Friends will always be there for you!

Last weekend, on Friday Tefy and I stayed in but on Saturday Winnie, Maria, Carlos and I went to a birthday party. Tefy wasn't allowed to go because she was still grounded. That night my boyfriend broke up with me and he didn't even tell me a good reason. I guess that's just the way some men are here, machos. :( But a week later he told me that he only bryoke up with me because he didn´t want to suffer from the fact that I would soon be leaving him. =(

On Sunday I went out to eat with all the AFS people and did an end of exchange evaluation of how our experience here in Peru has been.

In school I have a ton of homework and papers to write. On Wednesday I had a power point presentation about Austria to once and for all let my class mates know where in the world Austria is situated, that the people there speak German and not English and for them to "get to know" my mom, dad and brother in Austria.

On Friday in the afternoon Tefy and I went to the center and walked around. We went to the " Chalán" to drink ice drinks and eat cake, a ritual we have. In the evening we stayed up late watching movies on the computer. On Saturday all of my class mates were supposed to meet in a friend's house, Claudia, to go out to eat as a kind of going-away party for me. I went to Claudia's house and we waited for 2 hours, but noone showed up, so the two of us went out to eat. I was kind of disappointed because everybody had told Claudia that they would come, but then they didn't.

In the evening Winnie, Ricardo and other friends from my graduation class and we went to a friends house with all of my friends from my graduacion class. Later on Tefy and then Maria came too. It was really fun to go out with just my friends again.

Caritas Pintadas =)

In school I have A LOT to do these days, so I'm always happy when we are in art class, because it's relaxing. I have a class called "Caritas Pintadas" which means " painted faces". There's one guy in my class called Jose Luis Chen. Everyone calls him by his last name, Chen. He's a true artist, so in art class I asked him to paint something pretty on my face. Here are the pictures. =)

It was on of my friends birthday so we went to visit her. I sat with Winnie! =) Tefy and I went to see the world premier of Transformers 2, which was awesome!!!

Catacaos & Narihuala

The fireworks on the plaza

my cousin Ana Maria, Tefy and I

Sergio, Ana Maria, Tefy and I

Tefy and I in the sementary of Narihuala

Tefy and I and the old enchanted church of Narihuala

old ceramics of the inkas

Our tour guide Abel, Tefy and I

On Friday Tefy, Ricardo, Carlos and I stayed in and just talked and listened to music.

On Saturday Tefy and I got up early, got our stuff ready and went to Catacaos, which is were my peruvian grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins live. It was a 25 mintute ride in combi and when we got there my Mami Nene (mi grandma) , aunt Bello and Chana were already expecting us. Then my cousin Ana Maria, who's Tefy's age, her boyfriend Sergio and I went to Narihuala, which is a touristic place, which has a lot of peruvian history. Our tour guide was 6 year old Abel, who knew the whole history of Narihuala, which really suprised us, considering he was still a little boy. Then we went to eat cebiche, and drank chicha and then went back to the house, ate lunch and then went to buy stuff. Catacaos is a really touristic place, because the jewellery is extremly cheap!! I bought some presents and saw some some English speaking people walking around. Tefy told me to talk to them, so I did and asked two girls where they were from. The girl, Olivia, told me that she was 17, from Chicago and on a school trip. She asked Tefy "Do you speak English?" and Tefy answered " Yes, but just a little. " I was proud of her =) The Olivia presented me to her teacher and then said goodbye and went back home. Tefy and I were really tired of walking around in the blazing sun all day, so we took a nap, then ate shrimp with mayonnaise and drank milk, then watched on TV the female world champion of boxing Kina Malpartida, who's peruvian, defend her title, and win, and then went to the plaza where there was a small town party going on. We watched really pretty fireworks, and just walked around the plaza all night. We went back to the house quite late, slept in on Sunday, which was, in Peru, fathersday. Tefy and I both had a really bad stomach ache, Tefy even threw, so when we went oyt to eat with the whole family plus my ma, pa, brothers and my aunt who had also come to Catacaos, we both ate soup, but we didn't feel better afterwards. We went back to the house, layed down for a while and then went back home to Piura, 8 people in one little Volkswagen. As usual, Pa, Giampi and Javier sat in the front seats, Tefy on my lap, Karina on my aunts lap, and my ma in the back. Luckily Kathy didn't come because she had to study beacuse we were already squished in the car. Tefy threw up again, so they brought her to the emergency room. I also felt bad, but I started washing my clothes, by hand as usual, to keep my mind off of my pain. When my ma and pa came back they told me that Tefy had to stay in the hospital, because she was really sick. I went back to visit her with them. She was sleeping. Her arm was hooked up to some kind of liquid, and she looked even skinnyier than usual, which made me really worry about her. We bought some medicine for myself and then went back to the house.

Carlos came to see me later in the evening, the 21st was our 4-months anniversary. =) When he left at 11 pm Tefy came home and went straight to bed. She looked better than before, but still really sick. =(

On I went to school and Tefy to the doctors with her mom and when she came home she told me that she had Gastritis. She is incredibly skinny and one time about a month ago a nutritionist came to our house and evaluated us. He told Tefy that she, to be in a normal weight range, for her age and height, she had to gain at least 10 kilos and he also told me that I have to lose some weight,...=) My whole family, my friends and everyone we know is worried about Tefy and we are all trying as a team to get her to gain weight.

Staying in/ being grounded

I only went to the gym on Monday last week. The rest of the week I didn't because I was grounded, because I'd gone to a friends' house after the gym without my moms' permission, which is probably the most important thing for parents here in Peru. I wasn't allowed to go out on the weekend either, so I stayed in and worked on a Phisics paper until 2 a.m on Friday and on Saturday I went to the Club Grau with my friend Valeria. We ate, sunbathed and then went for a swim. We met some of her friends there and watched them play a professional game of ping pong. In the evening all of my friends plus Tefy and my brother Giampi went to either the party that was organized by the university of Piura or to a party called "fiesta de Tekila", where a shot of Tekila cost about 3 Soles, which is less than a dollar and a lot less than a euro. Carlos came to see me, because for one, I wasn't allowed to go out and also he didn't have any money to go out himself. We sat on the doorstep talking, as usual, until 12 p.m., then he left and I went to bed. I didn't fall asllep until late and then at 4 a.m. Tefy came home and woke me up. She had drunken a little too much beer and Tekila, which is never a good idea. I stayed up with her for 2 hours, then went to my sister Kathys' room, slept for an hour and then had to get up to go to school for a " father's day" performance (although Father's day in Peru isn't until the 21st of June). At 12 o'clock lunch time Carlos came and I was happy because I was really bored being in school on a Sunday! We went home around 3, and just sat in the little park in front of my house for a while. =)

Doing school work

Pierina and Lisley

Today two friends from school, Pierina y Lisley, came to my house to work on a Phisics paper. When we were done I played the guitar, we sang and then took some pictures. Then Carlos came to see me.

Spending time with friends =)

Winnie Pooh (Cristhian) and I =)

Since none of us really had enough money to go out Ricardo, Tefy, Maria, Gaimpi, Winnie and I went to have our own "little party" sitting in the basketball court across the road from my house. My boyfriend couldn't come, but I had a really good time with just my friends.

On Saturday we had a AFS meeting in Steve's houes. We all had to bake a typical dish from our country, so I went to the market with Tefy and Karina and bought all the things we needes to make "Vanillekipferl", which an Austrian dessert. Tefy, Kathy and Maria also went to Steve's house with me, and we all ate a lot, Crepe and Kish from France, Zopf from Switzerland and many other tasty things.

School and being sick =S

I have been sick for the last couple of weeks, and now it's getting colder and colder here in Piura because winter is coming. I'm already so used to the warmth, so I get cold really fast. We don't have warm water in our house, so we can't shower in the mornings anymore, because the water is freezing. I have been going to school wearing, besides my school uniform of course, a sweater and a scarf, because we still have air conditioning in our class room. I got back into the habit of doing my homework and taking little tests. I really like going to school. I think the fact that teenagers here in Peru can graduate and go to the university at 15 or 16 years of age is absolutely amazing, in many ways. Of course their education status isn't, by far, as good as ours' in Austria or in the USA, but most of the kids do ok.

In my class I don't have a lot of real friends that I go out with or that come to see me at my house, like I do from last years graduating class with Tefy, there's only one of my best friends called Carlitos and a friend called Gianmarco.

In the afternoons I just hung out at home, looked after my little cousin Karina, did my homework and spent some time with my boyfriend Carlos.