Easter Weekend

Easter weekend was pleasant and relaxing. We did a lot of sleeping in and napping this past weekend and I can't complain at all! On Friday we took a little trip to the beach in Chorrillos and enjoyed the sun. It was a bit chilly though so I stayed out of the water. It has to be really hot for me to want to get in the water. Marco also cut his foot on the rocks so I am glad I steered clear. We shared some chicharron de pescado (fried fish) and ceviche that were both so so. It was nice to get out and get some fresh air though!

On Saturday we enjoyed a cilindrada as they call it. It is when you barbeque meat inside a metal barrel. It is kind of funny because it is what a regular grill with a top would do but grills here are not typically sold with tops. Weird, I know. It was delicious needless to say. It was really fun to hang out with Marco's military buddies. This particular friend didn't become a good friend until last year. He is in a different specialty than my husband but they are from the same graduating class. It is not as common to see promos (graduating classmates) from different specialties hanging out a lot but it is actually really nice. There is definitely a bond among the promos in the same specialty but there will always be a rivalry because everyone is competing for rank eventually. There is no competition between promos of different specialties and it makes for a much more relaxed friendship all the time. I think Marco is realizing what I figured out after 4th grade. It is always nice to have various groups of people to hang out with so that your world doesn't come crashing down if one group starts to loose its flavor for you (or the other way around).

Sunday concluded our weekend and we made dinner together. We didn't ever make it to mass. I am not complaining because I am not Catholic but we did watch a fair amount of Christian movies that were playing on TV all weekend. I think we got our fair share of Christ's resurrection. My job gave us bread for jueves santo (holy Thursday). It was supposed to represent the body of Christ. It was delicious. I have never taken communion bread but I highly doubt it tastes anything like what we had on Thursday morning. Mmm mmm! I like what Jesus represents (love) so I have no problem eating some blessed bread.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. My mother sent us a package for egg hunting and dying but I haven't been able to get it yet. We will have to do some egg dying a little late. I am going to make it a tradition though. It is super fun. It is not as common for people to do egg hunts here. Easter is becoming more commercialized in Peru and you can find chocolate eggs for sale but it is nothing like it is in the States. It is still a lot more religious to most folks. However, a lot more people who are supposedly Catholic tend to travel during the weekend instead of going to church. No judgement here but it is an interesting trend.

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Holy Week and other Exciting News!

I have great news!! Marco received his visa to visit the United States and it is valid for 10 years! Hurray!! This is very exciting and well-deserved. The last time he tried to get a visa he was denied. We weren't married at the time and his civil status was questionable but now everything is ship shape and we are headed to the United States in July!! My cousin is getting married in North Carolina and we are going to road trip around the midwest and the mid atlantic. I cannot wait. I have already started planning and tickets have been bought. USA here we come!!

On Saturday Marco and I celebrated 38 months. Yeah, we celebrate mesarios. We slept in and then went to mass at my school. It was family day for the people who work at my school. It was a palm Sunday mass and afterward we had hotdogs in the sports field. It was really wonderful having Marco meet my co-workers. He commented on how most of the people I know are so friendly, even Peruvian. I am quite proud of that fact. I like to surround myself with friendly happy people and I am fortunate enough to work at a school where almost everyone is like that. It is a wonderful atmosphere and it definitely feels like a big community and even more so in the kindergarten building.

After mass we came back home and Marco hung out with his son in the afternoon. I cleaned the house a bit and made cookies for the women with wine event that evening. It was a combined event with the Emerging Artists Lima event at the Casa Cultural Barranco. What's great is we were able to walk to the event! We met up with a co-worker of mine and her boyfriend and his friend. There was a raffle with lots of great things including this awesome leather bag. I put most of my tickets in the box for the bag but alas I did not win. My co-worker, however, won the door prize of a teeth whitening, a fish foot spa treatment and 75 soles towards a hair salon treatment. Not bad! It was her first women with wine even too. I think she will be attending more with me in the future. We both found children's books at the event too. There was a women selling Barefoot books which are beautifully illustrated books for kids. I found one that goes along with a youtube video I found earlier that I had planned on using for my classes. It was perfect! Finding English language children's books here is not an easy task so I took advantage and bought two. One is called Driving my Tractor and the other is An Peruvian Andes Tail. I plan on building up a nice collection of children's books not only for school but for my future children as well.

We ended the night at a place called La Trastienda in Barranco. It is a cool hip bar. Marco and my co-worker's boyfriend hit it off because he is the son of a Marine and his friend was a marine. They talked about how things were during terrorism in the early 90s and how Fujimori actually helped get Peru to where it is now. It is incredibly interesting talking about Fujimori with Peruvians because there are clearly those who see him as a hero even though his tactics where not always ethical or even humane. If it weren't for him throwing out the government and overhauling everything, Peru would not be in this state of economic growth as it is now. He paved the way. All I remember learning about the guy was how he was a dictator killing innocent people. Granted, in a time of terrorism, there are going to be innocent people killed because no one knows who is good and who is bad. My co-workers boyfriend explained how when he was in the US he saw a bumper sticker that said free Lori Berensen. He was furious. She is a well known helper of the Shining Path, the terrorist group here in Peru. Some people have the idea that she was there to help "free the people" of Peru but she was a terrorist and was a threat to the average Peruvian. The moral of the story is that people don't really know what goes on in other countries unless they are there. I could have studied Peru up and down before coming to live here but there are hundreds of things that I never could have learned from just reading books. Experiences are huge.

Back to the daily grind stuff. Things are moving along. I have been teaching for 6 weeks now and this week is a very short week due to Semana Santa or Holy Week. We get a 4 day weekend and I only have to teach two days this week. We are learning about the Easter bunny and singing songs about bunnies and eggs. It is pretty fun. I have candy to give out tomorrow too. I am not a huge proponent of giving candy to 5 and 6 year olds but every once in a while it is fun to have an activity or game with a candy reward involved, especially when there is a holiday coming up!

All right. That is about it for now! I hope everyone has a great week! Happy Holy Week!