18.12.2011 (yep, that's how they write dates here)

Happy Birthday baby brother!  I can’t believe you’re 21, I hope you have a fun and safe birthday.  I know those Spartans are professional partiers-so you will be taught well.

This past week was pretty slow for the most part.  The director of the primary school and I went into Bambamarca to present an official solicitud to the municipality (or local government)-basically it is a very formal long document presenting a plan on how the schools in my community would like to have a summer school program and asking for funding from the mayor of Bamba.  Summer vacation here for the students is December through the end of February, and I am signed up to teach English classes 20 hours per week for the months of January and February (if we get the funding, which they have been getting for the past 4 years).  I was really excited to go into the municipality learn my way around and see how the system worked.  However, it turned out that the mayor kept us waiting, and when he finally did call in the director to present the solicitud I was somehow left out of it all.

I also did a search for the elusive Serpost of Bambamarca.  I had heard from plenty of people in my community and in Bambamarca itself that there is in fact a Serpost office.  Everyone seemed to know that it existed, but no one had ever used it or knew where it was.  I did a search on Wednesday and I found it, but it isn’t really a real post office.  It turned out to be this lady’s house with a ‘Serpost’ sign hung up above the door.  From what I can understand after talking with this woman is that once a month she personally drives any official municipality mail to Cajamarca city.  She cannot receive mail and she cannot take my mail for me with the mail she takes in once a month, but she insists that she is still a Serpost.  Anyhow, I was really frustrated and I will try to ride into Chota more so I can send my letters-sorry for all the super late responses.  It was an overall very Peruvian experience; super inefficient, confusing, and left me laughing to myself.

Friday was a big day in my town.  It was promociones at the primary school (or 6^th grade graduation, next year the go to the secondary school effectively 7^th-12^th grade) and the whole town celebrated.  During the day there was a ceremony which ended up starting about 2 hours late, because of all the rain.  The girls and boys that were graduating all wore salmon colored dresses and collared shirts.  The girls wore little heels and their hair was all done up with glitter and ringlets.  Finally we got to eat lunch at 3pm.  With all the rain it was difficult to coordinate a space to feed everyone; usually everyone eats outside they told me.  At lunch we all received a mountain of rice and potatoes with half a guinea pig per person.  I got the head half of the cuy and I had to trade with someone else at the table.  The guinea pigs where splayed open on the bellies with the paws out and the trouble with the head half was that it still had all it’s teeth AND remnants of whiskers!  I couldn’t do it and I had to swap.  The meat does taste really good, but the whiskers and face got me.

After the gigantic lunch we went back outside for photos and to start the drinking circles.  In Peru there is a very particular way that people drink.  The first rule is that it is not okay to drink out of the bottle; you must always use a cup to pour your beer into.  To start off the circle the first person pours themselves a cup of beer, passes the bottle to the person on their left, gives a ‘salud’ to the person on their left and drinks their cup of beer, and shakes the foam onto the ground before passing the cup left as well.  If the drinking circle is more traditional the men have to pour for the women in the circle.  Anyhow the whole drinking circle thing is a lot like taking beer shots and there is no end in sight.  Until they run out of beer you just keep going and for the promociones it seemed like an unlimited supply.  I ended up ducking out after about 2 hours of drinking circle, because I was getting worried I might barf my guinea pig and I was beyond worrying about being rude at that point.

The party didn't stop though.  It kept going all evening and through the night.  I went back later in the evening for the dancing with my host sister Diani.  When we first got there at around 9pm it was like being transported back to a middle school dance; everyone in town had shown up, there was live music, and everyone was standing alone the edges of the cement courtyard that was to be he dance floor just staring at each other, absolutely no one was making the first move to dance.  I got waved over to yet another drinking circle and after sitting for a while I talked a really drunk older man who I'm pretty sure works at the high school to dance with me.  We were the only ones who danced for about another hour or so, but I had a really fun time.  The caretaker at the primary school Whilmer; whom I privately called Hagrid, taught me how to properly dance Huayno.  I had a lot of fun. Next time there is a dance I'm planning on bringing some American music and teaching the electric slide/ the hussle (are they really different???), thriller, and I also have a copy of the cupid shuffle.

***Mail call: Thank you for all the lovely letters and packages!

Nana-I got your letter and the candy canes/necklace package

Mom, Dad, Eric, Jess-got all the packages and the letters, I am pumped to start reading Eric's book

Aunt Linda and Uncle Mike -thank you for the sweet cards

Aunt Vivian- thank you for the thoughtful note

Babu and Beepa-thank you for all the loot!

Allison K.- I got that last letter you sent, thank you. 

Okay, so I am going to try my very best to get more pictures up.  I have a lot of them and it takes forever to download, but another volunteer told me there is a trick where you reduce the size and it's easier.