**Warning...super long post**
Just came back from dinner from the first night in Peru. I'm going to try to explain what happened over the last four hours but you have to promise me that you 1) will not judge, and 2) remember that I am telling the truth, the whole truth, so help me God.
Dinner tonight was interesting in more than a few ways. We got there and it was a buffet sort of thing so of course we ate. Then one of the guys at our table convinced the server to give us one free round of pisco sours (the native drink of Peru). Now, pisco sours -to me- are a mix of a whiskey sour and a margarita. Either way it's delicious but you really only need one to have a good time, two to be the life of the party, and three to be THAT girl/guy that people roll their eyes at because they're ruining their buzz. I only had one but pair that with not really eating for a solid day and a tad of dehydration and I bypassed step one and moved right into step two. The life of the party.
Well....sort of.
The thing about studying abroad with people you don't know is just that. You don't know them. And they don't know you. So you are able to re-invent yourself and no one would know that wiser. I could be THAT girl or I could be the laid back one. Maybe I could be the shy introvert who would rather listen then perk up in conversation (i.e. what I usually am). But instead, I chose to be the outgoing one that would put fun over what people thought of me and realized that this may be my only time down in Peru. So I better make it a good, yet responsible, time.
And tonight. I did something that I would have NEVER done without a few too many drinks in me in the States. And by few too many, I mean not being able to remember what happened the next day.
I, Karla With a K, danced on stage. AND I had a blast.
I'll wait for the applause to die down before I continue.
Now before I explain to you how I got on stage and why there were dancers on stage at dinner you have to remember that everything I am telling you is completely true. No matter how unbelievable it sounds.
After the buffet of foods that didn't have a name intestines dressed up as tripe (those mischievous intestines) the entertainment came out. In the middle of this historic building that seemed to have Morrocan influences was a dance floor, well more like stage. At the end of dinner the lights dimmed and the show started. The first dancers represented the three different types of Peruvians and went through the history of Peru in dance form (at least that's what I got out of it). First there were the coastal people. Pretty mundane but cool nonetheless. Second came the mountain people. They were the more traditional dancers. Probably the type that you would think of when you think of traditional Latin American dancers. But next *fans self* next came the jungle people.
Now I'm not sure if it was a coincidence that the jungle people were the darkest of the three groups, but nonetheless they made me feel as though I was watching my friends get on with their bad selves. There was grinding and shaking that made all the people in the group, who obviously haven't seen this type of dancing before, start fanning themselves. First dance was done and they went through the rotation again. When it got back to the jungle people, the next dance they did something I can only describe as trying to light each others' butts on fire. As in candle to a piece of cloth tacked to their backside. The girls were shaking and shimmying away from the guys who were trying to light their butts. And it's all fun and games until someone's butt gets lit on fire.
Welp what do you know. They came down to the audience and asked for volunteers. Well the guy had been eyeing me since he was on stage and lo and behold, pulled me on stage. For a split second I though to myself, "No Karla With a K, don't do this" but then I said "When in Rome...do as the Peruvians." So I shaked and shimmied and glided around stage with the guy who kept cooing at my "mamacita, mamacita". Well if this butt fire thing was a game, I would have won. My butt was sans fire at the end of the song and I ended up having a blast.
Peru - 0, Karla with a K -1.
But wait, there's more! After that butt fire dance there was what I can only describe as Edward Scissorhand meets West Side Story meets break dancing B-Boys. The group of 6 or so young guys started dancing with what appeared to be shears that weren't connected. So think of two parts of the scissors. They were clacking and clinking their shears together and having a good 'ol time until the battle began. The music changed and each young man went to show their stuff in battle formation. One spun on his head, the other put his foot in his mouth while flipping (literally), the other did what looked like a bedroom move, and another did back flips...with shears.
And then the finale came. It was a light show meets Nikki Minaj inspiration meets rave after you pop the molly meets two people in monkey/wild animal suites. And more Edward Scissorhand boys.
By the time we all pulled back from the table to get ready to go the only thing we could say was "What in the entire [bleep] just happened?"
Welcome to Peru.
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