Dia de Accion de Gracias - A Day for Giving Thanks

I traveled to Lima, Peru (the capital) this past week to spend Thanksgiving with the ex-pats that were around Lima, along with some Peruvian friends. It was also our latest YAV retreat. We went to La Oroya, which is a town just above Lima by about four hours, one way. It is the minig capital of South America. We got to see the enviornemtnal and health disaster known as Doe Run. It is a U.S. run smelter, whose smoke stack out put has turned the greyish brown Andes that surround La Oroya a snowy ashy white. Also many of the children in the town are testing with abnormally high amounts of lead, way above World Health Organization standards. The people there are caught between two fires. The Doe Run smelter is currently shut down. The workers are still being paid a portion of their salary by a company that says it is bankrupt. Hmmm....It is an envirionmental mess, a silent Chernobyl for the people of La Oroya. There is a group of kids in the town that have organized to change what is happening to them, their friends, and their community. They havenamed their group CAMBIALO or ¨Change it!¨
Thursday we (The YAVs, Jed and Jeny, Harry, and some folks from the RED Manos Unidos Office) gathered for Thanksgiving dinner at Jed and Jeny´s house. All the faves were there spinach, green beans, mac and cheese, wau-waus (bread de Ayacucho), pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and a turkey (prepared Peruvian style with papaya and aji spice glaze).
The rest of the weekend was spent reflecting on Mark chapter 6 and our experiences in Peru so far with Jed and Harry. We also talked of the arrival advent. Our group reflection times had its ups and downs.
On Friday night we went with Jed and Jeny to a cultural discoteca, well sort of, called Briesas de Titticaca. It is like a dinner theater, but no dinner. You could get drinks and appetizers. In the middle was a large raised wooden platform and a large band on a stage above it. They played regional music as performers in full costume danced regional Peruvian dances. The costumes were quite ornate and colorful. You could see the infusion of Spanish culture into the Andean culture with the appearance of various characters. They also like to drag the gringoes and locals sitting anywhere near the dance floor out there to ¨shake a leg¨ as my dad used to say. Yes, this gringa with two left feet and rubber sandals ended up right in the middle of a dance that was a combo of and Irish Lord of the Dance and a Jewish Wedding Reception.
Finally, no there is no Thanksgiving (persay Turkey and NFL Football) in Latin America. I have been asked many times. Remember that is in American thing - the whole pilgrims freezing their fannies off in Massachusetts and being rescued by the native americans whom they mistreated. At one point I did forget, because someone wanted to go to the post office and I started to say you can´t do that it is closed for Thanksgiving. Not true, it was another day of work and school in Peru.