Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas, Hyvää Joulua!

This is my 5^th Christmas away from Finland. 1^st was in Brussels with my sister (2002), 2^nd was in South India with my teammates (2002), 3^rd was in a small village in Ilembula Tanzania with my best friend Katja and punch of other Finnish people (2008), 4^th was in Australia with my dear friend Alice and her family (2010) and this year in Peru with my friends from La Casa De Panchita. I remember when I started traveling difficult it was for my family to understand that I was not coming home for Christmas. More than ten years later, this Christmas my father is in Thailand with his girlfriend, my mom and my brother are in Sydney with my sisters’ family, my youngest little brother is the only one in Finland and I am in Peru. This Christmas we’re in four different places around the world, Asia, Australia, Europe and South-America. Pretty well done, so proud of my family!!!

Christmas feeling that I’m used to is not the same for me without cold and snow, special people or at least the certain preparations that we Finns do, like baking gingerbread cookies and etc. Some places I’ve been able to do it and it felt bit more like Christmas. Here very little for many reasons and biggest not to bake anything is my crappy oven.  Last Saturday I was out dancing with my friends, to whom I teach English, textiles or yoga on Sundays at La Casa de Panchita and learned that all of them were alone for Christmas because their families don’t live in Lima and they had to work even on 24^th. Many of them don’t live in a place where they can invite people to spend Christmas with. I was still not sure what I would do either, so I invited them all in to my little apartment to spend Christmas with me. If all the lonely ones are together, so then we wouldn’t be alone! 

So in the end I got excited and during the day on 24^th I spoke on skype with my family in Finland. We went to the market with Bin, my Korean housemate and bought some food and things to create a little bit of Christmas feeling. 24^th here is like a normal day, everything is open the whole day and people are shopping the gifts until the last minute. The girls came in the evening. Here they celebrate Christmas in the evening and eat dinner very late and open the gifts at midnight. We had all prepared some food. I made Glögi, our Christmas drink and strawberry cheesecake for dessert, and bought stuff for the salad. Finally, we’re ready with everything, 7 girls in total in my house, five Peruvians, my Korean housemate and me of course. So all we needed to do was to heat the food. 

I was lighting the oven, it works with the gas here, and big BOOM! Our oven has not been working well; landlord was aware of it and promised to change it already few weeks ago, because there is often a smell of gas in the house while cooking. After we changed the gas bottle last week, it’s been a little bit better and I did not think there is a problem with the oven. But there was. So I, who lighted the oven, burned my hand, lost my LONG eyelashes, partly my eyebrows and little bit of my hair in the front. Luckily, I had just come out of the shower and my hair was wet, otherwise it could have been worst! So the rest of the evening I spend having my hand in a bowl of water. Luckily Bertha had brought me some fresh aloe Vera last weekend and it was a great help. So after a little bit of chaos, complaining to my landlord and heating the rest of the food in her oven we finally sat down to eat our delicious meal.

At midnight in the Christmas eve there are always fireworks, so we went on the roof to watch them. 

 Later my friend, another lonely one, joined us and we eat dessert and drank a little bit more red wine. Finally, moved the chairs and tables and started dancing until the two of the guests had fallen asleep, as it was past 3 am it was time to end the evening.  

Teaching salsa to Bin

Cooling down my arm.

These amazing, friendly, caring women made my Christmas very special, despite of my little accident. Thank you Bertha, Neri, Elva, Jacquiline, Bin, Rosemary and our only male participant Josue.

MERRY CRISTMAS AND LOTS OF LOVE FROM LIMA TO EVERYONE WHO IS READING THIS! 

I hope you had a good one! 

My favorite cartoon on Christmas: THE SNOWMAN