What part am I eating? They really have parts but if I had to say it would be the knee.

Dont get used to this frequency but the next couple of weeks are jammed packed with cool things so I will try to put up two more this month. My towns anniversery is next week so I will have lots of great stories and pictures, and the last week of this month I am going to the second biggest bullfight in the country. It is in the department of Cajamarca in a town called Chota. Oddly enough the majority of my town has migrated from Chota. So betwwen the two I should have two great blogs. I had to get this one up before hand because I have two really great stories.

The is about a a peruvian tradition. It should be mentioned that in what ever peruvians do they have godparents. Birthdays, Baptisms, Weddings, Anniverseries, and in this case putting on the cord. Putting on the cord is a tradition for children in thier first and last years of school. For the kids who participate in school police, ecological police, flag barrers, and class monitors are rewarded with a largve public cerimony and a special colored cord places on thier right shoulder of thier school uniform. So each of the kids have a godparent to do this. I usually shy away from things like these because you are suposed to give gifts. But the people do not tell you how much and then after the fact ask for a lot. You are left in this really awekward spot; do you get extorted or do you call them out for abusing your generosity.

In this case the little girl (ten years old) asked me very professionaly and I was taken by her maturity. She later said that we were not allowed to give gifts and I knew I was in the clear. For her honesty and being forth-right I decided to get her some school supplies. I went to her house before hand and gave her the gifts I had boughten. We left for the cerimony. The cerimony started at three we got there at three thirty and the festivities began at four thirty. While I was waiting a strange thing happened. A young girl was with out a god parent. This is exactly what I dreaded. I wold get pawned off on some body and then taken for all of the money in my pockets. I forgot one important thing, I am a registered member and carry a gringo card. This for better or worse allows racism to play out. Sometimes bennificially more often non bennificially. In this case the girl was soooo happy to have a gringo god-father she did not ask for anything. So I figured I would take a picture of us (huge tradition). I will print it out and give it to her in a frame. Well the reaction of the peruvians was a little much. It was like when you go in to the back hall to put food in Elma's dish. The mothers of these little kids came running over kid in hand begging to have their child in a photo with Heather and I. I felt like chuckie cheese with out the delicious american pizza. I made it out all right, but feeling a little wierd. I left for Chiclayo shortly after and had plenty of time to think about it. It was when I got back home things were really really odd.

My houseworkers 14 year old daughter is 8 months pregnat and will not tell anyone who the father is and is having complications. The resault is we do not have food at my house. So when I came back from CHiclayo I found my grandmother and sister in the kitchen. I had brought with me peas, lentils, and three kinds of beans. It was a warm welcoming. I went to my room to unpack and soon returned to my kitchen to find my dad talking to the rest of the fam. He turns to me and asks two questions. First, he puts his hands up about a meter and a half apart and says, "Have you seen a snake about this big?". I am not blown away by questions like these any moer, just slightly unsettled. I responded calmly, "No I haven't what color is it?". It was brown. I did not know any snakes in this area were that big so I had to ask, "Is is venomous?" He reponded while laughing, "Of corse not. You think we would eat a venomous one?" He proceded to tell me that he was keeping it for my return and that we were going to eat it for dinner. But it had escaped. I said that maybe it would eat some of the rats that are living in the roof and would get fatter. Thinking that more meat the better. I have a lot to learn. My sister responded quickly and with conviction, "If that snake eats a rat I will have nothing to do with it!" So then he asked me the second question, "So what are you doing right now?" So as if it was not odd engough that I was going to eat snake, but now I had to hunt and kill it. That we did. When we got it the snake was a lot closer to two meters. I asked my dad, "I thought you said it was a meter and a half?" He response was classic, "If I told you that you wouldn't of wanted to hunt now would you?" So we sat down for a nice quiet family dinner.

This I fel tops the trantuala story in the Dominican, and I am sure that it will not hold the crown for long.

The pictures are from putting on the cord, my mother's day preformance, and the anniversery of the private kindergarden.