It was father's day sunday, so I thought I should write a little something about my Peruvian father, J. Father's day is quite a big deal here in Peru. At work the other day a huge buffet breakfast was organized and all the fathers at work received a present (which happened to be a belt each, personalized sizes of course for those with beer bellies and those without).

Anyways, Padre J and I have quite a strange relationship: he is quite an unusual man, very quiet most of the time, except for when he decides to go off on a tangent about how grapes are fruits of the earth. He is also a bit of a mystery: I still havent figured out what he does with his time, I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a job, and he doesn't seem to leave the house much. He is either watching TV or feeding the dog. And when I come home from work he greets me with a shaky wave and a monotonous "Hola, Sophia". Every, single, time. 

At least twice a week it ends up only being padre J and me at dinner. At first we had a few awkward silences because we didnt have much to say to each other, but then the subject of football appeared and we've found a common ground (Football as in soccer, for all the Canadians out there). The TV is on all the time in the house, which means when we do have some awkward blanks there is always the sound of the football program as background noise, its comforting in a way. And I have thus been following the European cup very closely, as well as the equivalent of the Latin American Champions League, oh and let's not forget the Peruvian Cup.

Sunday morning we made pancakes together, and everyone got to try the maple syrup I had brought. When I offered it to them during one of my first few days I remember trying to explain what it was exactly but I was too tired and gave up and said it was like special canadian honey. Today though, I decided I needed to try harder and get them to understand what maple syrup really was and where it came from so I looked up all the words I knew I would be needing in my dictionary and attempted..with little success (at one point I thought they got it but then I caught someone say "pollen" and they all went "AHHHH" - at that point I understood it was a lost cause)

They seemed to really like it, especially J, which was the most important thing. Once the pancakes were finished, he whipped out some stale bread and started dipping it in the syrup. Everyone followed and thus I discovered a new way of eating maple syrup. At lunch he started putting it on his grapes and at dinner he whipped out the stale bread for the second time. I'm pretty sure the can is already half empty by now.