Festina Lente

New Years made me realize how much I miss rap music. And all my friends and family. Mostly, though, rap music. Here is how NY goes down in Peru: at 11:48 you start eating grapes. Twelve, to be exact, one each minute up until midnight. So, you’ve got your countdown. Then, you burn a doll. People stuff clothes with straw and fireworks, paint or draw someone’s face on it (typically a soccer player), and set it afire at midnight. So, you’ve got your fireworks. Then it’s on to dinner, though first some people step out with an empty suitcase to take a stroll around the park. I don’t really know what the equivalent of that would be in the states. Dinner is a big meal, once again: turkey, chicken, or pig, along with panettone, empanadas and hot chocolate. Did I mention you are supposed to do all of this wearing yellow underwear? Yellow for luck, green for bling bling, red for love. Then you get to dancing and drinking (I got to dancing, no more) and this is where the rap music comes in. I’m sure he is, like, so 2007, but I miss a little Lil’ Wayne in my life. And a lot of T.I. I actually do like Peruvian music, but I miss my beats from back home.

So now it is 2008, which means I’m into my second of three calendar years in Peru, with more than seven months behind me. I’m feeling good, and understanding, now, why it is a two year commitment. You just can’t get anything done in the first few months because you are too busy trying to figure out what is going on around you. Seven of 27 months completed seems like a lot. That is of my total time in Peru. Four of 24 months still seems like a small dent if that, referring to my actual time in site. Time flies, or crawls, depending on whether its a good day or a bad day. But, at the least, I can always pop on my iPod and pump tha Carter to make all my woes seem far away.