Friday, May 27, 2011

After classes at El Sol today we went to FAP again and I was excited to go because I was sick for our last visit. My teaching group was myself, Kris, Rachel and Kelsey. We had a great lecture planned out to teach them about holidays and their respective foods. About halfway through our lecture, the professor interrupted us because the students had prepared about six typical Peruvian dishes for us to try. Many of the dishes were potato and egg-based. My favorites were the homemade papas fritas! Muy fresca! We used the rest of the class to eat and converse with the students. The students would ask us questions in English and we would respond in Spanish (or Spanglish). It was a great way to practice and the students had some fantastic questions. When we left class to head to our history lecture, students asking for our Facebook bombarded us. “Cual es tu face?!” I felt like a rockstar signing paper after paper so these kids could find me on Facebook. (I still have about thirty friend requests).

That night, we went to a pena called Rompe y Raja. SO MUCH FUN. Live music, live dancing and muchos bebidas! Monica ordered a few plates of lomo saltado (sautéed beef, onions and tomatoes over rice and papas fritas.) Looking back, this was the best lomo saltado I had eaten in Peru. After a few hours of dancing and watching performers, I was pulled on to the dance floor with Leslie to participate in a traditional Peruvian dance called Alcatraz. The dance involves one person dancing with a rag or napkin in the back pocket of your pants while your partner tries to light it on fire. The point is to shake your booty so they can’t light the napkin on fire. It was really tough! I could NOT catch that guy! I am, however, an expert booty shaker thanks to my years of dance training so he couldn’t catch me either! After catching our breath, everyone flooded the dance floor and they dropped balloons from the ceiling and I danced until about 1AM. I can’t remember the last time I danced so much. What a fun night! Why don’t we have penas in The States?! I plan on writing a formal letter to President Obama demanding the implementation of mandatory fun at penas!