A Peruvian Birthday Party

We got invited to attend Merchola’s grandson’s first birthday party this past weekend!  What an honor!  (Or so I thought until I realized half of the town was invited and we were yet again a spectacle to behold)  We were supposed to be there early to help decorate but ended up not being able to do that because we went to Mamita’s for a delicious Sunday lunch of Ahi de Gallina.  We arrived around 3:00 to a fairly large house for the area.  I think it’s actually two houses but they emptied all of one house (which is just one large room) for the party.  It was decorated fancy even for American standards!  Winnie the Pooh themed everything all over the walls and the cake and appetizers.  We were still there way earlier than everyone else so we sat down (they insisted they didn’t need any more help setting up) and talked with the little kids as they gradually came. 

The party finally started around 4:30.  They turned the music up loud and had a dance party for the kids!  There were probably 30 kids there although they didn’t all dance at the same time.  There did a lot of dancing in a train line that bounced around the floor and then a lot of free-for-all dances.  Brittany, Noelle and Aleksi joined in on the dancing and I decided to watch from the sidelines.  I’m done making a dancing fool of myself :P  One song got played at least four times in a row and then multiple times after that…I guess it’s a party favorite haha

The birthday boy!

Every once in a while someone would come around with a large cookie sheet of popcorn and you’d grab yourself a handful.  Then they served everyone cups of red jello.  Later we all got cups of the purple corn drink although it was in more of a gel form than liquid or jello.  Not my favorite thing I’ve eaten.

The girl in charge of the party did a lot of little games for the kids like musical chairs and they had a piñata.  She also led us in a game of telephone.  I wasn’t totally aware of what was going on so when Feliciana whispered something in my ear I wasn’t sure what to do.  I thought she said “plata” which is a word they use for money.  But then they put the microphone up to my face to get an answer and she whispered “banana” into my ear so I said “banana!”  Cue laughter from at least 50 Peruvians at this point.  Apparently the word was “platano” which is “banana” in English.  Oh goodness I looked like a fool.  At least everyone got a good laugh from me since I wasn’t making a fool of myself on the dance floor.

Around 6:40 they started turning the lights off for lighting birthday candles and singing happy birthday.  I was on the other side of the room and was a little taken aback when I could hear “…to you…….to youuu” but I couldn’t understand the rest.  I was thinking “are they singing Happy Birthday in English?!”  Yes, yes they were.  The “happy birthday” part was a little hard to understand with the accent but when I listened closely that’s definitely what they were saying.  After English they sang it in Spanish which is more what I was expecting.  THEN they sang the best song said “We want some of the cake, we want some of the cake” hahaha  Can I please start singing that at every birthday party I go to?!  

Well we needed to catch a bus back to Banos that night in order to get to Cajamarca for a CES fireside so we decided to head out.  We’d had enough cake in the past few days so we didn’t feel we were missing out on too much.  When we went to deliver our present to Daniel’s mom (we printed some picture we’d taken on the field trip of him and her) she told us we needed cake.  When we said it was okay, we didn’t want to wait in line for it she just went and grabbed us some pieces to take with us.  Okay, so at this point it’s 7:00, buses are sparse and we still have to walk to the bus stop so we’re in a hurry to get out.  We thank her and a few other adults and then head out the door.

Not so fast.  “You can’t leave yet!  You haven’t had dinner!”  DINNER?!  WHAT?!  We are already late and practically running out the door and they want us to eat dinner??  Well, it’s culturally rude to say no so we walk to the house next door to see what’s for dinner.  Rice, potatoes and chicken.  I think I could have guessed that with my eyes closed.  One of the ladies we didn’t know started dishing up plates.  HUGE plates of food.  We’d had a monstrous lunch at Mamita’s of rice, potatoes and chicken, we weren’t hungry, and we were in a hurry.  There was no way we were eating another gigantic plate of this stuff.  After two plates were dished up I stopped her and told her that was great and we would share.  I’m not sure how rude that is, but we physically would not have been able to eat the food.  

By now it’s at least 7:10 and we’re scarfing down food as fast as we can without looking like obnoxiously rude, American pigs.  We finished, thanked them, walked out the door and to the road and literally starting running towards the bus station.  Sadly, we didn’t run long because it had been raining earlier and the dirt road was now a mud road with little streams running through it.  It was all downhill, in the pitch black and wet.  We hadn’t prepared for this and Noelle had it the worst since she was wearing dinky little sandals.  We did make it to the station and caught one of the last buses down into town for the night.