Chocolatada!

First I apologize for the very long delay in this blog post, with a trip to the United States and being in the middle of project planning it has been a very busy time. 

I guess to give an update I have to comment and thank everyone again for contributing to the VERY HUGE hot chocolate, fruit cake and gift giving party I was able to have in the school in early December.  With the contributions, I was able to buy 270 Barbie’s and toy guns for children in preschool through the third grade.  And then I was able to buy supplies for 750 hot chocolates and personal fruit cakes.  Both of which are a Christmas tradition in Peru.  First, I must be honest, I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I decided to do this.  I originally thought I would be able to do a little something for a few classrooms, but since everyone was so generous, I was able to do something for the entire school, which is the preschool, elementary, and high school.  When it was announced to my community that there would be an event of this size there was much excitement.  I had to buy all of the toys and fruit cakes in Piura, which is a 3 hour bus ride to my site.  I don’t think I was really prepared for what it would require to get all of these items back to my site.  I had 7 very large boxes full of toys, fruit cakes and stuff to make the hot chocolate and I was pretty much alone on getting it back to my site.  Thanks to my boyfriend, he was able to store most of it in the police station so I didn’t have to worry about any little hands or animals getting into anything. 

The day of the party I took everything in moto taxi’s to the school where a group of about 5 mother’s had agreed to help me make the hot chocolate, they came with GIANT pots to cook it in and we rounded up wood to make the fire.  Then, me along with my friend Brittany and another friend from town Nancy went classroom to classroom with the toys.  I was smart and had already gotten the numbers of boys and girls for each classroom and had a bag ready for each room.  I had anticipated the craziness.  The kids sat with anticipation since word had spread and many of them had an idea that I was coming.  They also all had their little cups ready for the hot chocolate later on since I had made an announcement to the town asking everyone to bring their cups as part of the tradition.

The children were thrilled with their dolls and guns.  The little girls wouldn’t take the Barbie’s out of the boxes trying to preserve the specialness.  However, the boys were quick to take the guns out of the wrappers and run around with them.  The rest of the day I caught little boys with guns tucked down their pants like cowboys.  The best part of the guns was that they came with darts to shoot at each other and they really enjoyed that.   

Later, class by class they lined up to receive their hot chocolate and fruit cakes.  The older kids were a bit reserved to receive their because usually this a tradition for younger kids and they didn’t want to look “stupid”, but after some coaxing they all ended up coming , especially when they saw their friends with the same stuff and didn’t look so “uncool”. 

I wish that I could put into words how amazing of an event this was.  I wish I could put into words how this gave so many children a Christmas that would have originally not had one.  Lastly, I wish I could put into words how thankful I am to everyone who made this possible.  Literally this has gone down in history as the biggest and most generous “chocolatada” that Chipillico has ever seen.   

The following day I went to do my laundry and there was a little kid sitting in the doorway of his dirt house on his dirt floor loading the darts into his gun and with a big smile he said told me good morning.  This is exactly what it was all about.  Thank you again!