Anticuchos and special Mothers' day thing
Alrighty, sorry for the delay between posts... I don't really have an excuse, except that I haven't been in a blogging mood...Well, I guess I should start with the anticuchos sale. As I hate arriving early (esp. when I’m more of a ‘spare wheel’ in proceedings) I thought I’d aim to arrived about half an hour late. But, surprise surprise, I was the first one there (there goes that plan), but only by a few minutes- which is to say that the others arrived on the Peruvian social clock- but strangely enough everyone seems to arrive on time for church.
Anyways, so we set up the gear outside Aldolfo, Sabina, Amy, Juan and Daisy’s, quite close to where we have church.
The afternoon started of really hot, the sun was beating down as it nearly always does here. So, as any good boy who hates getting a red face would do, I pulled out the sunscreen and shared it around. Many Peruvians are quite ‘sunsmart’, so they all plastered it on as well.
The preparation of these ‘antichuchos’ went as follows. Clara (one of the Mums helping us out) had prepared the kebab like ‘anticuchos’ ready to put them on the Barbie, and had some potatoes and corn that went with them. So she would put the anties on the Barbie with the potatoes, then when someone bought one, they’d get a anti with a potato, some corn (the corn here is really big for some reason) with some hard out hot sauce. We sold them for 1 nuevo sol each, or round about 50 cents NZ.
So there wasn’t as much to do as when I helped with the panuelos (or whatever those doughnutty things were called), which required more hands on help. So this time I just mainly chilled and ate the product. So we sold them for a good few hours, and had a great time chatting etc. So, as promised, I took a few pics- the one with me behind the Barbie was staged (it wasn’t my idea) but anyways, here they are:
Umm, this isn't a pic from the food thing, but it's one of some of the peeps from YG
Me, hard at work
The barbie with some of the crew
Me, hard at work again
Misti at night, next to the church
Chacani, from the roof of the new houseThis all was for the Mothers’ day special service we were planning. After the three fundraisers that we had we raised quite a pile of cash. So, on the Friday before, I went with Ronny to buy the stuff at the market.
I’ve driven by this market heaps of times, but I’ve never walked around in it. It’s pretty much got everything spread out over a huge area. Unfortunately we didn’t enter it, as there was a stall that had everything in it.
This is pretty much what we got the Mums:
Rice, sugar, rolled oats, milk, lentils, pasta, oil, and I’m sure some other stuff I forgot… which made quite a nice little gift.
As well, someone had the bright idea of having a choir, Which resulted in me being called in to be a part of it. Little did I know that there was such a thing as a mothers’ day song- but I soon found out (Mothers’ day here is evidently more important than in New Zealand). I’ll give you a few translated quotes to give you an idea of what the song was like.
“you are the precious (or beautiful) gift from heaven, you are the precious gift of love, the fortress that I have in my life, you are my greatest treasure, you are a blessing from heaven…”
or in the other song…
“Dear (beloved) Mamá, I love you, and I will never forget you. I promise myself to you for ever, to make you always happy”
I think I translated that alright, anyways, Everyone else didn’t seem to think “ this is like a full on love song for my Mum, or at least has that vibe, and it seems weird” I guess it must be cultural- But I can’t imagine any Kiwi guys being thrilled at singing that kind of song- despite how much we all love our Mum.
Speaking of lyrics, I though I may as well put down so of my favourite lines from a hitting song.
(Calle 13, Atrevete) “It doesn’t matter if she likes Green Day, it doesn’t matter if she likes Coldplay” This song was a huge hit last year, it has some other great lines as well… “You came like an Amazon (referring to the Greek myths about a tribe of warrior women) like Brazil, you came to kill like kill bill” and “She knows karate and cooks with tomato sauce” to name a few of the lines.
It’s quite tricky to translate, especially as the song is quite fast. And, of course, I can’t get the translation to rhyme at all, which is obviously a big part of the charm. For the record Calle 13 is a Mexican Reggaeton group.
On the Sunday everything went well. We had a pretty good crowd, and the gifts were well appreciated. The singing went good as well, but not exactly a vintage performance on my part. I couldn’t hit the high notes with volume on “Precioso Don de Cielo” (I’ll blame the climate haha) to be precise. I didn’t take any pics, as I was on the video camera for Anthony- but I believe that some of you have seen some pics that he sent to my Dad. If you’re wondering, I was dressed up as that was the plan for the choir…
In more up to date news, we’ve just moved house to another area of town. The old house we were in had to be reoccupied by its owners (to make a long story short)’and another house couldn’t be found in the same zone. The new place is near the language school where I take classes, it’s a nice part of town, and the house is better (except the lack of a garden). I love the view from the roof, as you can see the three mountains that dominate the skyline here- Chacani, El Misti, and Pichu Pichu. It’s crazy to think that those mountains look so big, even though the city here is at around the same altitude as Mount Hutt (if I remember correctly) and Chacani, the tallest of the mountains, is over 6,000 metres above sea level.
I suppose that’s all I have to put up today, but there’s some fun times coming soon which include:
A trip with the Church to Pucina this Sunday
I’ll be going to Cuzco and Machu Pichu in the next few weeks with a mate from the UK that I worked with in Chile (remember James from my earlier posts?) If he turns up in time, that is…
And I might write up something about my ever improving Fútbol skills. I’ve been playing quite a bit, with students from the institute and with the crew from church. I guess the skills I still haven’t mastered would be dribbling and defensive foot positioning- but if a situation only calls for a deft kicks I’m not that bad. I’ve also been watching a bit on the telly, mainly Champions league action- It’s nice to see some pros in action, see the lines they run and the passing tactics.
If only they had a touch rugby competition here… or a basketball one at the moment…
I’ve only got another month here in Arequipa, which is kinda surprising, then after that I’m hitting the road for a month to visit my mates in Chile (for two weeks) and then two weeks in Argentina, visiting my distant relatives and meeting up with some contacts (two weeks as well) which will be ‘good times’
Look after yourselves,
Nathan
posted by Nathan Sinclair @ 12:14 PM
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