ReO/DisO: The big year-end retreat we do with JVC staff that comes to visit. We spent a wonderful 6 days at the beach with our beloved staff members Margaret and Dan, fellow JV Catherine who came up from Santiago, Chile and our incredible cooks Rosa and Celestina. The first picture is right after we all jumped in the ocean. We're supposed to be making polar bear faces, but most of us just look confused. The second is the whole group of us right before we left the beach. Until next year!
Halloween:
The Tacna JVs have a tradition of making a haunted house for the neighborhood kids every Halloween. We recruited a few friends to help us make it extra scary this year. More than one kid ran out of the house crying before we could even give them their candy-success! Here's a pic of our house all done up for Halloween, 4 of us in costume with our neighbor Margarita, me in my mad scientist get-up slicing Gabe open, César eating some of Gabe's "guts," and the whole group of us in our scary outfits.
Jenny's Visit!
Halloween weekend also meant a visit from my good friend Jenny who's currently living in Lima. She was my first visitor from home and we had a lot of fun catching up that weekend. Here we are underneath the famous Tacna arch in the Plaza de Armas, and at my friend's house for a barbecue.
Birthday! My 24th birthday was definitely a memorable one as it also marked the arrival of all 7 new Peru volunteers, and since I shared my birthday week with my housemate Cara we were treated with lots of celebrations with all of our friends, students, and neighbors. The first picture is the first of many bday parties with our friend Vicky, who also had a November bday. Nate decided to add up all the years we were turning when he put the candles in our cake (109) so it resembled a giant fire ball when they brought it to us. The second pic is us with our good friends when we went out the night before my birthday, next is me with my homeroom kids when they came to my house to sing to me, me with one of my favorite preschoolers and her cousin (Brigitte and Briza) who also came to visit me that day, Cara and me right after getting cake smashed in our faces (one of my favorite Peruvian birthday traditions) at our party, and all the volunteers and friends at our famous couples-themed birthday party.
Miscellaneous Fun
This first pic is of me and my good friend Giuly at her despedida (going-away) barbecue. Giuly married her Spanish boyfriend a few months ago so right after my birthday she moved to Madrid to be with him. We're all very happy for her as she starts her new life there, but I miss her a lot! The second one is the new JVC rock band, fittingly named: JVC-USA! Our friend invited Cara and me to sing at this rock band contest at the Cultural, the English-language institute where he works, so we put together a whole band with Profe Carlos on lead guitar (our music teacher, and my co-tutor and good friend), our 5th year student Alfredo on drums, new Cuzco volunteers Mateo and Jess on bass and keyboard, and Cara and me on vocals. We made it to the final round with our rendition of "Killing me Softly," then Cara sang "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia and I did "Suddenly I See" by KT Tunstall at the final contest. We did not win, but we definitely had the best fan section and had a lot of fun. Unfortunately those 3 volunteers are all leaving me for Cuzco in February, but I'm looking forward to at least a few more good jam sessions before they go. The third picture is me as the godmother of the little boys' soccer team at Miguel Pro. I had to go to their game and they presented me with flowers, then we processed around the field together. I kinda felt like I was in a beauty pageant, but it was pretty cute. The last one is at Thanksgiving dinner at the JV house! We were able to find a turkey and a pumpkin so we prepared a pretty legit and delicious Thanksgiving meal. I was on mashed potato and pie duty, so here I am with my apple and first ever from scratch (as in from a real pumpkin!) pumpkin pies-you can ask my friends, but I think they turned out pretty tasty. :)
Día Familiar 2010!
So if you remember from my blogs from last year, Día Familiar is the huge yearly dance festival at school. All the schools here have them, usually corresponding with the school's anniversary. We spend basically the entire month of November preparing for it, with each class (and teachers, parents, and alums too!) learning a different typical Peruvian dance, and it all culminates at the end of November with a day-long festival of food, contests, music, dancing, and family fun. It's always a cool experience for the new volunteers because we invite all of them to dance with the Miguel Pro teachers, so within their first weeks here they're thrown right into Peruvian culture, learning dances and getting to know these teachers. This year the dance was almost pure gringos since there are so many of us! I also decided to dance with my 1st year tutoría (homeroom) kids this year, so I had a lot of fun learning that dance with my kids and getting to put on 2 crazy cholita outfits (cholita is kind of a term of endearment for the ladies from the highlands, the ones who wear the big pollera skirts, long braids, and bowler hats). So here I am in outfit number 1 with my 1st year girls (I'm 3rd from the left)-we did a typical dance from Ayacucho-and with Profe Carlos, my co-tutor or homeroom teacher, who also danced with us. Below is a pic of all the profesoras in our outfits for the teacher dance, a dance from Piura called Pacasito. Those neon orange blouses were pretty hideous.
And last but certainly not least....the 2011 Tacna JV community!! From the left are Greg, Ashlen, Rose, me and Seamus (the 2 veterans). We're all pretty excited about our new community and getting to share this next year together, so I'll do my best to keep you posted as Seamus and I kick off round 2 of this crazy adventure. Wishing you all the best this holiday season and hope to be in touch soon! Paz, amor y muchos abrazos,
Mo
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