While in Tarija Bernie & Army were nice enough to throw us a costume party complete with fabulous food and an obstacle course!!

Earlier in the evening I appeared as a nun – but I am happy to say I can’t find any photographic proof of said miracle so y’all will just have to use your imaginations!

Meantime the fiesta continued . . . Lindsay (my new site mate) had just joined our happy Tarija family, Ricardo Antelo (my host ‘brother’ who lives in New York with his Peace Corps wife Lauren) kept promising Naomi and I he’d teach us some traditional dances – but alas we didn’t have the music in residence. 

The proverbial ‘good sports’ Elke & Arend showed up in their ‘Brewer’ costumes – they are in fact now producing delicious German beer on their farm Los Corceles so the costumes were perfect!

Sarah got into the spirit with a traditional “Guarani” dress and was nice enough to help me set up our obstacle course!

The course included: diving in the pool repeatedly  to find sunken poker chips, tossing a crocheted llama into a “Cho” bag from 5 feet away, a three legged race, a wheelbarrow race, bobbing for apples, using only your mouth to extract exact change from a chocolate pudding, back stroke across the pool, and managing to hit a pinata blindfolded!!

We wish you could have joined us ! It was a great time . . . needless to say during the summer months down here there is a little extra time on our hands to plan festivities!

It was a great chance to get volunteers from all over the country together and celebrate our service. Jen and Ryan Buisick and Dan Wright spent at least 16 hours on a bus to get here . . . we had visitors from Norway, San Francisco, DC, and a few other places I can’t recollect at the moment. It was a special night – with a mariachi band and everything . . . see what you’re missing if you aren’t ready to party south of the border??  

Now playing: Beyoncé - Listen (From “Dreamgirls”)

Posted by Sarah Robinson on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 4:11 pm.