Mother´s Day

One weird thing about Perú is that they show dead bodies on the news. It is very disturbing. I was eating lunch the other day and it was really hard to eat while watching this news story with a woman screaming and crying while holding her dead husband. And its not a quick glance either. Its a ¨lets get 30 seconds from this angle, 30 seconds on a close up of the face, another 15 seconds from the top...¨ and so on. The word ¨privacy¨does not exist in the Peruvian language. And who the heck would want to see a dead body anyways?

Mother´s Day was a couple of weekends ago and they throw a big celebration for it. There is a variety show in which the all the moms in the towns come too and a bunch of their kids perform on a big stage. They also give out prizes to the 50 oldest moms in the town. But what does the word ¨prizes¨mean? It means pots and pans, tubberware, cups, mixing bowls, etc. You can tell the role of the women in the Peruvian culture. They are there to keep the house under control, keep food on the table, make sure the home is clean, make sure the laundry is always done, etc. Its interesting to me because my mom talks badly of my sister at times, saying that she is never home cooking and cleaning. But in reality, I see her cook and clean the most out of everyone. I think my mom is angry at my sister because she is going to school. Because she isn´t following the norm of graduating high school and coming home to take care of the family. My sister is studying at the university and after that, will be off to get a real job. Which is great! Its part of the advancement that Perú needs! Perú needs the women to get out in society more to help dissolve this machistic culture. But my mom doesn´t understand that. She is one of the very poorly educated women whom know nothing but being a housewife.

Okay, back to my story. For the Mothers Day celebration, my sister and myself recited a poem for my mom. I was soooo nervous! I am horrible about speaking spanish in front of people I do not know, and here I was speaking spanish infront of 400 people! But it went really well! I like speaking in front of people, and for some reason, its a lot easier to do things in spanish that would be more difficult to do in english. I feel as though the words do not hold as much weight, to me, as they do in english. It was alot of fun. And I am not going to lie, I kinda expected people to clap really loud for me, but that didnt happen. They were just like whatever. Thats how Peruvians are though. They do not get real excited for events like that, or at least do not show it. My mom liked it though, so that matters to me!