Attack of the Ninas

This week and next, all of Peru, and who know’s where else, is celebrating Carnval. Cajamarca happens to be the capital of Carnaval and it’s dangerous, so we decided to avoid the crowds and just have a mini celebration with our ninos.

IT WAS A BLAST!!!

We had an awesome lunch of….you guessed it, lentils and rice! (oh and we made some pink lemonade to share with the kids, they LOVED that and couldn’t figure out why it tasted like lemon, but it was pink ;)

We started off with face painting. For those of you who don’t know, you can take water color colored pencils, dip them in water and voila, they become instant face painting brushes. It’s beautiful.

It was so fun to paint their faces. I’m not artistic to say the least, but take a gander of some of our creations J

Spiderman was a popular request, I did the bottom one

Me pretending to know what the red power ranger looks like...I love being the adult!

I painted these three, spiderman a lion and camoflauge

Blue Power Ranger!

My little flower face

Next came the water fight. It was a surprise attack! I had spent the morning filling up water balloons and had them stashed away upstairs ready to whip out at the right moment.  I had rallied up all the ninas, loaded them all up with water balloons and gave strict instructions to get out there and attack the boys with…no mercy! Oh it was soooo fun!!! I loved every minute of it! Most of the little boys were absolutely intent on taking me down, but my girls were amazing and kept me as safe as they could (granted I still got soaked through and through).

Some of the stinker boys (you avid blog followers know exactly who I’m talking about J ) ran home and armed themselves with their heavy duty water guns and came back ready for war. When our balloons ran out, we armed ourselves with buckets and cups and anything that could hold water. 

Doesn't Allesandro look fierce with half his makeup washed off?

At one point, I could see that we were being over powered by the sheer number and ravenousness of the boys (compared to the sweet gentleness of all most of my girls). So I used my awesome war tactics and made a public announcement:

Hey boys! Who want’s to be on the winning team? Who wants to be on…MY TEAM!?!?

And then I began chanting, “No more Ricardo, Team Elia is going to win!” (haha sorry Ricardo!)

And partly to my surprise, and entirely to my enjoyment, a giant pack of little boys ran down the hill chanting along with me, ready to fight on my team! Oh it was awesome. They ditched their shirts and their smeared face paint looked like dramatic war paint. I had myself a little band of fierce Lamanites! 

Feliciana and Melchora even got in on the fun. One minute I was sittin pretty observing the water fight and the next thing I know, I'm being soaked and sprayed by water. I look up to find Feliciana and Melchora up on our roof with a hose laughing hysterically. They thought they were SO funny...but really, they were!

It was SO much fun and I know the kids loved it just as much as I did. We had awesome weather too! Tons of sunshine! 

Well I wish I could say the day ended on that good note, but I'm afraid THE SCARIEST part of my ENTIRE TIME IN PERU came just seconds after our amazing afternoon. 

Keep your eyes peeled for the next blog post about my dear friend Israel.

Ciao Ciao!

-Elia