4 de julio

Celebrating 4th of July in Peru was, in a word, amazing. We had the day off from training, but we still started the festivities bright and early with a field day organized by our language facilitators. They divided us into five teams by color-coded headbands, and my black team decided to name ourselves "la plaga" (the plague). 

After some very serious warm-up exercises, we joined the other teams at the main starting line.

Over the course of the morning, the teams competed in a dozen different games, including wheelbarrow race, egg race, pin the tail on the donkey, eating contest, 3-legged race, and many more. With points given out for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, the competition was fierce in pursuit of the title of 4th-of-July-Olympics Champion!

We also got to experience the traditional Peruvian game of tombola, in which a confused guinea pig is released from a box in the middle of a circle of numbered boxes and must then choose his home. Each person bets on which of the numbered boxes the cuy will enter, and the ones who guess correctly win a prize. Surprisingly the cuy seems to know he is the center of attention, and so he will draw out the suspense of the game by wandering around in circles for a little while before scurrying into his box of choice. While the cuy contemplates his decision, everyone stands around shouting at him "box 5!" "aquí!", etcetera, so it's a bit of a crazy scene. Here is the calm before the storm, while the cuy is still in his center box:

Decision time:

Aaaand we have a winner! Brad looks on fondly at his winning cuy in its new favorite box:

After the morning's games were all said and done, our team ended up taking third place, for which we were rewarded with an excellent prize of bananas and cookies. After so much activity we were all starved, so luckily it was time for a good old American cookout of hamburgers and hot-dogs. We cranked a 'Murica playlist of classic American songs and chowed down on our delicious lunch feast, topped off by a red-white-and-blue chocolate cake.

As soon as our lunch had some time to digest, it was time for the "Rep yo' hood" soccer tournament. Basically, we trainees live in five different small communities near the training center's main hub of Chaclacayo, so each neighborhood rallied its fútbol troops to compete for bragging rights. As our town of Huascata is only home to three volunteers, we teamed up with the similarly small group of 3 de octubre, and eventually emerged victorious!

To top off the afternoon, we built a bonfire and made some (slightly unusual) s'mores. Marshmallows do exist in the big supermarkets here, but graham crackers had to be foregone, sadly replaced by whole-wheat crackers. But who needs the crackers anyway? :)

The day ended with almost all 44 volunteers packed into a nearby local watering hole, not wanting the day of fun to come to an end. Though lacking in fireworks, it was an incredible 4th of July, and one I know will remember as one-of-a-kind.