Wednesday wasn't anything too exciting but I learned about a game that all the younger kids play during our recess breaks. It's called Liga or something like that and two people have this HUGE string/band thing that they hold behind their knees while the other kids do different jumps/routines with the string. All the girls in my class used to play it too so they kind of explained the different levels of the game to me but I'm still a little confused.
In biology on Thursday, my teacher was impressed with my homework (that I had spent 2 hours working on the day before!!) and I actually enjoyed biology because we were more into the physiology part of it. Physiology was one of my favorite classes in the US. In math, we had a test over some algebra stuff and I was one of the first ones done. I think I did really well on it because I'm actually starting to remember my algebra. It was nice to be able to understand things like I want to again! For lunch, we had mondongo because Saturday is El Día de los Muertos and the traditional dish for that day is mondongo. Mondongo is boiled potatoes and a kind of pork covered with a semi-spicy sauce, with mote (the huge kernels of corn) covered with some yellow creamy sauce as a side. Apparently it's mamá's favorite dish. I liked it too but I like other traditional dishes better. Later that night, Nico had a halloween party at the place he plays tennis. Mamá offered to make me look like Barbie since we were going to go but I said no and it's a good thing I did because there wasn't any older kids there. Mamá and I didn't have anything to do so we ended up helping alll the other parents with the party and we walked around selling raffle tickets for some prizes. It wasn't the halloween I'm used to, but I still enjoyed seeing all the different costumes!
It's crazy to think that Friday was the beginning of November! Wow, time flies! My host parents and Nico were flying to La Paz in the morning so I stayed with Abuelita and Miguel over the weekend. Mamá made sure that they had stocked the kitchen with bananas for me before they left. (: The half of my class that I have German class with were taking their huge German test in some other place so there was only about 12 people at school from my grade today. We did nothing! Most of the day was spent playing games on our phones and talking to our literature teacher about food for an hour and a half. The other half of my grade in the other German class has their test next Friday, so that will probably be a boring day for me too. Later that afternoon, I hung out in the Plaza with one of my friends until I had to leave to get ready for my Rotary meeting. I enjoy the meetings but they're so long and there's lots of talking so by the end of the meeting, I'm always half asleep.
Saturday was El Día de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead). It's always November 2 and celebrated November 1 and 2. Business are closed so going outside felt like a Sunday because there was hardly any cars around. Abuelita was still working all day though with some people who had asked to come in so I kept her company and read magazines part of the day. However, around 11, she told Paula (the 18-year-old who works in the salon and was the only other one working besides Abuelita on Saturday) and I to go to the cemetery. We took a bus up to the HUGE and only cemetery in Sucre and it was absolutelly beautiful! In the cemetery, there a big morgues for the loved ones of wealthier families but not all the morgues are for a certain family. Many of them are set up based on occupations. For example, there's a morgue for the soldiers from a certain battle, teachers, transportation workers, children, religious groups, etc. For the loved ones of less wealthy families, there's walls among walls of little compartments for the ashes or remains of the person. On the front of the compartment, there's a little gass case thing that the family has the key to so they can come put flowers or other things in it. For the loved ones of the least wealthy, they're buried in the grave, with a grave marker that kind of looks like a mini dog house. On El Día de los Muertos, families come and put pictures, cookies, flowers, pop, and other reminders of their loved ones on the graves or in the glass cases. For the families that follow the tradition the closest, they put the stuff on the graves on November 1 and the next day they have all the favorite meals of the loved one in their house, they leave their door open, and people can come pay their respects to the family and have some of the food. There's a special hot pink bread/pastry that's made only for this day, but I didn't get the chance to try it. Each color is a symbol for something different. The most common colors that I saw were purple (pain, suffering, grief, and mourning-used by families to acknowledge their loss of loved ones), black (death), pink (celebration of the "returning of the dead" and reunion with family members), and blue. Afterwards, Paula and I walked home to have a late lunch with Abuelita and Miguel and later that night, Abuelita and I took advantage of some free time and went to the movie theater. We didn't know what movie we were going to see but when we got there, we had to wait an hour for the movie we decided on so we got some pizza to share. The movie was really good and it was nice to spend time with Abuelita again.
I went to church with my other host Grandparents on Sunday, and afterwards, just relaxed for the afternoon. We were supposed to pick Nico up from the airport at 4 but he wasn't arriving until later so we decided to have our lunch. We had mote (the corn again) and some amazing meat! Then Abuelita and Miguel left to get Nico so I watched the movie Elf on TV. Once they got home, Nico had his supper and I had some tea. It was super cold so tea was a nice treat!
Monday morning, I woke up to Nico laughing super loud and found out my Tío Fernan (mamá's oldest brother) had arrived from the airport. He was staying until Wednesday but he's super fun to be around. For lunch, we had some super tasty soup and mashed potatoes. I love my mashed potatoes. (: I didn't do much the rest of the afternoon but that night, Nico and I had our supper together and I felt like the big sister I should be! It's kind of weird being a big sister, especially when my host parents aren't here.
Mamá and Tío Fernan picked us up from school on Tuesday. Mamá had arrived that morining but papá wasn't going to arrive until the afternoon the next day. For gym class that afternoon, we had to do a ton of running because I guess some people were being lazy. Or maybe our teacher just wanted us to run. I'm not sure but I needed a nice run anyways. Later that night, I went to my first class of Tae Bo. Some of my classmates are taking classes there and they told me about it so I went too. It was actually really fun and I enjoyed it more because my friends were doing it, you can decide the days you want to go, and the instructor is very encouraging. Afterwards, I walked home and had supper with mamá, Tío Fernan, Miguel, Fabiola, Nico, and Abuelita. It was fun to be able to sit down in a big group of family and have dinner. (:
One of the walls with the little compartments in the cemetery.
Some of the fancier graves surrounded by walls of conpartments in the cemetery.
The morgue with some of the soldiers from a battle in Bolivia.
A pretty view of Sucre from an area near the cemetery.
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