Getting to Know the Town

As I have mentioned in previous posts, my host dad is very well-respected and known in the town. He literally knows everybody. I have met lots of people by just walking around town with him. So today when he asked me if I wanted to go meet some of his friends, of course I said yes. We started out at the house of one of his oldest friends. We picked him up and then walked over to the house of another friend who has cancer but has been getting better. We talked with him for a bit and then moved on to my dad's brother's house. On the way, we bought a bottle of wine and some cerveza (mind you it was 11AM). We got to his brother's house, but he wasn't home. Apparently he was visiting his son in the nearest big city.
Without a place to drink our wine and beer, we decided to return to the first house. We relaxed there for a bit and discussed the differences between cultures and politics in the US and Peru. For instance, they find it fascinating that people move out at 18 and start their own lives. In Peru, children usually stay in their parents' house until they are married or even then they may just move their family into their parents' house. It's not unusual for people in their 40's or 50's to live with their parents.
We talked and finished the wine (which is very sweet in Peru. It's almost like a port.). Then my dad and I walked over to his sister's house. She has a very nice house and we talked and played with her grandchildren for a little while.
After that, we walked over to the town center. It is election season and all of the different campaigns have headquarters around the main plaza. My dad is well connected with the current administration and is good friends with the mayor, so we went into his campaign headquarters. Now this is more or less against Peace Corps policy. As non-political volunteers, we shouldn't be seen to be aligned with any particular political party. With this in-mind, I planned to only stay for a little while, but I had to walk a fine line. I want to integrate within the community and spend time with my host dad, but I didn't want to appear to be supporting the mayor's reelection campaign.
I stayed in the headquarters for a bit and passed the vaso with my dad and the mayor and the campaign staff. "Passing the vaso" is the manner in which Peruvians drink. It involves passing around a bottle of beer and a vaso (glass) in a circle. After the bottle of wine and a few beers and not very much food, I was starting to feel the alcohol so I excused myself and returned home; where I started to write this blog entry. I ate some graham crackes and I'm not feeling the booze so much anymore.
We were supposed to have a pollada (a community chicken feast) so I'm going to go find that now because I'm starving.
Chau, amigos!