carbohidratos y mi nochebuena.

24 Diciembre 2010

despite the fact that i kind of wanted to sleep in this morning, me levanté at around 8am to my niece, sandra, knocking on my bedroom door.  she greeted me with a piece of cake (thank goodness it wasn’t panetón), and she told me about our evening plans.  if i had to get up early, this was the best way to wake up… with a discussion of festivities and a side of cake (THIS is why im fat)!  the plans are: to go with them to church at around 7pm, and then have dinner with the family afterwards.  how very exciting!

then, of course, i had my routine morning phone calls from courtney, and she told me her crazy stories from the night before (santa cruz is a much more happening town than my sleepy little pueblito of catache).  a couple hours después, carlos and his family called me - all of them passed around the phone to wish me a feliz nochebuena!

after all of my morning conversations, i wrapped my regalo a mi familia with a beautifully decorated PAPALOTE!

my wrapped gift to my family - frontside:

(i just knew those papalotes would be handy for multiple things!)

my wrapped gift - backside:

after i made myself lunch (which consisted of egg salad cracker sandwiches and a cup of cafe con leche), i went downstairs to play a few more epic games of uno (uno has become quite addicting since camp valor).

and on a side note, en la tarde, word spread to catache that another angel divino bus wrecked after picking up some people here on the way to chiclayo today.  thats the 2nd angel divino bus accident in the past month.  the other accident was pretty horrific and 2 people died.  nobody died this time around, but some passengers walked away with broken arms and legs.  how awful - and on christmas eve!  needless to say, none of us volunteers take angel divino buses anymore.

ok - flash forward to the evening.  my mom called me down for church at about 8pm or so.  i emerged from my room to discover that our house was the only house with electricity.  “no hay luz...”  this is probably the most common saying in catache.  mi madre, sandra, and i walked down the dark street to the iglesia de san agustín, which was beautifully lit with candles.  la misa (mass) tonight brought chills up my spine and tears to my eyes.  there is just something about going to church in another country…  such a sense of comfort and familiarity - yet with this beautiful idioma of spanish - and all set to candlelight, and on christmas eve…  really made me miss my father.  the thing that actually got the emotional cloud from my head, was when we all had to get in line to take turns kissing a dirty, toy baby (supposed to be jesus) that the priest had in his arms.  “somos peru.”

after church, we walked back home and waited (...and waited ...and waited) to eat dinner.  while we were waiting - a group of children came by the house to sing christmas songs to our nativity scene.  some of them were dressed up - the girls were dressed as angels and some of the boys had mustaches and beards drawn on their faces with markers.  apparently they go to every home’s nativity scene and sing to it.  at the end of the 3rd song, sandra, gave out candy to all of the children, and they were off to the next home.

our nativity scene in the shop:

children singing to the nativity scene:

sandra (in the mickey mouse shirt) passing out candy to the kids:

when it was finally time to eat dinner, we were all starving and tired.  we ended up eating at around 11pm, instead of the usual 12am christmas time dinner.  dinner consisted of rico pavo (yummy turkey), vino semi-seco (sweet wine - really gross), the most delicious hot chocolate you’ve ever tasted, and bread bread bread - - of course, this includes panetón.  i didn’t eat that much.  we had a long conversation over dinner about its ok to stop eating when you are full here in this home, but in most homes, people take it personally if you are not a clean plater.  which is completely true - we learned this in training.  but, none of us were clean platers tonight.

mi madre - dishing out the pavo - 

and my vegetarian padre snacking on something:

our dinner:

(look at all that pan!)

after dinner and discussions about the US and how we celebrate things there, it was bedtime.  i was tucked in before midnight, but i could here the continued celebrations in the streets until 4am.  and carlos’s family even called me to wish me a merry christmas right after our clocks turned 12am.  such an awesome first nochebuena in peru.