetables and cooking their food. The kitchen was really small, but it was fun.
          I got out my ingredients to make the dessert. I was going to make M&M cookies. I had everything I neede except that the brown sugar was more like sugar in the raw, because we could not find any like the kind we use in the US. The most difficult part was measuring the ingredients with a tea cup band estimating a cup or a cup and a quater. My family did not have any measuring cups. Once it was all mixed up, it looked like the cookie batter that I have made before and it even tasted good, but baking was a whole different story. After converting the oven temperature to celsius, and I had to light the oven with a spark, and then let it heat up. The recipe said that it took about 8-10 minutes to bake, but because of the altitude and the stove being on at the same time it took more like 25 minutes for each batch. But the cookies turned out great. They were flatter than usual, probably because of the brown sugar issue, or the fact that I used self rising flour, but they tasted great.
          Once everyone had the food ready, we sat down to eat. There were 9 of us at a 5 person table, so it was tight, but it was fun to talk with all of the friendly people. The Peruvian dish was really good. It was spicy, but it was nice. Next we had mashed potatoes, carrots and brocolli, and the shishkabobs, that had beef, onions, and peppers. It was really good, but it was a lot of food. Along with all the food we had Chi chi morada, the purple corn drink that I like. I think that that meal was the best I have had. After the meal, we all had shots of wine. Even my 4 year old niece drank some, but she did not like it very much.
          After the meal, we all went into the living room and turned on the sterio. We all danced for about 2 hours and ate cookies and drank Inca-Cola. Afterwards, we played cards (yeah for spoons and go fish) and this game called the blind rooster. Basically one person puts on a blind fold and tries to tag somebody. At around 6:30 we all piled into my dad's 5 passenger car to go to Anel's house. She is the sister of Claudi. We had 8 people in a 5 passenger car. It was really tight.
          At Anel's house, there was even more food. It had been Anel's birthday on Wednesday, so we were all celebrating. Claudi loves strawberries so there wer tons of strawberries there, which is great because I like them too. After eating a little, we turned on the stereo and danced around. There is this really popular song called Gangnam Style. This Korean rapper sings and has this really cool way of dancing. It is really fun. After a while, we all played this game called the cat and the rat. Everyone sits in a circle and there are two ties that are given to two people across from eachother. For the tie with the cat on it, you have to put it over your neck and tie one knot, clap your hands twice and then untied the knot and pass it to the person next to you. For the other tie, you have to tie two knots and clap once, and then pass it. The goal is to not be the person to end up with both ties. You have to do this as fast as possible. There were a lot of people there and at the end we even had a giant chocolate cake. It was the best chocolate I have had from Peru, but it still was very different. The chocolate is not as rich and the cake is harder. They also have this tradition where they smash the head of the birthday person into the cake. It was really funny. Lucía and I left at around 10:00 to go home, because we were really tired.
          At home, I fell straight asleep, after a long and very entertaining day. I only woke up this morning at like 9:00, which is really late here. I think that is the most food I have had in one day.

School and Spanish

          School is starting to pick up tremendously. I have a lot of homework and so much I want to do instead. After my second week of school I can definitely tell which classes I like and which I don't. Also, I can tell which classes are hard out of your mind and which are fun. Trig and Geography are going to be difficult, and the other maths are going to be alot of work. Computers, English, and Gym are going to be fun I believe, and Tutoria and Plan lector are going to be fairly easy. I have to say that Literature is a lot of writing, and Language is difficult because the teacher has me do special things in order to help my Spanish.
          English is a interesting class because the teacher know English, but his pronunciation is not very good. The weird thing is that he has me do everything in Spanish which is directly opposite of what we should be doing. That is the equivelent of me doing all my other classes in english, so find that kind of frustrating. Also, all the other kids ask me a lot of questions about translations and pronunciation, especially right before a test.
          Gym is really fun, because I am good at it. On Friday we had a little test where we had to count how many times we could juggle a soccer ball. I got the third highest in the class with 39, the other two got 40. I also enjoy the games we do. The boys all divide into three teams and play soccer. My team won on Friday. I scored three goals, and had two assists.
          In computers we used this CAD program to build the first story of a house. The program is in english, so I learned it pretty quickly. I really enjoy doing stuff like that on the computer so it was really enjoyable. Geography is really difficult. I have to memorize the countries of Asia with their capitals, population, and bordering countries and oceans. All in two weeks. That will be difficult.
          I actually got some grades back. The maximum is 20 and the minimum is 0, so I don't know how they calculate the grades, but most of the assignments we have had have been ten or twenty problems. In physics I got a 10 on a test that I did not know was a test until he told us to pass it to the person on our right to grade. I had only done three problems out of the ten, so I don't know how I got ten, but maybe some of them were worth more than others. In Lenguage I got a twenty on an assignment about adverbs. I had to fill in the blanks to complete sentences. I also took three more tests last week that I have not gotten grades back on, but I think I did well on them because I knew they were tests. My Spanish is really improving fast, but I keep messing up on the forms of the verbs and the indirect and direct objects. I think I am doing well though. My sister says that I will be fluent in a month and a half, so I hope she is right. She said that I am better than some of the other exchange students in the past years with how they are improving and how much they knew when they first came. So fingers crossed that she is right.

Huatapallana

          I got up at 5:15 on Saturday morning to go to Huatapallana with the other AFS kids in my area. We arrived at a park to get on the bus, and we left at around 7:00 once everyone arrived. We drove a bit and stopped at a little store to buy any snacks that we needed and these large plastic sheets for this to slide down the mountain. I got a gatorade which I was hoping would help with the long hike. Th drive up to the base of the mountain was very narrow and windy, But our driver had down it many times before, so he was very experienced. We saw a lot of beautiful scenery including a bunch of llamas on the mountain.
          Once we arrived at the base of the mountain there was this little hut that we were all going to eat in after the hike. Our tour guide and us started up the mountain and we stopped at this grouping of rocks about 3 minutes up. He told us that we had to do this ritual which I can not really tell about because of the people who might be reading this, but lets just say it involved water, leaves, and smoke. Once we finished this, we continued our hike which was fairly easy at the beginning. We climbed up mountain after mountain and we walking on paths maybe a foot and half wide at parts. We kept walking and walking and walking with multiple stops to wait up the slow ones in the back. There were many parts that were almost straight up and almost tore your legs off. But after about 3 hours we finally got to this section of rocks and ice called Huatapallana. There was ice everywhere, like walls of it, and we stopped to rest. I thought Huancayo was high up, but this was really high up. You had to stop and breath for a bit almost every five minutes at steep parts, because your heart felt like it was beating 10 times to fast.
          At Huatapallana,  we belayed down into this area and walked over this big rocks to this mountain side that was all ice and snow. We climbed up the steep part using a rope and walked another 200 yards up the mountain side on ice and snow. This was really difficult on your eyes because of the sun reflecting off the snow, and also you had to go really slow so you would not fall.We finally got up to the top where we could slide, so we got out the plastic sheets we had bought and slid down. We were able to slide about 100 yards. It was really fun, but tiring walking up the ice and snow to sled again. We did this for about 30 minutes, and then we had to go. Going down the ice and snow was even more difficult. I fell once and slid about 10 feet which was really scary, but eventually we all got down and back to Huatapallana.
          The trip back to the base of the mountain was easier on your lungs, but it was colder and more windy. I had my wool hat wrapped around my head and my hands in my pockets, and just kept putting one step after another. The guide decided to take a shortcut to save an hour which involved going dwn into the valley, and then almost straight up the mountain. I really did not like the ending because we had been walking for 6 hours and now we had to walk up a steep part to finish.
          We finally got back to the base and everyone collapsed. We were all cold, damp, and tired. After waiting for about a half hour, the rest of the crew arrived, and we ate lunch. The food was not very hot because of how cold it was, but it was food. During the meal, we all played games like whisper down the lane and names of ______. This was really fun and it took our mind off of how cold it was. We finally got in the van to leave at around 6:00 and the three Germans were singing german songs for the whole trip down the windy road.
          After we were almost back to the park, we had a flat tire. So all of us had to get out of the van and stand in the back, but we played games and sang songs for the hour and a hlf we had to wait. It was so much fun.
          We finally returned to the park where we were all picked up by our parents, but we were all really tired because of the very long day. I got back to the house at 8:30, and went straight to bed. I only got up this morning at 10:30.
          I have to say, the hike to Huatapallana and back was the most difficult thing I have ever done, but it was the best 20 bucks I have ever spent, even though I would never do it again.

First week of school

          My first week of school went pretty well. We had a total of 18 different classes throughout the week. After my Trigonometry on Tuesday, I really wanted some easier classes that I could actually learn in. Luckily, my classes on wednesday were really nice.  started out with Physics which was all about megnets. The teacher was really nice, and used a lot of diagrams which were easy to draw in my notebook. Language was next, which was really interesting because there were presentations about verbs. I did not have to do anything, and the teacher is really nice. She helped me with different greetings and slautations for different types of people like teachers, friends, and family. Also, she gave me special homework which will help me with my Spanish. After our lunch break, we had more math, but it stated with Geometry again, which again was really fun and easy, and we finished the day with Arithmetic, which I had never taken before, but was really interesting because it was all about logic and using your brain alot along with formulas.
          Thursday was not much better, but it stated out with English which was really nice. The teacher had me read some of the words so that all the other kids could repeat them. He said that I could pronounce them better then him because I my first language was English. Also, he gave me the choice of helping other kids with English, or translating English to Spanish. That class was really fun and I actually learned more Spanish because when he would say a new word to the kids in English he would give the Spanish equivalent which I often had not heard before. Next was Biology which I really did not like because he had me copy all the homework from the wekk before which I had not learned, and then checked it for a grade, so I do not know how that is learning but oh well. We had our lunch break which was probably the best I have had so far. There was a soccer game between my class and another, so I was excited to play. I sat on the bench to start, but after the other team scored a goal everyone on the siedeline started screaming to get me in the game, and one kid actually pulled a kid off the field and pushed me on. The same thing happened to Claudi, so we both got to play which was pretty awesome. I almost scored a goal too. Our next class was Plan Lector, after the game. In this class we basically read a book the whole time as a class. The teacher even made me read a small section, so that really helped my pronunciation skills even though I was really nervous. The next class was called tutoria which I really don't know what the class is about because we basically talked about goals for the future and what can help and hinder those goals. But the teacher is really nice and wants me to make a powerpoint about my life in the US. We finished up Thursday with Geography which so far is one of my worst favorite classes becuase the teacher muffles his words, and does not write a bunch on the board, but instead has us write what he says, which because of his muffling is very difficult, so I did not get a bunch of notes in that class even though I should have.
          Friday was a short day because Saturday was a holiday called Dia de la Juventud, or Youth Day. We had Biology again, which was not much better then the day before. After that, we had gym which was really fun. We started out doing soccer drills, which the teacher had me help out with because I was good at passing. Then we played a game which I got an assist in. I really like gym class. Angela came and to pick Lucía and I up from school after that.
          My first week of school was really interesting, with ups and downs. I like some classes and did not like others, but either was it was a good week.