Christmas time

The traditional Christmas celebration for Peru is to celebrate on the 24th at midnight.   There is a large dinner and a lot of Christmas music.  In a discussion about Christmas and traditions my family asked me what my family normally does.  One of the things we always have done since I was young (and being I grew up in the north) was to have a Christmas morning fire.   Upon hearing this, my family decided that we MUST have a fire.  They then asked me what we needed.  I told them we normally just burn wood.  Anyway...we ended up having a fire for the 2 hours leading up to our Christmas eve midnight dinner.  

So for the fire I decided it was essential to have smores.  Being there are no graham crackers or Hershey’s chocolate bars I have to improvise.  Fortunately there are these wonderful peruvian snacks that are basically chocolate covered soda crackers.  These, combined with marshmallows, made some great smores.  The entire family was completely thrilled with the new discovery of cooking over a fire and making smores.  I was even informed that it is a new family tradition. 

As is customary even in the states, it seemed that the men seemed much more interested in fire that the women, and consequently stayed for much longer than the women.  

It seems like Christmas day is celebrated in the same fashion as the 4th of July in America.  We had a trip to the country where we looked at some old Incan tombs that were carved into the side of a mountain, then proceeded to have a picnic, play volleyball, soccer, and Frisbee.

Afterwards we then decided to wade into the river, jumping rock from rock.  I was even able to rescue a stray soccer ball that was about to wash down river.

Also, my host brother was a little more cautious than the rest of us.

All in all it was a very different, interesting, yet very wonderful Peruvian Christmas.  I hope it was the same for all of my fellow volunteers and friends and family in the states!

feliz navidad y feliz ano nuevo!

tim.