Cultural Norms and Expectations- Part 2

Our second event a week ago was an all school family event for M's school.  Cue cultural expectations.  We were expected to:

• Attend
• Donate a dessert (which was then sold)
• Purchase meal tickets and/or food that was for sale
• Purchase 40 soles worth of bingo tickets (about $15). 
• I think we were also supposed to sell Bingo tickets to other people and invite them to attend, too...but we didn't exactly do that.  We did take Flor and Alex with us and paid for their food, so maybe we sort of did what the school wanted.

The event was held in a rented facility far away from the school (30 min taxi ride) and, as mentioned before, it was at the same time at Alex's first communion.  After his communion wrapped up, we took our family as well as Alex and Flor and hopped in a taxi.  The driver gave us a price, overshot the destination (his own fault...) and then charged us a sol more because he had to drive farther.  Note to self: always carry change when taking taxis so you can pay them the exact amount agreed to before the ride and not be held hostage to the driver not giving you change.

When we arrived, it was mass chaos.  It was a huge gym, with various things happening on the floor (we missed the all school talent show but we got to see some dogs being put through their paces, as well as a mini-soccer game and some songs).  We also made it in time for bingo.  However, I had paid the money and turned in the cards because I didn't have any idea when we would arrive relative to bingo and hearing numbers in another language over the loudspeaker didn't inspire confidence in our ability to follow the numbers being called.  We ended up dropping off my apple pie (which seemed to turn out well and sold out fast), got our meals (and found out that while I thought I bought 4 chicken dinners, I actually got two chicken and two pork), and purchased some supplemental food (papa a la huancaina and some fancy rice which was actually my favorite thing.  We also bought a caramel apple for M and some cotton candy to share.)

Pork meal.  Underneath was a boiled potato and a plastic sleeve of sauce. 
Chicken plate was similar, but with fried chicken instead of pork.

Potato dish and just a touch of the rice on the right side.

Frankly, the whole thing was noisy and echo-y and after spending several hours in an all Spanish speaking setting where I wasn't sure if we were setting a foot wrong or right, I was more than ready to get out after we ate our food.  So, that's what we did...well, after M got her face painted (another 8 soles).  I hope it was a successful fundraiser, we certainly did our part in putting up about $50 toward the event.  The money was going to purchase instruments for the school band.

Our little kitty.