3 day party

These last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activities that have helped me build credibility in the community and establish myself as hardworking. I have made the leap (at least among the schoolchildren) from gringa to Señorita Dani. I have given presentations in both primary schools in my town about participatory environmental education and it seems that the teachers are responding positively. They are very interested in starting recycling programs, building tree nurseries, and taking field trips. I am very lucky with my site because all the people here need is a little encouragement and facilitation. There is a strong interest in protecting their environment and I am here to motivate people to be confident enough to step outside the box a little.
My favorite activity that I have done so far was to make tipi-taps with some of the high school students. Tipi taps are essentially two liter bottles turned upside down, filled with water, and hung outside the bathroom to encourage hand washing. Since we only have water select hours of the day, I have had trouble washing my hands every time I use the bathroom so I stole this project idea from the water and sanitation Peace Corps program. I made hand washing cool in the high school, which is the most I can hope for as a Peace Corps volunteer.
As Christmas approaches I have been thinking a lot about family and tradition. I look forward to participating in all the traditions here, which I am told include mass and a midnight dinner on Christmas Eve. My host mother will be in Lima because her youngest daughter is giving birth so she will not be present for my first Peruvian Christmas. I will not, however, be orphaned and lonely on Christmas. I have been invited to about ten different houses but I will be accompanying my host sister to her in-law's house.
The amount of socializing that I have done in the past three weeks has given me a pretty good glimpse into the culture of Pacora. It is a vibrant and friendly town where everyone is curious about who I am and what I am doing. In order to meet more people and give off a wholesome and trustworthy image, I started attending mass with my host mother. This achieved the desired effect but now I am back peddling a little bit because now everyone thinks that I am a devout Catholic. I have been invited to pray on many occasions and in some cases I have accepted and asked for health, friendship, and success in the upcoming year. I thought it was pretty good for a first prayer in any language.
Another fact of life that I am getting used to is the fact that there is no separation of church and state. Since the students at the local public high school were required to learn The Lord's Prayer in English for their English class last week, my English class turned into a combination language-religion course. This was not my ideal situation but it was one way to get to know the kids.
When I refer to the people here as vibrant I mean that in many senses of the word. There is a ton of energy everywhere you look. Subtlety is not a concept that exists. The colors are bright, glitter is prevalent, raucous laughter spills out of every house, and the parties last for days. Last week the neighbors had a baptism party that lasted for three days. As soon as I saw the twelve-foot tower of speakers and mototaxi after mototaxi arriving full of beer, I knew I wouldn't be sleeping. When I saw the same speaker tower on the sidewalk outside my house today (it wouldn't fit through the other neighbor's door) I knew what was coming. I definitely respect a culture that doesn't hold back when it comes to partying but I am used to the police showing up if the music can even be heard from the neighbor's house. I tried to explain this to my host mom as the windows visibly shook above our heads due to the volume of the chicken dance and she did not understand the concept. I am pretty sure that I will be coming back to the states much less uptight than I am now (although I never really thought of myself as uptight before coming to Peru).
I am at a point where I am transitioning from the honeymoon stage into the reality. I am figuring out the quirks of the culture that I will be working with and trying to adjust my tactics and expectations accordingly. Punctuality and Ford style efficiency have given way to a less rigid, García-Márquez perception of time. I am starting to see all the Latin American lit I read in college with a new clarity…and it's growing on me even though the chicken dance just started up again for the second time in the last half hour.