"you suck, mickey!"

i have three goals to write about in this entry.

1) my family
2) semana santa... aka holy week and easter
3) work

although these are only 3 subjects, they all have a lot of content, and these subjects all intertwine, so you may not be able to decipher the difference between them, but they're there. bare with me. you can skip over the "boring bits."

my family. i absolutely adore them. although at times my sisters are crazy, and do unexplainable things, i love them and i've realized it kind of reminds me of home, and that is probably why i've been enjoying them so much. to begin with, i have finally figured out the family dynamics. so, i have a mother, and she has 3 daughters - patty (patricia) (20), kelly (31 or 32), and lilly (29). they come from a japanese decent and my mother and kelly lived and worked in japan for 9 years, which is where their money came from. i then have an uncle who lives in the house, and his daughter jenny, who i always thought was my sister, is here visiting for 2 months, but is married to a german and lives in germany. she also lived with my mother and kelly in japan for 6 years, after she finished studying in russia for 2 years (she doesn't live the typical peruvian life). my mother's parents live in the house, my abuelos, along with another one of her brothers and his wife and 2 boys, which makes the boys my cousins. and there we have it, all 12, 13 with me, living under the same roof. and i've finally found all their correct places in the line of the family. oh, and i am their "gringa hermana," of course.

this past week was semana santa, holy week, which is way more of a celebration in peru than it is in the states. in fact, thursday and friday are basically national holidays and no one works (yeah... pretty awesome in my opinon!). therefore, i had tons of time to spend with my family, which i absolutely loved and was so happy to have. first, monday was the day of the sick. i forget the exact name of it, but we had a speical service at the parroquia for all the sick in the community. sick also includes the prostitues, alcoholics, and people with drug addiction, so i had a lot of connections with the people there for the service. to back track, for palm sunday, they actually rode in on a donkey - just putting it out there. as for other services, there were tons (As always) and i'll confess, i didn't go to all them. but each day of the week had a special purpose and it was interesting to see how celebrated the whole week was. as an observation, i've realized that easter in the states is much more family oriented. granted, we celebrate jesus' resurrection, but then it's about getting together with the family, searching for eggs, and enjoying each others company. here, it's all about the church community, with many extra services, and they really focus in on the whole whole leading up to christ's death, which i think catholics do in general, not just here.

anyway, back to spending time with my family... on friday, my grandma, mother, 3 sisters, cousin jenny, an aunt and son who don't live with us, and my two boy cousins all went to a big park here in chimbote called "vivero." the park has a giant swimming pool, which we didn't go to, but also has a huge carnival type thing with all sorts of rides. it also four wheelers you could rent, and even monkey's in a cage, which i thought was random. they had a big lake with boats, and the whole park itself was essentially a "jungle." it was pretty beautiful and fun to actually spend quality time with my family outside of the house. my sisters and i took a ton of photos because they love looking at my photos i have of my cousin abbie and i, and they said they wanted to take "crazy photos" with me, too! it seems i can't even get away from my photo obsession here in peru.

friday night then provided to be an entertaining time with my sisters (and cousin - but when i say sisters, it just automatically counts jenny because after all, i thought she was my sister for so long). the title of my blog, "you suck, mickey!" comes from this night. (viewer disgression ahead: there will be some bad words in the following paragraph. if you feel you may be offended, skip on to the next paragraph). so anyway, we were all lounging around in my sister patty's bedroom, when one of my sister's got the bright idea to play bingo. she went off to find their bingo game, which was in fact bingo disney mickey mouse sytle. it was a whole machiene that when you pressed the button, this little mickey mouse turned this giant ball with all the bingo numbers in it. after mickey turned it about 3 times, it would ding, and a little bingo ball would pop out. my sisters decided to play for money, so before the games we would chip in our 1 sol, or 50 centimos, and one of my sisters would declare what kind of bingo we'd play - U shpaed, O shaped, or the whole card. the games began and we all started ticking off our cards when mickey gave us the right number. now a bit of side note for what comes next: my sisters know a small amount of english because they went to private high schools, therefore getting a little better english education than most. they can say a lot of the basic things like, "how are you." "what are you doing" "i like that." "where are you going?" "i'm going..." etc. and etc. for example, when my sister kelly tells patty that she's "gordita" (or fat.. which patty isn't), patty will say in english, "no kelly, i am light." they really love to attempt to talk in english and it's great fun for me to hear them attempt to speak to english. they ask me what different words meanings are all the time. and they actually have a semi-good "bad-word" vocabulary when it comes to english. so in any case, mickey mouse was popping out all these different bingo numbers, and when mickey wouldn't give me sister's what they wanted, they would start yelling mean things to mickey in spanish. so, when mickey didn't give me a good number, i yelled, "you suck, mickey!" they all thought this was hilarious and asked me to explain the meaning, which i attempted to do, so there on out, everytime mickey didn't give them their number, they would scream "you suck, mickey!!!" they then continued to use this on each other, so now whenever one of them does something they don't like, they'll say, "you suck, raquel." or "you suck, patty." then, so they could prove their english skills to me, one of my sister's said, "fuck you, mickey" which made me just about pee my pants with laughter. this then proceeded to them asking me to teach them every bad word i knew in english, which really weren't too many because for some reason i had trouble recalling bad words in english. but in any case, they now walk around the house using all these bad words all the time! in the states, this wouldn't exactly be funny... someone using all the bad words on each other all the time, but when i hear my sisters saying, "fuck off patty" or "damnit kelly!" or "you suck, lilly" or "you're a bitch, jenny"... i can not help but giggle hysterically. it's so out of place. i told them it was fine they used the words with each other, but not to use them on any other gringos because that could get them in trouble.

so, that basically sums up friday (i didn't win any bingo by the way), with many more details i'm leaving out for the sack of time and space, but that you can hear about and see in photos when i come home.

saturday was also a good day, beginning with "work." i woke up at 8, walked to benjamin's office at 9 to discover that he had a tooth pulled and was apparently in pain. i asked him if i could then find my group of girls and take them to the river and he said yes, that scott and i should round up the "boys and girls groups of prevention" and take them to the river. so, i went from house to house calling on my girls and around 10 o'clock, we were all ready to go, which was good because the sweat was starting to bead on my forehead. we spent the whole morning down at the river, letting the current take us and then playing with these awesome plants that resist water. they can't get wet. they were the craziest plants i had ever seen.

we walked back to chimbote and i got home around 12:30; enough time to take a shower, eat some amazing lunch (as always... i swear my mother is the best cook who has ever cooked for me - sorry mom, perhaps if you learn how to make peruvian food you will be as good as her, too), and then i was ready to go back to "work" at 2:00. this work was with my girls, who meet every saturday from 2-5 pm to work on the bracelets they're making for me to sell in the states. they made a lot this saturday, about 20, and it was so great to see them learning and improving their techniques, and how excited and happy they are just making these simple bracelets. i also met with a couple of them so they could relate their stories of their life to me, which is good because i really need to start working on my paper and getting all the information together.

when i got home on saturday, my family informed me that we would be celebrating renzo's 9th birthday (the youngest boy who lives in my house), and then afterwards my sister's were going to take me out to a diskotecca. i assumed that the whole birthday celebration would include some dinner, but apparently in peru for children's birthday's, they just have a huge buffet of desserts! first we all had this jello stuff, that was fluffier and tastier (in my opinion) than normal jello. then we had mazamorra morada, this purply, fruty, gooey stuff that is a traditional dessert of peru. then we had rice pudding, that is different than any rice pudding i've had before. and then we had cake! i was absolutely stuffed and had the largest sugar buzz of my life. and guess what? that's all we had! that literally was our dinner. crazy, right?

anyway, then all us girls went upstairs to get ready for the diskotecca. my sister's informed me that they were going to give me makeover for the diskotecca. i was fine with this because i really don't have appropriate clothes for a disckotecca, nor do i ever do my hair or makeup here, so i thought it may be fun to get all done-up for once in peru. apparently though, their idea of a make-over is to turn me into BARBIE! haha... seriously. i looked liked barbie. first they gave me a jean mini-skirt, which was size 2 and that SOMEHOW i ended up squeezing myself into. then they went on a search for tank tops, only to pull out the shortest, most revealing, hot pink halter-top i have possibly seen in my life. i put it on to be greated by a bunch of squeals about how "perfect!" it was. it apparently matched my tan skin and blond hair PERFECTLY! then they said my black old navy flip flops were no good, and gave me a pair of heels to wear instead. at this point, i didn't really recognize my body in these foreign clothes, but thought "whatever. i'm in peru. it's one night." then came the hair. my sister sat me down and straightened all my hair. this wouldn't be so strange except for the fact that it was the first time i have seen my hair straight since i've been in peru! and it's crazy how long it has gotten... i had no idea! never the less, when you're used to seeing your hair curly for 2.5 months, and all of a sudden it's straight, it's a weird sensation. oh no, but this isn't all. then my sister lilly, who is pretty great at make-up and faces in gereral, layed me down and i got the most in-depth tweezing of my eyebrows i've ever received in my life. in fact, i've never had someone else tweeze my eyebrows, so it was a first for a lot of things. after the whole eyebrow deal, she did my make-up, which she informed me that i was her first gringa ever to do make-up on and she was sorry if it didn't come out right, but she saw on tv that gringa's need more natural colors, so she would use browns on me with my "pretty green eyes." after 15 min. of her working on my face, i was told to check myself out in the mirror, and honestly - what i saw was not me. i don't know who that was staring back at me... but it wasn't me. someone took over my body. in fact BARBIE had taken over my body... minus the super long legs (although compared to peruvians, i defintely have those) and unproportional body parts.

in any case, around 11:30 pm we were all perfect and primped and off we went to the diskotecca. i'm not even going to go into too many details about the diskotecca. it was one of the largest i've ever been to, and half outside, which was a pretty neat experience because you could see the giant, beautiful, bright full-moon above as you danced. the music was quite fun, their friends were interesting, and i sweated a lot. of course i received a million and one looks and whistles, and i'm sure the barbie look made it 10 times worse, but i decided i wasn't going to mind for this one night. my sisters were very over-protective and wouldn't let anyone dance with me, or even come to near me.

don't worry, we took tons of photos, so you all can witness my barbie look and how bodacious i was for one night!

anyway, we returned to the house around 3:30 in the morning. as i was getting out of the taxi, my men from matt talbot (The halfway house) all walked by me on their way to mass! i'll admit, this was slightly embarresing. for one thing, i was dressed pretty scantly. for a second thing, they obviously knew i had gone out and i wasn't planning on going to mass. but in any case, they all shouted their "hola"s and i could see their grins on their faces as they passed by on their way to the parroquia.

now an explanation: on the morning of easter, they have a 4 hour mass service of the resurrection of christ. it starts at 3:00 am and ends at 7:00. it's outside - all the masses from thursday onwards were outside (i don't know the reason for this. when i asked them told me it was a custom. the only thing i could decide was that there were tons of people there, and all those people couldn't have fit in the actual church, therefore they started having it outside. in any case, it's quite beautiful). first, at this long service, they have some baptisms (i don't know if these are adult or baby, because i missed this part of the service and i have yet to ask anyone). then... i honestly don't really know what else they do. i wasn't there, and if i was, it would have been all in spanish and i would have been far too tired to figure out what the translation of that spanish would be. in any case, i did in fact end up going, around 5:45 in the morning. i was sleeping in my bed when all of a sudden i woke up. it was dark outside, but the birds were twittering away so i knew it was close to sun-rise. i could hear the mass and the people singing (which by the way, the singing in mass here is BEAUTIFUL. nothing like mass in the united states. i absolutely love it and the singing is one of the reasons i even go to mass). in any case, i heard all this and decided i really should just get up and go, because after all it would be an interesting experience. so, i hoped out of bed, put one some pants and shirt, and grogerly (is that a word?) made my short walk to mass. i arrived their as a small glimmer of light was coming up from the edge of the earth. the singing was gorgeous and the songs familiar, beacuse they always sing the same songs. i don't know what exactly was taking place when i came, it just appeared to be congregational singing that kept going until the sun was actually peeking up over the cresent of the earth. the hundreds of people sitting on the benches didn't even look tired. there were at least 100 standing up in the back, where i was, who i belive were standing their in hopes to not fall asleep, or so it seemed to me. after being there for about 15 min., my friend elvis, who works at matt talbot, came up to me and told me it was a good thing i got out of bed, because padre was going to present a gift to me, scott, and our friend robert for our work at the parroquia. at this point i was convinced got had poked me and made me get out of my bed, since i after all didn't have any reason for why i was led to walk to mass. you see, padre really likes us to go to mass, but there are 14 masses a week and i just honestly don't want to sit through 14 services in one week. therefore, i go to about 2 a week. unfortunately, padre would never announce me in the masses that i went to, yet when i wasn't in mass, he always annouced my name. so it appeared that i never went to any, even though i did in fact go to some. therefore, i was extremely relieved that i was at the end of this 4 hour service because if padre had announced me in front of the 300 some people all sitting outside for the past 4 hours, and i hadn't been there to receive it, i would have been extremely embarressed. in any case, sure enough, at the end of the service padre called us to the front and presented us with a plaque, a panoramic photo of chimbote, and a calendar of the dates were we here. it was pretty touching to be up there and to see the men of matt talbot all happily clapping and to see the faces of my different girls grinning at me from the crowd.

i went back home to sleep for a few hours, because padre wanted to take scott, robert, and i out to eat because he was leaving for the united states and wouldn't be back before we left. we had a pretty nice lunch, i ordered the rice with sea food (octopus, crab, fish, and probably other sea creatures, too), and overall it was a nice time to say goodbye to sister peggy and padre jack. i went back home, wathed some tv with my sister, read a little, took another 2 hour nap, got up and watched a movie with my sister. and that was the end of my easter weekend.

so there we have it. some details of how things take place here and how my life has been shaping up. i know that everything i just wrote was quite scattered. and i left out about 80% of the details that could be put in. there are so many things i want you to know about. and there are so many feelings, insights, knowledge, etc. that i wish you could hear come from me. for example, a thing i love but never really share are the little quarks with my family. my sister patty has a hilarious sense of humor and laughs at things no one else laughs at. for example, one day we were watching frankenstein. the doctor's wife lights herself on fire in the movie, and while all of the rest of us shrinked back and exclaimed things like, "ewww" and "disgusting!", patty just laughed and laughed and laughed. i love her sense of humor and whenever she laughs it just makes me laugh, even though i originally did not find it funny at all. also, my sister kelly is obsessed with bodies! she talks about bodies all the time and how she has gotten fatter and how i eat so much, yet stay so skinny (although i do believe i have gained a bit of weight since i've been here in chimbote), and how patty has gained so much weight, and who got plastic surgery, and that peruvian's noses are uglier than gringos, and on and on and on. it's interesting because people in peru are quite honest and blunt, and calling someone "fat" isn't really bad, it's just being honest. people will call you "gordita" if you're a bit chubby, and it's taken inoffensively. it's crazy. and in any case, my sister is convinced she's too big, and talks about it all the time... yet it's entertaining and funny to watch. she infact isn't big at all! she's 31 years old and wears size 2 jeans (peruvians hips are just different). she does have a small belly, but it's NOTHING compared to most 31 year olds! and she does things like take out the bread in the middle of her bun, yet she dumps 3 spoon fulls of sugar in her coffee, or eats dessert instead of the dinner. oh, it's comical. how peruvians are so funny.

anyway, i could go on like this for days, talking about stories and people, but i really ought to stop now. i hope you enjoy the few details i provide you with and that you can make sense of all my gibberish. i have less than 2 weeks left here in chimbote, which is definitely a bittersweet feeling. i find myself extremely anxious to get home, yet when i'm with my group of girls, i find my eyes welling up with tears at the thought of having to say goodbye to them. bittersweet. in any case, the time is coming to an end quite rapidly and i'm excited to see you all again.