November where did you go?

I cannot believe it has been almost an entire month since my last post.  The main reason I have no written is because it had been even longer since I wrote in my Spanish blog so I wouldn't let myself write here until I updated that one which I only just did today.  Anyhow, November has been a pretty good month, although I have definitely been getting more anxious to go home.  I still love Peru but after 4 months here I definitely miss my friends and family and I am excited to go home and visit everyone.  Also, I decided a few weeks ago to stay in Peru next semester, so I don't have to be sad about leaving since I know I am coming back.  More on this later.

Pics from when Mom came:

Dancing the Alcatraz - look it up on Youtube - great dance!

Mom and I at Larcomar (as super nice mall that I refer to as gringolandia)

Me and my host parents, Rosa and Abraham

Mama and I at the zooooo!  Beautiful spring day!

This week was the last week of class and the coming week I have finals, so I have been pretty busy lately.  Last weekend I went on a trip to the north near Piura to a town called Cerromocho.  My friend Mary's family lives there (Teo, Mary's sister who used to work as the maid in my house left and now lives there).  Mary has 12 brothers and sisters and she is the youngest at age 27.  Most of her siblings are married and have children.  Her brother Santos just got married, which is why I went to Cerromocho for the weekend - Mary invited me to come to the wedding.  In a way there were two weddings because here in Peru when you get married it is common to have both a civil wedding and church wedding.  It seemed like the church part was not too important to Mary's family because a bunch of them did not attend the mass.  I was very surprised that the mass was not a special mass just for the wedding but rather a normal mass that everyone in the town attended, wearing their normal clothes.  Having your own private ceremony attended only by friends and family is such an integral part of a wedding in the U.S. so it was strange to me to be at a mass that included a marriage, two baptisms and confirmation all in one.  After the mass, the party began at Mary's house.  First there was the civil wedding, which consisted of the mayor of the town coming to the house and the bride and groom once again making their vows.  Following that everyone danced with the bride and groom and then there was a while for picture taking.  From there the party raged on until 6am, with much drinking, eating, and dancing.  The music was WAY too loud for my sensitive ears, but I just accepted it because I really could not do much about it.  I stayed up dancing until about 5am when my back and feet started hurting and I was so exhausted that I had no dance left in me.  It was definitely a challenge to escape the party though because all the men wanted to dance with me and as soon as one song ended, the next one would begin and some other guy would insist on me dancing with him.  The music was all cumbia, a music genre that comes from Columbia.  I definitely had a blast!  The strangest thing about being there was that I was the only one who was not Peruvian and most of the people in Cerromocho had never met a "gringa" before so I was kinda like a celebrity - I even had a couple guys ask to take pictures with me.  Also, something I forgot to mention is that in order to arrive in Sullana, the big town nearest Cerromocho, I had to take a 16-hour bus ride which is just way too long if you ask me!  The way there wasn't so bad though because I didn't have anyone sitting next to me so I had a lot of space to get comfortable.  I was not so fortunate on the way back, but it was worth it.

Santos and Jenny, the bride and groom!  So cute!

so that you have an idea of Peruvian parties, this is the beer supply for the occasion... 60 boxes times 12 bottles per box = 720 bottles of beer, and not the size that most people drink at home, I think each bottle is a liter?

Teo, Mary and me.  I should have gotten a picture the previous night when we were all dressed up, but it was hard to have my camera with me with all the dancing.

Thursday was an interesting since Thanksgiving is not celebrate here and honestly it doesn't really feel at all like late November here.  The students in my program organized a big Thanksgiving feast, with all of us pitching in for turkey and everyone bringing a dish to share.  We also invited all of our host families, so we ended up with a group of about 90 people.  It was really cool to share Thanksgiving with our host families because they have taught us so much about their culture, so it was fun to share piece of ours.  Since my host parents are out of town (in the U.S. until Dec. 10), I invited my aunt Margot who has been staying in the house with me and cooking all my meals.  I had a lovely time, but it definitely was not the same...  I am glad that I will actually be home for Christmas - missing Thanksgiving is one thing but missing Christmas would not be so cool.  After the Thanksgiving party Laura, Sarah, Megan and I went to see New Moon - you know, the silly twilight movie - which was of course ridiculous, causing me to laugh practically the entire time.  Low quality, high entertainment value.  :-)  I also had one of the most embarrassing moments ever when I bought a smoothie and walked away forgetting to pay for it so an employee had to chase me down.  I was pretty much mortified, but I had been talking with Sarah and I just completely forgot!  Writing it here I still feel embarrassed, I almost don't even want anyone to read about it...  haha  Larcomar, the mall where we went to see the movie is now decked out in Christmas decorations and playing american christmas music.  I got super excited because it doesn't feel anywhere near Christmas here.  That was like a first glance at Christmas and it also made me laugh because all the songs were singing about the frigid weather and snow, which of course makes sense in the U.S. but here in Peru every day is getting hotter.

my aunt margot and I at Thanksgiving!

Last night I went to my friend Ernesto's church for a small group/Bible study and then afterward there was a gathering of all the young people (college age/20s ish) that they apparently have every Saturday.  We sang a bunch of worship songs which was fantastic and then the pastor of young people gave a message.  I thought he was a good speaker, but the funny thing was that I had heard the exact sermon that he gave before.  I'm pretty sure I heard it my Sunday school class last fall when we were watching John Piper sermons.  I didn't mind hearing it again though because it is a really good sermon.  I am hoping to get more involved in this church since I have a whole nother semester in Peru.  As mentioned above, next semester I will be staying in Peru instead of going to Jordan as I originally planned.  Many factors went into this decision and it was a very difficult one to make as I am still extremely interested in the Middle East, Arabic, and Islam.  However, I definitely do not think I will regret my decision to stay here another semester.  I am really excited for it actually because I think it will be easier to get more involved now that the language barrier is like 90% less than it was when I arrived and I am familiar with the university and the city.  I will be living with the same host family, which will be great and especially exciting with a new family member once my host sister has her baby girl in January.  Things will probably also be crazier, seeing as they are already pretty crazy with two little kids in the house.  And Diego is almost able to open my door, which means next semester I am going to have to make sure to keep things up high instead of laying around where he can play with them.  AHHHHHH!

Today I went to a soccer game!!!  As you probably know soccer is really popular in Latin America (and basically every in the world except the U.S. where we prefer that silly game that involves smacking into people....) so it is only natural that we would go to at least one game here.  The game was la U vs. Huancayo. Apparently the U has already qualified (I don't know for what) so the game wasn't really all that important and the stadium was far from packed but there were still a bunch of die hard fans and it was an enjoyable time.  It made me itch so bad to play soccer.  Giving up all the sports I used to play has always been difficult.  I have my tennis racket here but I have not had the opportunity to play all semester because I do not know anyone to play with.  Tennis is not a very big sport here in Peru.  After playing almost every single day this summer for 1-2 hours it has been torturous to not play for sooo long.  Hopefully I will get to play when I get home!!!  Last night I had an interesting dream which I would summarize by saying it included all my cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents, my grandmother's piano, and milk.  I interpret this dream as my subconscious expressing that I am excited to go home.  My family, of course, I miss a whole lot, especially since I couldn't be there for Thanksgiving.  My piano is another thing I miss because I played a ton this summer and I love playing.  The milk part of the dream may seem strange, especially since I have never really liked milk.  However, they do not have normal milk here (well they probably do somewhere but not in my house) but instead they has evaporated milk which just is not the same.  And I drink a lot milk at home, so I was thinking the other day that I am excited for fresh milk.

I really need to vent for a moment about the library system here.  I hate it.  It is such a pain because you can only check out books for 4 days! 4!  That is not enough!  Given, most students check out books and make copies of the parts they need, or maybe even the whole book.  But I would rather just have the book, especially if I am not sure what part I need.  In addition I hate that I cannot go to the shelves and leaf through the books.  Only the librarians can take the books off the shelves, so you have to actually check a book out to look at it.  And the books are all separated into different libraries based on specialty. AKA each faculty of the university has its own library so you can't just go to the central library and expect to find your books there.  Another problem I have is that if you return your book late, even if only by one day, they block your card for two weeks so that you cannot check out books, instead of fining you which seems like a much more logical punishment to me and would be much more beneficial to the library.  In addition, you cannot renew books during exams weeks which I did not know so during partial exams I returned a book a day late because they wouldn't let me renew it which caused my card to be blocked which meant I couldn't get any books and I had an assignment to do so I had to make a friend check out a book for me so I could make copies of it and complete my assignment.  UGH!  I did get excited though when I caught a glance of the computer screen behind the desk one day and noticed that they use the same program to check out books that we use at the GEPL!  Good ol' GEPL how I miss you!  Oh and another thing about the library here is that every single book has writing and underlining in it.  The books are generally not in very good condition.  So frustrating.  OK, glad to get that out of my system.

Interesting fact:  the term for soul mate here is media naranja which means half orange.  I'm not really sure how that phrase originated but I like it!

Questions? Comments?  Exciting news to tell me?  I would love to here from you!  Haha, I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving!  Hopefully I will be posting more after this coming week once I am done with classes.  I won't really have anything else to do so writing in my blog shouldn't be too taxing :-)