No pachamanca ni desfile

Hi everyone!
I guess today was the least interesting of the last few. Hence, I have time to write about it online! :) Anyway, I am going to write about the last few days a little later when I have more time.
Let's see, last night I was pretty sick so I stayed in and did not go to the club with Tsutsuy and I thought, with everyone else. This morning I found out that Brian was sick too and not everyone went to the disco, so I didn't feel so bad for taking a sick day. I finally got up and moving around at eight and asked Gabi for water for my "shower" of sorts. She asked if I wanted one bucket or two and I wanted a big one and a little one so I said two. I walk into the bathroom and see two huge (2.5 foot high?) buckets filled with water. Goodness gracious, not what I meant. And still no little bucket so I still had to go downstairs and figure stuff out. Anyway, I was getting dressed when I got an announcement from my host-mom that went like this:
"AMANDA!!"
"YES!"
"YOU HAVEN'T HAD BREAKFAST YET!"
"WHAT?!?"
"YOU HAVEN'T HAD BREAKFAST YET!"
"I KNOW!"
....... silence......
Hmmm, I hope I didn't offend her... but what else do you say when someone shouts blanantly obvious things across the house to you when you're half-dressed? I don't know..

Ok, breakfast was a fantastic part of the day. I had (drumroll please) Museli! Yes, that's right, amanda bought museli on the trip to Lima yesterday after we had our organic gardening class. It was fabulous. It was also Andino Museli so it had quinoa and kiwicha in it. Quinoa is a grain that is also a complete protein! Very exciting. Kiwicha is cool times too but I don't know that much about it other than it's a grain that comes from the Andes as well. But it's cool. So I watered down my evaporated milk and had some cereal for the first time since I joined the Peace Corps. It was exquisite.
When I arrived at the breakfast table there was a cup of stuff sitting there waiting for me. I did not know what this stuff was. I asked and got the response of "kuakar" or something. Basically, a completely foreign word in my vocabulary. So, like a good Peace Corps volunteer, I taste it. It was delightful, so now I definitely need to know what it is. I ask host-mom to write it out and she calls her daughter over because she doesn't know either. She prints very nicely on the post-it pad "Quaker" yep, that's right, Quaker Oats, or a cream-of-wheat concoction most accurately. So, after much discussion, I got that it was hot cocoa mix, sugar, cinnamin, the quaker avena stuff, milk, and hot water. Anyway, very good.
Let's see, then I went to Brian's and found out what really happened last night and also that one volunteer is going home!!! :(
I had no idea but I guess she doesn't like it here and misses her boyfriend and decided that it wasn't the right point in her life to do this. Very sad times...
Then I went to gather up people to go to Santa Eulalia to eat some of the largest pachamanca in the world, it's supposed to serve 2,000 people. Exciting, no? We get there and there are probably three hundred people that got there before us. On our way to explore, I bought some chirimoya!!! It's this fruit that is green out the outside and white on the inside and can vary from the size of an apple to the size of a cantalope. And it's delicious. Though I'm not sure what it tastes like in comparison. It's very good though and I got two medium sized ones for 2 soles (60 cents). Tsutsuy and Casey both bought this sweet bread with raisins which was also quite exciting but the line for the pachamanca (a pig or cow or chicken that they cook in the ground with specific spices, this one was about 15 feet long) was at least 100 people long at this point, quite disorganized, and it was already time to leave for the parade.
Brian said he was going to be the king of a parade today. About this, none of us knew much about, including Brian. He said it would be in Chosica at one o'clock and Tania was going to be the queen. However, we all arrived at Chosica and there was nothing to be seen. The police woman told us there was one at three o'clock so we wandered around, I got some earrings (2 for 5 soles or $1.50.. and I probably got ripped off) and then we went for ice cream. Peru does ice cream quite well. Tsutsuy got a Peach Melba looking item with Peaches and coconut flavored ice cream.... Mmmm...
Anyway, three o'clock, no parade, 3:25pm, still nothing so we went home. A fun day, but, um, we didn't really do anything.
When I got home and had some soup, which was really good and didn't have a big chunk of meat in it this time (though it did have half of a potato in the middle of it) -- (sidenote: In Peru, they seem to enjoy putting something that is difficult to eat with just a spoon in the middle of your soup.) -- and then went to do my homework. Except, Isavho wanted to do homework too, so I had to do my homework at the kitchen table while she wrote things down on a piece of paper and made me try to read what she said. Which, I must emphasize, is just fine, however, not the best environment for, um, homework. Anyway, she got bored and left so I went to my room and finished the rest. And now I'm at a cafe.

So now you know everything I did today.

Wasn't that fun??

Woohoo!