These things keep passing…… I think they’re called months.

               Yikes it’s been a long time since I wrote anything. In my defense there have been long stretches of relatively uninteresting days in my life lately; turns out December is slow for business in the Peace Corps and then January is still slow for youth volunteers because it’s the beginning of summer break. However, there have also been some excellent days in between the boredom and I should be writing about them. Let's take a look back at December, shall we?

               Madre mia came for a visit. I realize that seems like a whole page or two of its own, but I’m not really sure how I would write it. We spent a lot of our time sitting around visiting (and a little bit of crying), which is exactly what I wanted it to be.  Six months is the longest I’ve ever gone without seeing her. We did do a lot of site seeing as well, I’m a good little host. We stayed in Huaraz mostly, but we also saw Caraz, the ruins at Chavin and my site. In Mancos Mom got to go with / I dragged her to my English classes in the primary school. All the kids had the chance to ask mom questions. At this point I would tell you all a story about her trying to describe a plane flight to my students (with me translating of course), but Mom says I tell it wrong. There was a lot of arm flapping involved though, that’s all I’m going to say.

                Christmas Eve was yet another cultural adventure for me.  Here is tradition to eat a whole other meal at midnight to ring in Christmas day. We went to mass before dinner to have the little baby Jesus blessed so we could add him to the nativity scene at midnight as well. There were also firecrackers and the exchanging of gifts. Four full meals in one day was a little rough, but it was a fun version of Christmas Eve.

                Christmas Day I woke up and opened Christmas presents on skype with my family. Mom brought presents when she came down and I actually waited until the 25^th to open them. Impressed? That morning I headed into Huaraz to meet up with everybody. We cooked dinner and watched Ernest Saves Christmas. I was great. Keren’s parents were in Huaraz as well. Her mom made Hanukah doughnuts and latkas as part of our dinner. They even brought dradles and chocolate coins for us the play with; so much holiday fun! I ended up staying the 26^th as well. Jeff, Brice and I hung around the hostel for the day. Jeff started teaching me the art of betting in Blackjack. I’ll take a run at Vegas when I get home…….

                Continuing with the massive amounts of celebrations in one week’s time; I celebrated my 25^th birthday a few days later. We had lunch at my house. Kait, John William, Kyle and Johanna came over to help me celebrate. My host sister Paola and I tried to cook a birthday cake as well. We aimed for a two layer cake, both layers stuck to the pan and crumbled when we tried to turn them out. Never fear……Paola and I just decided to smush the crumbles into one pan with some peanut butter and mold our own cake. Surprisingly it actually held together and formed a cake, unsurprisingly it was a little dense :-P Later that night was the graduation party for the seniors at my school. It was good fun for a while, but by 4:30 in the morning I was really ready to be in my bed. 

                Rounding at the week of festivities, and December as a whole was New Year’s Eve in Huaraz. We all donned our yellow for good luck and had a potluck at California Café. Complete with card games, dancing, fireworks and Elke spinning fire poi. We stuck around the restaurant until the midnight count down and then went dancing until all hours of the morning. It was great fun and a great way to ring in the new year.