Dinner at Erika's

Erika, the volunteer coordinator, invited us to her house in Parramos tonight. It was partly to welcome us officially and also so that we would know where she lived in case we needed to track her down after hours. Her house is really nice. Like most of the houses here, all you can see from the street is a big wall. Once you enter through, you're in a little garden area with a patio. It was really great, I love that you can eat outside with all the flowers without having to worry about saying hello to every person who walks by. It's super private.
We hung outside and had some appetizers first (side note: avocados grow all over the place here, so the guacamole is AMAZING. Everything is incredibly fresh.)

Stephanie, Janelle, Ani and Nicole eating appetizers :)

Charlotte and I doing the same

After that we went inside and had some really good lasagna (sigh, I miss italian food...) After that we had a birthday cake for my roommate Holger! Look at those flames...

There's a horrible, horrible tradition here in Guatemala that when it's someone's birthday you need to shove their face into the cake. Not only is this embarrassing for the person, it infects a completely delicious cake with face germs. Luckily Holger was able to dodge Erika's attempts at a facial.

We brought a piñata as a thank you gift. They're really popular here, lots of people make them in their homes and then sell them in the streets. Apparently I've never done a piñata the right way before. It's not supposed to be attached to the ceiling, its supposed to be attached to a rope. While the person swings the stick, another person is supposed to move the rope to keep the piñata away from them. It was SO MUCH FUN. We were laughing hysterically. Here's Erika giving it a try:

And here's Stephanie. This thing was crazy strong, Stephanie was probably the sixth or seventh person to go, and it was barely bleeding candy. She did this fancy grab-the-head-with-one-hand-while-I-decapitate-with-the-other move (which sadly I dont have a picture of), and even then it didn't die.

I got to go last and I demolished it; its death throws rained candy down on us and all was well in the world. Sadly I was too busy smashing it to take pictures of my awesome feat of strength, so you'll just have to imagine it for yourself.