Happy Day After the 4th of July Friends! I don’t know how you celebrated the Independence of our nation, but I celebrated it in typical U.S.A. fashion: hot dogs, mac n cheese and a few cold ones. We couldn’t find Budweiser, but Cristal made for a decent exception. Before you start thinking that the Peace Corps is paying us enough to down fine champagne, I should probably mention that Cristal is a local brand of beer. Needless to say, I always order it because I get a kick out of uttering the words, “A big bottle of Cristal for me, please,” in a casual manner. Tee Hee. So while I’m on the subject of U.S. events, I should probably address the most recent tragedy: the death of National pop icon, Michael Jackson. Peru is very fascinated by U.S. music, movies and fashion, but for some reason they are most keenly interested in the “culture” that occurred in the U.S. between 1982 and 1991. Exhibit A: Scrunchies are EVERYWHERE. You aren’t cool unless you are rocking one scrunchie in the hair and one on the wrist. Extra points if they match your tube socks and Chuck Taylors. Needless to say, the country is traumatized by the death of Michael Jackson. I have been completely unaware of any sort of International news for nearly a month, but somehow I found out about this event within hours of its occurrence. I have been asked no less than 17 times by my host dad what I think about it, how I feel about it, how the other volunteers are coping, if I have spoken to my family in the States about it, etc. etc. etc. My host family does not own a DVD player, yet they own a DVD of M.J.’s greatest hits. We watched it on my laptop last weekend, and now the family is bent on learning the Thriller dance. If they can find time in-between making their friendship bracelets...

Other than MJ’s death and the 4th of July, things have continued without major event here over the last week. I am learning a lot though, and not just about language and business. I feel that I have already gained some serious life skills that will help me for years in the future. I now dabble in the arts of growing lettuce, baking banana bread over open fire and killing a guinea pig without ruining the meat for consumption (kidding…sort of). In addition, here are a few more proficiencies I can cut and paste into the ole résumé:

How to barter.

I learned how to cook my first Peruvian dish, Aji de Gallina, and it was delicious if I do say so myself. As part of my language class, we went to an open-air market in a neighboring town to buy the necessary items. I absolutely love the markets here - you can buy anything from a stove to a live chicken (perhaps that is where my family went a couple of weeks ago…) in a series of hundreds of adjoining stalls. Sarita, my language professor, makes us barter everywhere we go. It is somewhat embarrassing, but I have gotten some good deals that way. The first time she made me do it was in Lima, in a shoe store. I had to go to up to an employee, ask the cost of a pair of shoes, and immediately ask if I could have a discount. I thought the woman would look at me like I had an arm growing out of my head, but she seemed to think this was perfectly normal. She dropped the price by 10 Soles on the spot. Might want to remember that if you ever go shoe-shopping in Peru (I mean, who doesn’t do that?). Bartering in the market was worse, however… I had to haggle with some of the poorest people this side of the Sahara over a can of evaporated milk. I know that this is part of the Peace Corps language curriculum, but I can’t shake the feeling that the language instructors get a kick out of watching us. Dance gringos, dance! As bad as I felt in doing this, I’m quite excited about putting my bartering skills to work in China Town, New York. Those Pucci peddlers won’t know what hit them!

How to perform Karaoke in Peru.

So, I’m not sure if anyone is aware of this, but I somewhat enjoy singing karaoke. Apparently I’ve come to the right place, because Peruvians love it as well. I have found my people. The format here is slightly different, though. You sign up for two songs at a time, and they take the microphones from table to table, in order of where your table is located, so you can sing while sitting at your table. Being the attention-hog that I am, I prefer to stand up, but hey, when in Rome. The Karaoke Bar we went to was called McDonel’s (again, with the American pop-culture) and was fantastic. My friend Jess and I sang a couple of songs in English, which were big hits with the local patrons, but our attempts at songs in Spanish failed miserably. After our first song, they abruptly snatched our microphones away before we could sing the second (Jess swears they even turned hers off). Tough crowd. I now know, however, that the way to the hearts of Peruvians is clearly through American pop songs… bring on the Backstreet Boys.

How to purchase a high-quality bootleg DVD.

The bootleg DVD business is huge here. You can buy 10 movies for less than the cost of a sheep’s head (which you can buy just about anywhere as well), but you need to know which “merchant” sells the higher quality DVDs and which sell the ones that were clearly filmed by a guy sitting in the back of a movie theater holding a 1987 RCA camcorder with a shaky hand. During a fun-filled family bonding day at Tio’s house awhile back, I was treated to a showing of the entire Fast and the Furious series (Los Furiosos y Rapidos). I know a few of you will ask, and yes, it was definitely dubbed in Spanish. Quite entertaining. What was more entertaining, however, was the back cover of the DVD, where it explained that Fast and the Furious 2 & 4 were both nominated for Best Picture Oscars in the U.S. Excuse me? Come again? I must’ve missed those Oscar ceremonies. I was so intrigued by this, that I did some P.I. work myself and casually took a gander at a few other movie cases. Just as I suspected, blatant and hilarious lies. I found some priceless jems, but to save time, I’ll leave you with my favorite… Apparently the movie, “Fireproof,” starting Kirk Cameron earned over $200 million dollars in the U.S. and debuted at #4 upon its release. Betcha didn’t know that!

Well, that's about all for now, but I will leave you with my second installment of, "Dog Wearing Human Sweater." ENJOY!!!