La Fiesta de San Sebastian

Hola a todos!

So a couple of corrections from last time... my grammar teacher´s name is Nely, not Anna.  Not sure where I got that.  And I live in Cari Grande in San Sebastian, not Sebastion.

Anyway, I was sitting in my room last night journaling, watching fireworks (fuegos artificiales) from my window, smiling like an idiot while I pondered how awesome this city is.

Armando, the father of the house in which I´m staying was kind enough to take us to the fiesta de San Sebastian yesterday.  It´s a celebration of Saint Sebastian, the saint of my neighborhood, and it lasts 4 days.
It was raining and freezing, but it was amazing.  There was a parade in front of the church with hundreds of dancers in the brightest, most elaborate costumes I´ve ever seen.  If you´ve seen the bag I carry around from Cusco that is bright purple with lime green, hot pink, and various other blindingly bright colors, times that by hundreds of people dancing with huge smiles and laughing.  There are also dancers wearing bird masks or masks with creepy old man faces.  You can really see the blending of the culture of the Andean people with the Catholic tradition at these fiestas.  The dancers were interspersed with bands that were playing awesome drum beats with a lot of horns.  Just to give you an idea of the intensity of this music, I live about a mile away, up the hill with many buildings between the plaza and my house, but I can still hear the beats from my room.  The dancing was intense... i don´t know how they kept that up for as long as this parade went on.  They probably apreciate the freezing weather.  It was really nice of Armando to take me and Braydon (another student at the language school from Australia that lives with us now) over there even though it was pouring and he could watch it on TV.  He doesn´t speak much english, but is super friendly and patient, so it´s actually pretty easy to communicate with him.

ALSO, my teachers told me that next week they will take me to some places to check out volunteering so I don´t have to wait until March when Fairplay is getting their afterschool program started!!!  Please pray that God will make a place for me, because I´m loving being here, but I didn´t come to go on one long vacation!!  By then, I´m sure I won´t be sick anymore, so I can work with the kiddos.  I just have a stubborn lingering cough that I will probably have for the next month or so. 

PS Aunt Sue - this is the Fairplay website:  http://www.fairplay-peru.org/content/14613 I´m staying at homestay option 2 but I don´t see my room on there. 

Hasta luego!
Kelly