Night of the Blazer

The big event for all of the foreign exchange students with Rotary in Peru had come- The Night of the Blazer! All the outbounds, rebounds, inbounds, families, and Rotarians were in attendance of this event, so it was huge. It was held at the Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center in Downtown Lima, which is one of the most prestigious hotels in Peru. It was a very nice venue for a such a nice event.

The Rotarians started preparing us for this event at training camp. We had a dress code to follow, table manners and other rules they wanted to be sure we knew. I wasn't dressed as formal as I probably should have been, but I wasn't about to go buy another dress I was going to wear once. I wore a plain black dress, flats, and of course my Rotary blazer- which is looking thiccc with pins these days. People are so nice, they just give me pins. I still need to get some... my host parents say that they're pretty cheap to get here, so hopefully we'll get that done soon. Sarah has the heaviest blazer that I have seen! It's crazy how many pins she has, and she's only going to get more.

On Saturday, Sarah and I started getting ready right after breakfast. We had to leave at 3:00, and we were going to eat almuerzo before we left. Almuerzo translates to lunch, but it is totally different from lunch in the US, so I'm hesitant to call it that. We ate around 2:00, so we had to be ready before then. I took the whole morning to get ready just because I wanted to take my time.

We left around 3:00, and got there at 4 like we were supposed to. There were about 10 other people there besides Sarah and I. We did the usual greeting everyone with a kiss on the cheek and talked to a lot of people as they kept rolling in. After a while, we went into our little meeting room where we were going to keep all of our things and stay until the event started. We were supposed to get there at 4:00 to take pictures before the event started around 6. The event didn't start until 8 I found out when we got there... Families weren't supposed to come until 7:00. So we spent 3 hours doing a whole lot of nothing. It was nice talking to people. Most people traded pins, but I didn't have any pins to trade, so nice people gave me their pins. They finally started taking pictures around 6:00, and we had to get with our countries. After pictures, all the exchange students just kept socializing until 7:30. We were supposed to be at our tables at 7:30, but most of us didn't get to our tables until about 7:50 because none of the adult guests sitting at our tables had arrived.

When I got to my table, there was an older couple there that I tried talking to a little bit before they realized I couldn't understand very much Spanish. Soon the other inbound exchange student at my table, Lukas, came over. He's from Germany, and I mentioned him on here before because he was at Hillary's farewell party. I talked to him most of the night because he speaks English; on top of German, Spanish, French, and Mandarin. I swear he speaks English better than I do, and it's the only language I speak. I also sat by Nicole, who is an outbound going to Germany. She was also at Hillary's farewell party, and Lukas lives with her and her family. I knew most of the people at my table since I knew Lukas, Nicole, and Nicole's family. There was another outbound at the table who I talked to some, but I never caught his name. We'll call him Bob for future reference.

The program finally started around 8:00. There were many speakers throughout the night. There were some people who sang or played some instruments that were very cool and different. I did my best to pay attention, but of course didn't understand much of what was being said. There was also a whole bunch of nothing, so then I would just talk to Lukas. I also talked to Nicole, and who I assume was her brother or cousin, some as well. They asked all about where I was from and what life was like. I had to show them on a map where I live, because nobody knows what Indiana is. They mostly know what the Great Lakes are, so they know where it's at on the map. Because I'm close to some big cities like Chicago, they asked me how often I went and such, and were surprised that I hadn't been there very much. They were also very surprised that I had never been to Canada because they think it is so close. I had to explain that it wasn't that close and even though I could go, there's not much of anybody I could go there with. I think they all just think I'm crazy for sticking around my small town (which really isn't that small).

Nicole's mom also brought up later that I was a Christian. They didn't really know what that was because even though Catholics are Christians, they never identify as Christian, just Catholic. I had to say that I was Protestant, not Catholic, but that they are similar. Here's the biggest challenge of my exchange so far that I was not expecting: getting asked "Why are you a Christian?" And then having to answer in a language that you don't know. I told them that my family was Protestant and that I was raised that way, but that I had made the decision on my own to be a Christian. Being asked that question has just further motivated me to learn the language, because I want to tell people why; and come up with an answer better than what I did. It's something I didn't expect to happen, but I wish I would have been prepared for.

After spending time talking, they had the flag ceremony. The flag ceremony was getting a representative from each country to walk their country's flag down and present it. Once all the flags were presented, each country had to sing their national anthem. Not trying to toot my own horn, but us Americans definitely did the best and knew it the best. After everyone sang their national anthem, there were many pictures to be taken. And then we all got pins! The district governor and other important Rotarians were there to put pins on our blazers. Once that was over, we could go sit back down. And then it was the inbounds' turn to do everything we just did. Except there was only one national anthem instead of 12.

After all of that, we FINALLY got our appetizer around 10:30. I was starving and ate it so fast. It was very delicious, kind of similar to a chicken pot pie, except it was totally different. We then got our actual meal around 11:00. Because I was still starving, I scarfed it down quick too. It's just strange that I ate so fast because I normally eat so slow and I feel bad because my family always sticks around the table waiting for me to finish my food. Dinner consisted of stuffed fried chicken breast thing that had some ham and cheese in it, which are pretty common in the States. There was also a potato thing that looked like a piece of lasagna; except it was potato and cheese. There were also some mixed vegetables that consisted of asparagus, pepper, and carrots. The Peruvians didn't seem to like it too much, which surprised me.

Eating was followed by dancing. After having a long day and it being 11:30, I thought I would be way too tired to dance. But of course I wasn't. They turned on the music, and Bob asked Lukas and I if we could dance. We were both said no, but I said I liked to dance. So the 3 of went out there, and there were a few other people dancing. Soon after, everyone was dancing and we were all having a good time, except for the fact that none of us Americans and most Europeans do not know how to dance. I danced with a lot of people and friends, going back and forth between groups. I mostly stuck around Natasha, who is from Denmark, until she had to leave. After dancing for a little bit, Bob pulled me in to dance with him and taught me how to dance a bit. There was then a dance circle around him and another Peruvian girl, and they're so good! Crazy good! There was quite a few dance circles that went down. I somehow got myself into one towards the end. I got a lot of people to dance with me and just have a good time throughout the night. It was so much fun!I found myself dancing with Sarah later on, but she was getting tired. We were with Lukas and Dorian (France) too, and they were getting tired too, so we went to go find our families because we knew they would be together. My host parents and Nicole's family were sitting at what was my table, so the 4 of us (Sarah, Lukas, Dorian and I) all went over there to get them. They were definitely ready to go too, but I think were just having fun watching us have fun. We left around 1:30 am. I was still feeling "lit", but at the same time I knew I was gonna crash quick once we got in the car. I didn't fall asleep in the car, but I did get quite tired. There wasn't so much traffic that late at night, so it didn't take us too long to get home. We had to give Bob a ride home too though since he lives nearby and his family wasn't there. We couldn't have gotten home any sooner, it was about 2:20. Sarah and I stayed up a little bit just hanging out since it was her last night here in Lima. We ended up going to bed finally around 3:30 probably. We crashed pretty hard, but another early morning was ahead.

Sarah, Jacinta and I outside of the Convention Room at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Lima