La Corrida de los Toros

Do you remember one particularly embarrassing incident involving me, slices of cake, and the obscurity of night time? It ultimately ended with me sprawling ungracefully across the pavement…with the right side of my face eating most of the cake…at the Mayor´s birthday party with all the important governmental officials there…after I had just arrived to my town…with a bunch of drunk people making fun of me afterwards for the rest of the night. (Why do so many of my stories end up with me falling somewhere?)

Anyways, I think I finally have a story to top mine!! Yep, I do! The other day I was at a bullfight in one of the nearby town. One of the Matador was really young and he looked nervous, too. (Youth + nervousness = shit show…always.) Case in point, no sooner had the fight started did he trip over his red cloth and fell backwards. Oye. As if that wasn´t bad enough, within minutes later, he fell again, except this time he didn´t even have the cloth as an excuse--he just fell over his own feet.

And both times after he fell, the bull went after him. (I swear, the next time I fall, I am going to feel incredibly lucky that at least no big and angry bull is there to attack me.) As if that wasn´t bad enough, when he finally did get up to face the crowd, there was a big ol´ slit located…wait for it…strategically on his right butt cheek (darn frisky bull!). We saw everything!!! Every time he turned his back to one direction, that side of the crowd would laugh and when he turned another way, the other side of the crowd would laugh. (It´s like that dream you had as a kid where you were in front of a stage naked; except for this poor guy, it actually happened!) And, since he had to finish the fight, he wasn´t able to change (or hide); he just had to finish the fight…butt cheek and all. It was very hard to concentrate on the bull while all the cameras and body parts were flashing. (Did you notice the clever play-on words there? :) )

Besides that, the Peruvian fiestas ended well. I went to a lot of the other activities and took in a lot of the dances, fireworks, and singing. I know that you are going to think that this is very wrong of me, but I really enjoy watching bullfights. Yes, PETA, I know that I am a bad person for liking something that treats the poor animals with so much violence and cruelty, but I can´t help it. :) It keeps me on the edge of my seat and biting my knuckles. Besides which, this is my last fiesta in Peru. By this time next year, I will be back in the US. Sad face x 500. I spent a lot of the fiesta trying not to get weepy by thinking about it. Did I mention within the last five minutes that I am a little in love with this country right now?

PS The picture was taken after at another bullfight here in my town; we were able to buy the meat and had ourselves a nice little BBQ...Delicious!

Me cai de la gracia

Man, talk about a fall from grace. I remember once upon a time (a long time ago) when I would consider myself to be a germaphobe. (I know yáll don´t know this, I used to wipe down my toilet seat everyday in the US even though I was the only one using that bathroom!)

Tonight I´m staying in a hostel that for USD $7 a night, I´m getting a cushion instead of a pillow, questionable looking bedding (with stains...ew), a scary toilet, and dust bunnies. But, despite all that, I was pleasantly surprised when they handed me a bar of soap, toilet paper, and a towel. (I actually used the word, ¨Wow!¨ when they handed it to me.) I know...How the mighty has fallen, right?

QUE!?

What?! My beloved ¨Heroes¨ has been canceled by NBC?! Why am I always the last to know these things??? Sheesh, you leave the country for over a year and everything goes awry!!!! I am very unhappy about this! Sad face x 5.

Las Botas

All the ladies in my aerobics class have been making fun of me for wearing my rain boots. :( I got them for 15 soles (USD $5) last year, because we get crazy rain here during the rainy season. Yes, sadly, rainy season is upon Cajabamba again.

I´ve broken out the boots, because they keep my feet nice and toasted (to the point of grossly sweaty) and because the heavy rubber is enough to keep a monsoon at bay from my feet! However, they are not very stylish and the people here make fun of them, because usually only people from the campo wear them. Sad face x 5. (Even the Peruvians make fun of me for being campo!)

Anyways, I wore them today, only to find out that right before I arrived to class, a girl had slipped and fell while wearing her non-rain resistant shoes and another one broke her cell phone after it slipped out from her pocket and landed in the rain water. (Ok, the former may not have had anything to do with rainboots, but who knows, maybe if she did have my magic boots on, her cell phone wouldn´t have been so quick to abandon her!) So take that aerobic ladies who laughed at me...look who´s laughing now!! ;P

Um, anyways, I hope you all are doing well in the states.

La Eleccion

Today is Election Day in Peru. Unlike the US, people here are mandated to vote once they turn 18 (or else bad things happen to them). We are electing our new local government officials (not national). The presidential election is next year, but in the meantime, a truckload of military men arrived the other day with their sub machine guns guarding every election post. (It could just be me, but I think Peru handles their election process differently.) Everyone from the smaller campo towns have all descended into my town as all the voting posts are here. They arrived yesterday and slept on the streets if they had nowhere else to go. Sad face. But the election will be over in a few more hours and then it will be party time with beer and homemade chicha liquor! Happy face!

Also, my town´s fiesta starts this month. (Yep, more booze.) It´s such a reminder that a year ago, I had just gotten here and at that time, all I could think about was going home. This place held nothing familiar—neither food, people, nor culture. A year later and it´s almost nostalgic being here. I can´t believe that time is going by so fast. I just want it to stop so that I can enjoy the food, people, and culture before I have to go home next year. Sorry, I am a real sap right now so I´ll stop this chatter.