Cricket Club, Housewarming

Weekend before last, we were invited by Maureen in Jen's office to the Lima Cricket Club for a Sunday afternoon. We were joined by the families of a couple of other people who Jen and Maureen work closest with. There are some clubs in Lima that epitomize the different world of the Peruvian elite, but the Cricket Club, even with its perfect recreation of a British pub, seemed earnest and pleasant. With open fields and a jungle gym, the kids ran themselves to happy exhaustion while the parents sipped beer or soda and had a slow lunch outside.

This week we got back into the swing of things after Carter's week of Spring Break. It was also the end of 4 weeks during which I went to Spanish classes 4hrs daily. Saturday evening we had a housewarming party, attended mostly by folks from the Peace Corps office. We borrowed a BBQ, an open style that is common here...significant only because as I stood close to the fire turning the meat, my metal belt buckle became superheated and left a hilarious (if stinging) square burn on my belly into the next day.

Guests included Maureen (who looks Scandinavian, unless you call her 'gringa' and get a taste of her Lima street sass), her husband Julio (a film professor who will film a jungle thriller one day) and their son Julito who speaks no English yet gets along famously with Carter. Also at the party were the handymen who have been at our house uncountable times as we patch/plug/tighten things in the house. Also, a US family in our neighborhood that we've met up with a few times...the dad, Mike, works finance at the nearby International Potato Institute. Before you chuckle, wiki 'potato' and see how this Andean starch has changed the world...there are over 1,000 types of potato here. It's kind of like how the Inuit have so many words for 'snow'. Sanjay (Peru Country Directore) and Garima and their kids showed up a little late and there was no food left. One nice thing about Peruvians: none of that false hesitation, when you yell that the food is ready, everybody jumps up and eats.

Saturday, Jen goes for a week-long conference in Granada, Nicaragua (a city of remarkable history in Central America...click here for the Wiki link).




Here's photos of a great pizza place, half open-air, that Jen found on a dusty corner where their clay oven faces the street.