Journal Entry: Observation #3

Mass, I´ve only ever been to one before today, and that was in Chile when my Aunt happened to die when my mother and I were visiting. It was sad, and even more so because the Catholic concept of the afterlife varies a good deal from my own. I even had to carry the casket. Today, my Mass attendence was unavoidable due to it being the six month mass of my wife´s great grandmother. I am not actively avoiding Mass understand, but I have absolutly zero motivation to go under normal circumstances. Well, today was not normal, but aside from the lights being out for around six hours, nothing interesting happened until mass. That´s where I got to enter a cool old cathedral and sit on a bench with my four year old brother-in-law in my arms (he was asleep). It was interesting, the acoustics were great, and there were some pretty sweet, large cases with some statues of Christ and his mother and some other Virgins.
After mass, I accompanied my wife to our Saya practice, which was awesome because for the first time, I could do all the moves and wasn´t the guy who was totally lost. This is thanks to a nice guy named Fabio who has given me some home lessons. More on him another time. After the practice, we went to the after Mass festivities, which was mostly drinking and sitting. Interesting cultural note: There can be 10 or more people in a sitting, but they only open one bottle of beer at a time and all use one glass. (The beer brand is Cusqueña, in case you were wondering ... it´s cheap, and therfore popular at social gatherings). The custom is to recieve the bottle while the person who passed it to you drinks from the cup. That person than dumps the remaining foam from the glass, than passes the glass. After filling the glass, the person with the bottle than passes it, while drinking the glass. And so the circle continues until the bottle is empty, at which point, a new bottle is opened, and the fun continues. I was told that I needed to teach a sermon about not drinking to them by one of the Aunts (because I am LDS and don´t drink presumably), but as you may have surmised, that is one tough habit to kick. In Peru, ¨Social Drinking¨ has a whole new meaning. Often at family gatherings, the hosts are at a loss for what to do with us Mormons and desperately seek out some kind of soda or water because sitting there drinking nothing just looks wierd and makes everyone uncomfortable. In any event, the ceremony of the Mass was interesting and I even understood the parts of the Bible the Priest was reading. (As I should).