Our house, in the middle of our street!

It's on the north side of "Pro Hogar" street, which is actually mislabeled here. It should say Tarapacá! You're busted, Google Maps!

Anyway, in the middle of the block, you can see an L-shaped house. That's us! 

Behind the house on our block is a school with trees and a green canopy for shade. Thanks to them, I wake up to the Peruvian national anthem every Monday!

I think if you want to zoom back out and check out the neighborhood, you can! Just click on the link "View larger map."

View Larger Map

Mmm, smells like panetones!

For me, the smell of Christmas was always a combination of pine needles, nutmeg and soggy snow boots. But here in the bakery, and all around Peru, the smell of panetones is one way to know that the holiday season has arrived.

In the States, the fruit cake is a dreaded Christmas gift, one we might give as a good joke. Here, the fruit cake, or panetón, IS Christmas.

While it's already December 10th,  it's hard for me to feel that the Christmas season is really upon us. There is definitely no snow--it's summer here. So far, the panetones, the panetones commercials and a few felt trees here and there are the only difference I've seen.

A small confession to add: I don't like paneton. Maybe it's the American in me who has heard tale after tale of bad fruit cakes. Or maybe I just prefer to have chocolate or raisins in my bread. Already, I can tell that this is going to become a problem when I have to eat four or five of these darn cakes. 

Surviving the soccer gangs

Luckily, everyone made it out of the stadium alive and without major injuries after yesterday's game between the U and Alianza. The barras bravas make it hard to get out of the stadium with your cell phone and money, much less without scars or bruises. 

Organized gangs of soccer fans, otherwise known as barras bravas, support a certain team. They stand throughout the whole game, shout organized chants and wear team gear. 

A few of them even have websites, including the Barra U Oriente and Comando Sur.

But they are also known for taking advantage of the large crowds at soccer games to steal in an organized fashion and create general chaos. Most games, spectators stampede out of the stadium to escape the barras bravas. 

A few months after I arrived, a young accounting student named Paola was killed trying to escape from the barras bravas. On the bus, she was suddenly surrounded by a group of guys from one of these soccer gangs returning from a game. Trying to escape, she jumped from the bus and was ran over. 

After the media coverage surrounding her death, the problem of the barras bravas escalated up to where finally Peru's president, Alan Garcia, responded to the incident.  Now, Paola's Facebook page has 64,600 friends in support of pursuing justice after her death.

The name barras bravas actually has it's origin in Argentina in the 50s and 60s. This article by GlobalPost shows how this organized crime has escalated to the point of stabbings and other violent acts at many Argentinian soccer games.

I was all excited to go to a game, after catching a bit of yesterday's Clasico, but I think I need to have all the stadium exits memorized before I go.

The day Lima stops in it's tracks...

...is today. 

It's actually a national holiday recognizing the Catholic day of Immaculate Conception. Today, Catholics acknowledge Mary as being born without sin. All the stores are closed. University classes are cancelled. There are parades in the streets of Lima. 

But that's not why the city comes to a halt. 

It's because today everyone will watch the most important soccer game in Peru, the U vs. Alianza. These two club teams generate the most polarizing rivalry in the country and play a few times each year in what is called "El Clasico" or the Classic match. 

There will be lots of beer, lots of chicharrones and no work today. Everyone is staying at home to watch the game this afternoon. 

As for me, I might have to pick my team today. 

Neighboring Bolivia's Presidential Election Today

Evo Morales, the country's first indigenous president, is posed to be reelected today in a landslide. 

When Evo closed his campaign on Friday, polls reported that he had 55% of the vote, compared to 18% garnered by right candidate Reyes Villa and 15% by center candidate 10%. 

He wouldn't even be running for a second term, but in 2008, through referendum, Evo Morales created a new constitution that, among other reforms, allowed him to run for another five year term. 

The New York Times published an article about the elections yesterday, and explained a bit about the Evo controversy:

“Evo himself,” said Mr. Calla, the anthropologist, “could be considered the authoritarian left.” Contributing to this classification, he argued, was Mr. Morales’s resistance to cooperating with other parties, threats to jail opponents and the celebration of his administration in government-paid advertising. Mr. Calla called the government’s exuberance over Mr. Morales’s achievements “a cult of personality” in the making.

Cambio, a state-controlled daily newspaper à la Granma in Cuba, created by Mr. Morales this year, offers an example of this fanfare. Its lead article last Sunday described Puerto Evo Morales, a pioneer settlement in the north. A comic-book insert, “Evo: From the People for the People,” championed Mr. Morales’s rise from poverty.

There are concrete reasons for Mr. Morales’s popularity. The foremost may be the sustained growth of Bolivia’s landlocked economy, drawing plaudits from economists impressed with its accumulation of more than $7 billion in hard-currency reserves, even though the country is still plagued by persistent levels of extreme poverty.

Despite the financial crisis and a drop in natural gas export revenues, Bolivia’s economy is estimated to have grown as much as 4 percent this year, one of the highest rates in the region, helped by stimulus spending on welfare programs for children, pregnant women and the elderly.

“Even the I.M.F. is happy with Bolivia’s economy; imagine the irony of that,” said Gonzalo Chávez, a Harvard-educated economist here, referring to Mr. Morales’s often pointed criticism of Washington’s multilateral institutions, like the International Monetary Fund.

As for me, I won't be going to Bolivia anytime soon. He charges all Americans an entry fee of $130. Compared to entering Peru--where I supposedly should have been charged $20 upon entry but wasn't--that's a big sum of money. 

Plus, the U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia was recently kicked out and Evo has accused the U.S. anti-drug forces of conspiring against him. Let's just say it's not the best time for me to take a Bolivian vacation.

One last note: If you're the video type, AFP put out a short 2-minute clip on the elections this week.