Well, well, well….I have not posted on this blog in too long. I fear my many readers are losing interest. I was originally going to wait until our next Christmas letter to send out an update, but I figured the chances of it coming out before 2075 were less than 0.002%. And by then I probably won’t even remember how to speak Spanish, or that I even came to Peru in the first place. In fact, I may not even remember my own name.
Before I continue, I’d just like to point out that it’s el día de mi santo (the day of my saint). Aka the 20th time the Earth has been aligned in more or less the same spot that it was on the day I was conceived (I mean the day I was born…I don’t really think anyone wants to get into the conceiving part. Why am I talking about this? Well, you bwought it up. My plan is to close this subject as soon as I close these parentheses). I’m not even really sure who my saint is. I wasn’t even aware that I had my own personal saint, but I think that’s pretty cool. It’s kind of like when I had my own fairy when I was little. Who actually turned out to be my mother. However, for the purpose of this entry, I think I need to move past my childhood traumas.
As for my day so far, it has been pretty normal. I woke up with some allergies, sneezed a few times, and then blew my nose. Then I got back into bed and began writing this. Actually, before that I drank a gulp of water. Which came from the faucet. Which is part of the good news - I started drinking water from the faucet in my house and haven’t yet suffered any mysterious illnesses! Well, I do hear barking dogs pretty much 24/7. But I attributed that to the high number of dogs in my house. Hmmm, I wonder if I’ve been imagining the dogs the whole time and I’m actually going crazy from drinking the water. Life is full of possibilities!
Pause.
SHOUTOUT:
To my cousin and lovely godmother Jessica, you’re probably not reading this today (today meaning October 16th, not today meaning whatever day you read it. Obviously that makes no sense because if it weren’t today there would be something wrong with the space-time continuum. Which I don’t really understand in the first place) – I would just like to wish you a VERY happy birthday! I am honored to be born on the same day as you, and I will always remember the time that we had our cake with the trick candles and I was afraid of them so you had to blow them out for me. I miss you!
Unpause.
Let’s get on with it, shall we? I don’t know who that crazy lady was that thought she could just bust in and interrupt my blog entry. Aha, I thought of some other good news! STUDENT VISA GRANTED! It was the best birthday present ever. Actually that’s a lie, nothing could have topped the Skip-It I received when I was in second grade. But that one will be lost forever. Luckily my family gave me another one a few years ago, but it’s just not the same as Pet. Nothing goes right. Everything goes wrong. For Pet and me, it’s a big problem to solve. But I know we never will.
Oops didn’t mean to get all sentimental there. I have a pretty rough life sometimes. Why don’t I focus on writing about my current life, rather than the one I suffered in elementary school?
For starters, I’ve been shamelessly stalking birds lately. I have to take pictures of them for my ecology class. I got bored and started taking pictures of the deer that wander around campus. They generally feast off of students’ lunch leftovers when kids leave their trays scattered around. Once I was calmly reading and a deer approached me and started drinking my coffee. It was rather rude. I told him to go away, but I don’t think he spoke English. (Disclaimer: this entire paragraph is actually true).
I have also begun stalking people in the library, conducting experiments on concentration levels for my psychology class. We discovered a shocking fact – most Peruvian students are distracted while they work in the library!
In an attempt to learn to move my body before it’s too late (though I think I may have already passed that point), I enrolled in an Afro-Peruvian dance class. We are currently learning a dance called Alcatraz, in which everyone is supposed to wear a little tail of fabric on their rear end, and each person holds a candle in their right hand. Then you chase people around and light their butts on fire, and they have to shake their waists enough that the fire goes out. Luckily for everybody in my class, we do not use real candles, or else at this point, misfortunatate parts of our bodies would be rather charred. Due to my lack of both dancing skills and African/Peruvian heritage, I have been laughed at by many-a-student in my class. Well, I can’t really blame them. But I bet I could beat them any day at the Cotton-Eye-Joe. So there.
And finally, everyone will be comforted to know that I have been making weekly trips to the local mental hospital with my Peruvian mother (as a volunteer, not a patient). At first I was a little overwhelmed but don’t worry, I made lots of friends right away! I invited a bunch of them out with me tonight to the discoteca to celebrate my birthday. Yesterday I found myself participating in a march for mental health, with all the volunteers and patients. Definitely a situation I never thought I would find myself in. But this is Peru, and finding myself in strange situations has turned into a normality. In fact, just last week I found myself studying. Odd.
One time, I went to the library.
End of story.
