A Peruvian Style Party

This Saturday me host family, their family, a couple of my friends, and I all celebrated me host dad’s birthday. The party officially started at 830, but as in Peruvian fashion the guests didn’t arrive until at least 9, including the neighbor. But even then the bulk of the guests didn’t get there until 930. I and my friends were lucky we only had to greet everyone with the Peruvian kiss one at a time, while some people had to do it literally twenty times in a row. One guest even had to wipe his forehead from all the work. I think I think I like the wave and hello to everyone in the room American greeting more than the Peruvian greeting, a lot less work.

We sat around and talked to all of the family members about a variety of things. We talked to my ‘host aunt’ who seemed to be very interested in what we had to say. She sure did get a kick out of us when by accident my friend Mary said we live in the same room back in America. Luckily we got that misunderstanding all straightened out. While we talked we were served food and drinks. There were enough appetizers to feed an army but we downed them all. I thought that was all the food but oh now we still had the main courses to tackle. There were about thirty and we couldn’t finish all of the food! I ate so much I’m still full from Saturday night. And as in Peruvian fashion we didn't sing happy birthday or eat untill midnight, and we sang in English first then in Spanish, even though many of them didn't know English. Half way through 'Happy' as they call Happy Birthday, a plastic piece on the cake caught on fire. This seemed to phase no one but us Americans.

All the food, not including the appetizers!

After eating some of us managed to dance despite all of the food we just ate. We moved the dining room table and danced the night away, ok more like 20 minutes. We danced to all of the popular songs in Peru and did the dances. We even did some American dances, this made everybody laugh. We even sang along to some of the songs which impressed some people. We must have been quite the site, a couple of gringos singing, dancing in Spanish.

After the dancing I walked my friends home and my host sister tagged along as well. While walking to their houses we were lucky enough to experience a Lima rain shower. When I say rain shower don’t get images of heavy rain, thunder, and lightning, it was barely spitting out. But that didn’t stop my host sister from commenting on the huge amount of rain we were walking in. After getting back from walking my friends home I ate even more! I was offered cake. How could I, an American, so no to a dessert? I didn’t get to bed until a little after three and the next morning no one ate breakfast. We were still full from the previous night

Getting the party started!