Nuestra Señora, Protectora de las Fuerzas Armadas

Ok.

1. If you want to post a comment, you have to sign in with your gmail account and then you can post all you want... can you believe those google douchebags... making you get a gmail account?! In fact, I think there is a good chance that they have the rights to everything I've typed here.

2. I´m just fine. Don't worry about the hazing inncident. It sucked for sure, but obviously I'm still here, and have probably been in more compromising situations.

3. Today there was a battle of the bands here. I was in high school again. There were the dready kids, the alternative kids, the kids smokin ciggz, the normal ones, the ones with little self confidence, and the rest. I didn´t stay to watch, because, surprise, I´ve had enough American music to last me 20 whole years of my life. Thankfully, there was a little Michael Jackson before the live performances commenced.

3. Then, after a great deal of indecision and flakiness on the part of all my group members for my ethnography project, I headed over to the center of Lima to watch the festivities for La Virgen de las Mercedes (which is what we´re studying for the project). We were all going to go, but then it just so happened, that I, the lone non-spanish speaker, was the only one to go. One person showed up later. But it was irrelevant. And also, the festivities weren't really a big deal. It was a type of parade that started in this church about 4 blocks away from the Plaza de Armas. And the parade was this giant statue/figure (like 15 feet tall maybe) surrounded by a whole bunch of members of the armed forces, some of the officials from the Catholic church, and then the normal Catholic celebrants, walking down the street, showing homage to the virgen, mercy-giver and redemptress of captives. But really, she is just the patron saint of the armed forces. So essentially I went to a parade celebrating the ties between the catholic church and Peru´s armed forces. Cool. I´m always down for celebrating two oppresive institutions both at the same time. score.