Bianca's Quinceañera

  Tereré is a daily tradition. It is very refreshing and relaxing on the hot days.
 

  This is cow tongue. Fully prepped to eat, just grab a knife and a fork. Very hard to mentally get past the fact that it’s a tongue, but it actually tastes good. They tell me that the next thing I get to try is bull testicle…  

  Thanks to a care package from good ol' Leslie Cunningham we had some fun posing with fake mustaches. Here Pele (Karen's fiance), myself, Karen, and Lupe show off our 'bigotes'.  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             On Saturday I attended my first ever Quinceañera. My youngest sister, Bianca, commemorated her 15^th birthday with friends and family in a celebration not unlike a wedding reception. There was a slideshow of pictures, speeches, dinner, cake, and dancing. We transformed the backyard into a full on discotheque. We partied until the wee hours of the morning yet again and had a great time.

 

  The weather changes daily. The day of the quince we were hit with a huge storm. There is no drainage in the streets so everything flooded and the tin roof made everything sound 10x worse.

 The kitchen/dining room was set up with tables and food for the family and older guests while the yard was set up for the younger cousins and friends.

 Hard to believe these were taken from the exact same place. We had a dance floor put in, covered everything with a tent and then filled it with fabric. Later cushions and lights were installed to fully transform the yard into a high class lounge.

 My host family

 Sisters

 Father daughter dance.

 Cousins: Karen, me, Maira, Bianca, Marcia, Pame, Lupe, Janine, and Katia

 Dancing up a storm to reggaeton

 With the birthday girl. 

                                                                                                                                             

The preschool took a field trip to the farm yesterday. The kids got to milk cows, ride horses, go on trailer rides, go fishing, go in a rowboat, and see some animals - adorable. I was told by the administration to only to talk in English at the field trip to impress the parents. However, most of the kids don’t fully understand and when I said “come here” and the would run in the opposite direction. It's a work in progress.

 

                              

I continue to struggle with getting sick. Haven’t yet figured out what the cause is, but I was struck again with fever and headache. After an 18-hour nap I am fine again.

                                                        

Had my first mix up with the bus system here. On my way home from work I hopped on a bus and then suddenly realized that I didn’t recognize anything we were driving past. I panicked and got off ASAP since I have no idea where anything is here (I have yet to be shown a map and few of the streets are marked). My sisters came to pick me up in their car, but on the way, they were hit by another car. Nothing disastrous, but there was an obvious dent in the back bumper. Made it home safely without further problems and we all laughed it off (turns out car accidents are almost daily occurrences here). The next day on my way home from work, I took the same bus. Turns out I had been on the right bus after all. Whoops!