El Último Cumpleaños

Matthew and I celebrated Elias´ birthday Wednesday with him and his family, including his brother Roberto (dancing fiend in red) who had his birthday just a few days earlier.

We brought Elias bread from Oropesa (our town is nationally famous for its bread) and some no-bake "cookies" that didn´t turn out as well as I had hoped. After I re-formed the delicious blobs to sort of resemble cookies on a plate after our long trek to his house, I walked around offering them to guests who had the funniest looks on their faces. Many accepted and tried out my strange looking sticky cookies, but one man refused! After I have tried so many things including a cuy that still had a claw and nails, he says "no gracias"! Woah. I served most of the cookies, or tried to, and then sat down to dinner.

Although I was a champ finishing my cuy the last time we were at Elias´ house, I couldn´t quite plow through my plate the same way the other night. Matthew and I arrived later than a lot of people, so only one other guest was still eating when we got there and I felt like everyone was watching us eat and waiting to start dancing. We were served a special dish from Cusco that is only served during this time of year, which included a mountain of food- a special grilled corn, a piece of chicken, a piece of sheep, a quarter cuy, some sort of deep fried vegetable goodness, sea weed, and fish eggs. I tried, I really did. I wanted to be grateful and not refuse the hospitality, but I couldn´t do the eggs (have you ever had the crunchy treat?) or the seaweed. Wasn´t sure what the sheep was, just looked like a scary piece of meat, or some part of an animal and when I couldn´t bite into it on the first try, it went into my pile of bones, eggs, seaweed. I shamefully turned in my half-eaten plate after I did my best.

The rest of the night was filled with lots of cerveza and lots of dancing. Due to the shortage of female guests, I was asked to dance many times. I didn´t mind dancing and wasn´t made fun of too badly this time for my gringa dance skills. PLUS, while I was dancing, it was less likely that I´d be handed a cup full of Peruvian beer! My most frequent partner was Roberto and he had some mad skills. I just tried to imitate him and all was well. I didn´t care too much for one particular partner who liked to dance a little too closely for my comfort, but all I had to say were some magic words, "ayudame, Mateo!" and my partner would move back to a safe distance.

Because my Peru trip is winding down and I´m heading home in June, this may have been my last Peruvian Party and I´m ok with that. I just can´t do it like they do, partying until 5 a.m. on a school night.

Happy Birthday to everyone celebrating today, especially you, Miss Jenny Popp! And may your tomorrow be nothing like our yesterday.