Craziest ten days of my life

From September 20th to 29th, I:

Rehearsed, learned, and performed in a native Huititi dance for the parish Youth Day celebrations;


finished studying for and took the GRE;

kept on with all my regular projects like Confirmation, IRFA, choirs in the school, choirs in the parish, visiting the sick, and helping in the Delicias house with Teresa being on bedrest;

and decided, after a very strong, very painful freak-out session, not to be a nun.

It was a busy ten days.

Above: me and the other catechists in our traditional costumes from Arequipa!! Part of the costume is a dredlock-style full head of braids with ribbons tied in. My friend Josie's mom invited me to her house for lunch that day and braided my hair... so nice! Peruvian hospitality.

Left: me with my friend Juan Carlos (aka Juancho). He's holding up his skirt to show that he actually is wearing pants underneath. In this dance, the men wear long skirts over their pants, because in the time and culture that invented the dance, parents kept boys and girls very strictly separated and didn't let them see each other. So, with that crazy bravery that dares a man to do anything for love... the boys dressed up as girls to sneak in and see their girlfriends!

Look how well I fit in! :) I'm practically Peruvian. The guy in normal clothes is our teacher.
So the dance was awesome, plus the fact that the whole three minutes of it is nothing but jumping from side to side in different formations, so I got in really good shape by the end of the rehearsals! The music is with Andean flutes and drums, and you get to hop all around and spin and yell EEY! Fabulous.


The GRE, which I took yesterday at the Institute of American English in Lima, was also surprisingly good. I got a 1420 on the multiple-choice verbal and math sections. I'd been studying pretty dilligently for most of August and September, trying to find one to two hours a day during the week (weekends were too crazy) to study vocab and review math I haven't done since middle school. I got kind of ridiculously excited when the word Perspicacity appeared on the actual test, and a little indignant that not one single right-triangle 1-1-root 2 or 1-root 3-2 question appeared! after I reviewed all those stupid angles and hypotenuses. Oh well. I feel I've taken my first step towards becoming a theologian!

...And I'm glad about becoming a theologian, because, the nun idea... not so much. Last Friday for some reason I was just absolutely flipping out, sitting in my house crying because I felt like I was being torn in two inside--because I like everything, everything about the idea of being an SND... except the part about never being able to have a relationship or a family. All these questions about happiness, love, what one really, REALLY wants in life... sacrifice, leading to true happiness over immediate pleasure... being able to love people and share with them... Luckily when I went up to the school, Estela was there, and she listened to me talk for like an hour, and reassured me that one can serve God just as well as a non-nun. By Sunday I'd calmed down sufficiently to be able to study, and by Monday I was good to go on the test. And after the test, during my celebratory walk around Miraflores (the sun came out! and I sat in the park overlooking the ocean...), I found myself thinking calmly: El amor es uno solo. All love is one. I think if you're living a life full of love, and doing what makes you happy, that's all you can really ask for and all that can be asked of you.

So, as I said. A busy ten days. But good. ...real good. :)

Today there was not one but TWO dogs that wandered into my choir rehearsals in the school. Plus fourth grade behaved like a bunch of wild monkeys. Aah, Peru.