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.