Salidos and Water Fights

Last Friday we did ´Birthdays´at school. This means that anyone whose birthday is in January gets to sit at the front while people sing happy birthday. Then the cake comes out and you get it in your face. Hilarious! Although I did get it everywhere, including up my nose which made breathing a little difficult for a while. It was all good honest fun though!
Then last weekend after the famous friday night barbecue I went out for the first time in the city. It was super fun. We went to a discoteca which had this balcony from which you could survey the floor below and work out the dynamics of the dancing couples! (Great for people-watchers like me!!) In Peru everyone appears to dance in lines with a partner so there ends up being about 8 lines in the club...we decided to shake things up a bit and dance the way we do at home...in a circle! This confused the poor Peruvians. Who were also found Olly´s (one of the volunteers) dancing skills fascinating! They were taking pictures of him as if he was a celebrity! Then us girls all got persuaded into dancing in the Peruvian way...which was weird but not terrible!!
We went out again on Saturday night (I feel that my brother would be proud of me!), which basically meant that my hopes for a quiet, sleep-filled weekend were dashed seeing as we didn´t get in until 3 in the morning both days!
Carnival also started last week. Here it´s basically a month long celebration in which people throw water balloons and pain at you in the street. I got hit on Friday and then today in school we decided that it was so hot that a big carnival water fight was in order. So, during recreo, Meghan (one of the volunteers) and I decided to fill balloons up with water and begin the carnage. We got soaked. There were 20 kids versus us 2. I ended up falling over and splitting my jeans (and my knee) open, but, like a trooper, I carried on. Soon there was no part of me that was dry, especially when some of the older kids climbed onto the second floor ledge and started pouring bottles full of water on our heads, oh, and the buckets came out too! It is now 6 hours later and my jeans still feel a little wet! It was so fun though. And tomorrow Meghan and have got some major strategies in place to ensure that A. no one gets away without being soaked and B. that we have a fighting chance of winning! I´m also going to avoid wearing jeans as these are the worst possible outfit choice for a water fight! It should be good!
Then Saturday I´m getting up at the crack of dawn to travel 6 hours Eastwards to Puno and Lake Titicaca where carnival is apparently extremely impressive. :)
I have also been having an extra week of Spanish lessons this week to try and grasp control of the subjunctive (possibly the most difficult part of the language!) and I feel that I might be getting somewhere!
The teaching in school has been somewhat erratic this week as well with two teacher for four kids most days in my class. But they should all apparently now know what an adjective is! Tomorrow we´ve decided that it´s going to be Fun Friday so other than the water fight, we´re also planning on making cookies in a solar powered oven. I know that this is unlikely to work, but we can try...and the great thing about cookies is that even if the don´t bake we can always just eat the dough! :)