With boughs of holly fa lalalalalalalala

This is me continuing my detailed holiday account

On Christmas Day itself, I found myself in a better mood, managed to listen to Frank Sinatra’s ¨Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas¨ sans lagrimas (tears) and had a nice whole hearted breakfast of chicken and rice with my family (this was of course, after my daily L.S.M. (loose stool movement). We (the six other Peru fourteeners in Tumbes) and I decided to hit up the beach for the day to catch a little Vitamin D. We headed over to a town called La Cruz where I have two friends volunteering. I will never take for granted the fact that I have a beach 30 minutes from my house. We all hung out, bronzed and swam out to one of the fishing boats that had been left empty for the day. After falsely believing I had enough upper body strength to haul my +10lbs. body onto the stern and failing miserably, I was helped aboard and we all chilled out on a boat that made me thankful I had gotten my tetanus shot. Seriously.

After swimming back to shore, we got some ceviche for lunch and had a few cervezas and broke out the Gato Negro (Chilean boxed wine). I’m not sure if I’ve detailed for you all ceviche but it’s pretty good here and I’m getting used to it. It’s raw fish soaked in lime juice which is acidic enough to kill all the bacteria that would otherwise, make you sick form eating fish straight out of the ocean. So we ate all that up, exchanged secret santa gifts and headed back to the playa where we continued our festivities into the late afternoon by playing extreme soccer boys vs. girls style. Two days later, my body is still sore and if it’s possible, I have sand-burn on my legs.
That night, we all had a slumber party at my friend Allyse’s where I shouldn’t have, but did, watch the Exorcism of Emily Rose (how Christmas appropriate- not). I had no idea that “Emily Rose” is Deb from Dexter (one of my favorite tv shows)! So that made it a little bit more bearable to watch (I kept my eyes closed for the majority of the film) but still found it hard to sleep last night. Unluckily for me though, a mosquito found his/her/its way into my mosquito net last night and now I am +13 bug bites on the legs. I question myself every day why Noah thought it was necessary to let those God-forsaken bugs on his ark and not unicorns. Talk about a bad trade off.

Speaking of unicorns, I finally put up both my world and US map (that Abby had given me) in my room and I looked super cultured now with those put up along with my Peruvian art posters! One of them was a secret santa gift given to me by a man that works in my health post. It’s a framed poster of a princess with a crown full of diamonds blowing magic dust into the air that manifests itself into a unicorn jumping over the moon. Let’s just say that Peruvians and I may have different tastes in wall art. Don’t worry, I will put a picture of it up on facebook.

So yes folks, there you have it- my first Christmas in Peru. I made it through alive, am still here, and can’t wait until New Years now! I hope you all had a nice time with family and whether you celebrate Christmas or not, enjoyed their company during the holiday season! I would like to give a shout out to my Papa Jim who unfairly had to spend Christmas Eve, Day and more in the hospital recuperating from both jaw and hip surgery. However, I have heard that his spirit has not faltered and I want you to know Papa Jim that I love you so much and wish I could be there with you! Also, happy birthday to mama kane (re: Emmy Lou) who celebrated her ____ birthday yesterday! Love you mom!