Composting and Bautismo

So I didn’t get a chance to post yesterday because I had a busy day. But first…

Friday I found out that I moved up a level in Spanish. I have qualified for service, for now. I am at Intermediate Mid…which is the lowest level you can be to become a volunteer. It has motivated me to work even harder on my Spanish. So I spend a lot of time just working on verb conjugations. I’m surprised I moved up. But I appreciate it. I still have a long way to go in order to qualify for service.

Saturday was a big day for a number of reasons. First of all, we returned to La Agraria to learn more about organic garden. This time we learned about soils and how to maintain them. We also built our own compost pile. As you can see in the pictures we were motivated to have a very big compost pile. I think composting is really fun. I remember learning about in seventh grade biology class. My grandparents always had one too, and they always had a great garden. More than ever we’re learning the importance of hand washing and food washing. As you can see in this picture, after we get done planting, composting, and in general, playing in the soil, we have group hand washings and it actually takes awhile. Usually when we’re done for the day we hang out in Lima, but yesterday I…

Returned home to attend my little sister’s bautismo (baptism). I was so glad to come back. The ceremony was pretty comical. The priest was unintelligible. He was mumbling at 100 mph behind his book while children were screaming and playing behind me, cell phones were ringing, and three teenagers were gossiping and giggling. Not only did I not understand a word (which is fairly common), no one understood a word. Not even the Peruvians. My friend Danielle and I had to bite our lips in order to not bust out in the middle of this obviously important ceremony. All of Karen’s family and some of Loly’s friends came back to our house for dancing, drinking, and eating. I’ve attended a number of parties like this over the past month (yes, I’ve now been here for a month, miss me yet?). It was fairly crazy for a while, but it’s always fun.

There’s a tradition I want to talk about that happens at every fiesta or dance. Here, they have big bottles of Crystal, no not champagne, one beer made in Peru that tastes a lot like Bud light. The tradition is that you all share from one glass. I can hear you gasping from half a world away. So you get fairly used to pouring a little bit for yourself, drinking it, and then passing it on to someone else. I’m still learning about this tradition, as I learned last night, it is important to allow the men in the group to serve the women. And when one bottle is emptied and the next bottle is ready, you have to add a small portion of the new bottle to the old in the shared glass. Did that make sense?

I still love Peru. I feel more and more confident in my Spanish, but still have a ton of work to do. Please keep sending me your positive thoughts and prayers for Spanish acquisition.