The Burgess Family: November 2011

Wednesday 9 November 2011

Bonfire night in Peru!

It's November. Those of you who are in the northern hemisphere are wrapped up warm and those in the UK especially, resenting the short days and the adverts for Christmas already on the television. Here it is Spring and getting warmer by the day. But we couldn't resist the invitation from some expat friends to celebrate Bonfire Night on Sunday!

(For those who are not from Britain, Bonfire Night (aka Guy Fawkes Night, Fifth of November) is a very strange British celebration where we have fireworks, bonfires, and burn 'Guys' made of newspaper-stuffed clothes to celebrate the fact that Guy Fawkes and his friends failed to blow up the Houses of Parliment in 1605. Wikipedia will tell you more, but let's just say it is a British excuse to have a party after the depressing arrival of shorter days after the clocks go back!)

Anyway, requirement for entry into the party spirit in the 20'C/70´F warmth was to wear a woolly hat and bring gloves for the kids to use sparklers!!

Daniel and Joel have fun with Sparklers for the first time!

Toasting marshmellows on the 'bonfire'!

Bonfire night has such fun memories for Mark and I, but it was Daniel, Joel and Kaleb's first one, so we had to teach them what to do. Daniel and Joel were very keen to wear their 'costumes' (hats and scarfs!) on the way to the party, but they lasted about 5 minutes when they got there because it was too warm!!)

Okay, okay, so I have no good photos of the fireworks! But Daniel said they were his favourite bit of the party, so I can't leave them out! Joel, however, was very keen to go home when all the banging started!

It was great fun and after 5 years of not celebrating Bonfire Night, brought back some happy tradition memories! Thanks Dillon and Claire! You did a great job!

A sample of what we eat

The main meal here in Peru is at lunch time. We have 5 adults currently living in our house, plus Shaun and Amanda are often around for lunch, and guests come and go too – so there are often many around the table! 5 adults is a small day!

So we have to come up with meals which are reasonable priced to cook for large numbers and that aren’t too fiddly, otherwise it would take all morning! Here in Peru there is not the availability of pre-prepared foods like there is in the UK or US, and what there is, is very expensive so not possible for large numbers. So most of the food is prepared from scratch.

Being an international community, we cook a mixture of native and non-native dishes. Most of the international dishes have to have rice cooked with them too, especially for Ronald and Rosa who don’t feel it is a proper meal without rice (a bit like Mark not feeling it is a proper meal without meat!)