Fun Fact No. 40: Line Dancing. There is this Brazilian genre called toadas here, and people line dance to it. No fooling. Seriously, long lines of samba-like stuff that´s not entirely samba. But fun! Hard to get all the moves down though...
Sorry, folks, for being off the radar for so long. I´ve received many a complaint about the infrequency of my blogging as of late, and I hope to rectify that starting now. More news:
1. I finally passed my driver´s test. Long process, btw. First the medical exam, which I managed to fail the vision part because I´m legally blind in my right eye. After showing the doc my driver´s license from my country (to drive a CAR and not a motorcycle), somehow he let me off the hook. Then was the written part. Waste of time, but after listening to a boob talk about dames on bikes and scratch himself all day, I got a 17 out of 20 on the exam. Then the hard part: the driver´s test. You have to zip in and out of 5 orange cones without putting your foot down or touching the cones. And each cone is only a motorcycle length apart. I failed the first time - I put my foot down with about 24 inches left to go. Grrrrrr!!! Plus there was a huge crowd that cheered and booed and hissed and laughed and it was rather distracting. Go Peru! The second time I took it, only 2 days later, I whipped right on through. And then I had to do the around the block with the instructor on the back of my bike part, which was a breeze. I now have my motorcycle´s license. Hip hip hooray! Halfway legal!
2. I moved into the house. It´s so luxurious and beautiful and my room is almost as big as my entire apartment in Austin. I live with the most laid back, wonderful people who are just easy to live with and to be around. César and Graciela and a Spaniard named Alejandro. We get along like 4 peas in a pod, and it´s relaxing and just the peace I needed. And no one knows where I live, save my family. A huge relief!
3. Mariela, Michael O´Brien´s best friend from Buenos Aires, just got here today. She is an absolute peach and we are having so much fun. She´s of course staying at my house and she is a smiling ball of wonderful energy, and I just love having her.
4. It was hard to admit but I haven´t been honest with you all. I was really unhappy there for a while, and didn´t write because I didn´t want the unhappiness to be real. It blew. But things are looking up. My field work is getting under way again, and I am feeling a lot calmer at the new house, although I do go visit my old house often. I miss it a bit, but nothing beats the peace I have now.
5. I love to dance. I know this about myself, but my love to dance has only grown by a thousand since being here in Peru. I´ve gotten much better and now I can´t wait until Friday when I can go dancing again. I´m a dancing fool, I tell you, fool!
6. Carnival was nuts. People throw paint, mud, rotten eggs, fish water, achote (a red seed that stains your clothes) and pichohuayo (a stinky seed that just stinks). At the end of the day, I was so disgusting and filthy but in a good way. It was really exhilerating to just be dirty and gross and to dance with friends and be nutty. We erected a huge úmisha, which is a palm tree woven to accommodate a million different little trinkity things that you tie to it. Then we drink, dance around the úmisha, and eventually cut it down so that everyone can divebomb the gifts and take them home. I can´t tell you the amount of fun!!!
2 comments:
so glad you're back on the radar! and wow, can you please teach us how to make that pinata tree? xoxo
Hooray!
By the way, those gorgeous earrings arrived today, and your lovely card. That was so sweet and thoughtful of you! Thank you very much.
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