Birthday, Karaoke, Cemetery Date!

Tuesday was Nichole's b-day, so we went to her house in the evening for a partaay! Her host mom went all out with mini sandwiches, alfajores, cookies, dips, chifles, chicha morada, tuna juice (more appetizing then it sounds - made from tuna fruit not fish and kind of tastes like watermelon), and hot chocolate. And of course delicious chocolate fudge birthday cake. Afterwards, a few of us went out to karaoke at Soprano's. Since it was a Tuesday night, it wasn't crowded at all. Which means we got to sing a lot. And we decided that dancing and singing in the middle of the room, by ourselves, was a pretty great idea. It was a good time.


Yesterday I went to my volunteer and attempted bingo with the kids. The teacher left me alone with them for a couple of hours again, which is beginning to be a problem. Maria Elena happened to have come though, and was out in the hall talking to Nichole so I asked her to come help. Now she see's first hand that her loving "Sit down, por favor, mi amorcito" lines won't work on this kids, and now she understands a little better what I'm dealing with. 


At night we went on the ISA activity to the cemetery Presbitero Maestro, which is a 200 year old cemetery full of beautiful sculpture (most of which I couldn't see that well, because it was dark out.) They do a special tour every full moon so we went for that. Last night's theme was Thriller. As you may have guessed, zombies came running out, and performed the Thriller dance for us.
After that we got a tour of some of the more important tombs in the cemetery. We couldn't see them all, because it's huge. There are about 200,000 people buried there. 

Jorge decided to crash our little ISA party, so I finally got my second date! At a cemetery! Unfortunately he didn't bring any beer :( He did engage me in delightful conversation, though. First about his intentions to surround his tomb with an electric fence to keep out the birds and bird poop, including the stipulation in his will which will require his descendants (all to be named Jorge Jr, III, IV, etc, or Jorgette in the case of daughters) to change the batteries on his electric fence regularly. (It's not everyday you see a battery-powered electric fence, is it? It must be a Swiss thing.)
Then we discussed our ingenious schemes to get rich. Sexy bird calendar. Sexy cat calendar. I can't go into full detail until we get it copyrighted, but let me tell you, it's gonna be big. 


After the cemetery visit Raquel, Zach, Jorge, Coleton, Dawn and I decided to get some Pizza Hut. Sangria and pizza. Good idea. Afterwards, Raquel went to Hensley's, Dawn went home, and the rest of us went on an ice cream mission. Unfortunately Bembo's was closed and KFC was taken over by a bunch of hoodlums. So we walked to the gas station where I had the best ice cream sandwich of my life. I'm not exaggerating. It was a limited edition and it was amazing. 
When we were done with our ice cream, we just sort of hung out outside the gas station for a really long time. I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm gonna say it's probably just because we're really super cool, and we don't need to pay 30 soles to go to a discoteca like those other kids, we can just stand outside a Repsol until 1:00 in the morning and it'll be just as much fun.


This morning I went back to the school. I'm trying a new thing now. Splitting the class into 3 groups of 10 and teaching them one group at a time. The original plan was to take the group outside and work with them. That way they would actually be able to hear me telling them how to say words (a necessary aspect of language learning, I would say). And in smaller groups it would be easier for us to practice conversation and for me to give them individual attention without the other 29 kids getting bored and distracted. However, when I asked Profesora Delia if it was ok for me to take them outside, she said no, that she would put desks together in the middle of the classroom and the rest of the kids would just be quiet and do homework while I was working with the group. Ha, right. She of course left again. Which was the whole point of me staying in the room, I'm sure. So that she could leave. It did work better than usual, just working with the 10, but at the same time, I couldn't get the other 20 to shut up and sit down.
And she neglected to tell me that the whole rest of the school day after 9:30 would be spent watching the school Olympics instead of having class, so I only got through one group. 
They also had a parrillada (grilled meat) set up as a fundraiser, so Maria Elena came and bought me and Nichole some steak. 

Some of my 4th graders

After that I've just been preparing for my trip to Iquitos! We leave at 4:30 a.m. tomorrow. But I'm all ready to go. I even finally got my hair cut. I was really wanting it thinned because the humidity is so bad here my hair is a pain in the ass. So I went to the lady who did my manicure, and after about an hour and a half of waiting (she told me she could get me in at 6:30 and then actually started cutting my hair at 8) I finally got it done, and I like it. Bonus: only 15 soles or a little over 5 bucks!


Here's a little bit about Iquitos (copied from what they wrote on our itinerary):


Loreto is the biggest department (like a U.S. state) in Peru, but it is one of the least populated. It is covered by dense vegetation and two types of jungle. The department has little elevation and the ground is split by hundreds of rivers that make up the basin of the Amazon. 


Iquitos is the capital of Loreto and is the principal port of the Amazon River. It is the biggest city in the Peruvian jungle. The zone was once populated by different indigenous groups such as the Cocama, the Huitoto, and the Bora. Jesuit missionaries founded the city. At the end of the 19th century, Iquitos experienced an economic boom due to the harvest of rubber. The boom is responsible for the luxurious buildings such as the Hotel Palace (art noveau) and la Casa de Fierro (the house of steel), designed by the famous French architect who designed the Eiffel Tower, Gustave Eiffel.


The rustic houses are constructed on poles above the river as a protection against the rising of the river during the rainy season. One of the greatest attractions is the navigation of rivers and lakes, beautiful beaches and the incredible


[here it cuts off, so I guess I will have to find out what's so incredible when I get there!]