Festina Lente

I’ve been told over and over again that you have your good days and your bad days in Peru as a PCVolunteer. The last two have been great ones; woke up early to go for a run with my little brother who, incidentally, runs faster than me. Had some eats and made a really nice necklace with some beads I bought in Chiclayo; the tiny and mostly subdued artsy/creative side of me has really blossomed here. I had a lunch invitation with one of the professors/directors of the local high school which was really enjoyable. I was able to maintain a two hour long conversation about politics, religion, history, food, everything imaginable with an intelligent Peruvian. Hooray! I went on a short hike thereafter with one of the artisans named Cesar and one of his friends, Neil, to a great spot where you can see all of Tucume. Dinnered with the family and then headed over to one of the futbol fields where they put on something called a Serenata which is sort of a preamble to a day of fiesta. Kids from local schools as well as local dance groups performed various regional dances of Peru, from the jungle to the sierra and back. Today is the anniversary of the birth of Federico Villareal who is a famous Tucumenean and was born 157 years ago. There was a parade and kids from schools from all over Tucume and beyond came to march, or desfilar. I am not certain on this, but I think the Germans were here back in the 30s and while (LUCKILY) none of the anti-Semitism remains, I believe that is where the marching comes from. It was really cool to watch kids of all ages do their marches and there was even a competition for best marchers. I didn’t take any shots of the marching today but have plenty from the dancing last night and will try to post some videos so be sure to check out all the phat pictures on my picasa site as well as those from graduation.

One other interesting tidbit; there is a girl here named Jessica who is German and is working with the Parish. She arrived last month and is staying for a year. From what I’ve gathered, her Dad is friends with the priest here, and she is working with the church in community development. She also teaches German in the Parish school. We met briefly last night and talked today about developing some sort of curriculum to teach out in the much poorer casarios (small communities outside of Tucume) which would be really exciting. It is really odd to converse with someone in a second language when it is also their second language. She knows a little English, but we pretty much just speak in Spanish. As you can imagine, it is hard to manage another second language here; I have trouble remembering English sometimes and my Italian is abysmal at present. So for her, it is easier to speak in Spanish than English, even though she knows both. In any case, this was an unexpected but VERY welcome development. I’m really excited she is here and I can’t wait to work together. While we are from different organizations we have pretty similar goals for our time in Peru (she will stay for one year, I’ll stay for two).

Tonight we both were invited to a twenty-fifth reunion of the high school here by the professor I lunched with, named Oscar. It was really cool to attend a high school reunion in Peru! There were lots of speeches and lots of dancing, which makes it impossible to distinguish this fiesta from every other one I’ve attended. Nevertheless, people were really happy to see each-other and really emotional, and I feel lucky to have been a part of it. I spent a good fifteen minutes in front of my house tonight banging on the door trying to wake someone up to let me in, I do not feel lucky to have been a part of that but I think my host Mom was cool with it anyways.