Before coming to Peru, I always thought that Graduation Ceremonies and Prom were solely American things. Well I have since learned that Peru not only has lots of American food and companies, they also have Prom and a Graduation Ceremony.
My school being as small as it is the graduation ceremony and the prom were to take place on one day back to back.
I woke up on my prom day to a not so great message. My beautiful, wonderful, spectacular, awesome prom date’s hot mom had told her that she was no longer able to leave the house until around 4:30. This definitely was not good news, as I not only had to do her makeup, traffic would be horrible, which would put us being unbelievably late to my prom and graduation ceremony. Gracie (my prom date) and Elsbeth (a friend for the Netherlands) and I had all wanted to get ready together for our prom. So, after Elsbeth and I got the news from Gracie that she couldn’t get ready with us, we did the next best thing, and got our butts to La Molina (a district of Lima very far from the center of Lima).
Elsbeth and I ended up getting in a taxi to Gracie’s house a bit late (with some yummy wafers in tow). Me, knowing that we were going to be cutting it close on time, started getting ready in the car. Upon arrival to Gracie’s house, I finished my hair and makeup as fast as possible before attacking Gracie’s face with some makeup brushes. After makeup we whipped her hair into shape before all three of us rushed into a taxi being very late.
Originally, the plan was that Gracie and I would go back to my house so that my host mom and family could see us and take pictures. However, after getting into the taxi Gracie and I decided that we should get out at a shopping mall close to my school (we literally would have went past where we needed to be and then had to come back. So instead, we decided to get out of the car on a one of Lima’s busy streets in our prom dresses and heels so that we wouldn’t be late.
Here is the thing. Being a foreigner in Lima, you get stared at. Being two foreigners in Lima, you get even more stares. Being two foreigners in Lima in prom dresses gets even more stares (especially when one of the foreigners in blond and very tall). Nonetheless we made it past all the Peruvians and their stares and into a nearby shopping mall so that we could look for bobby pins. This meant that Gracie and I (in our prom dresses) went around the mall searching for bobby pins and getting lots of stares (and some compliments).
After walking around the mall and getting stared at, we both decided we should probably leave the mall and start walking toward the hotel where the prom was. But before we started our journey to the hotel, Gracie graciously took some photos of me in front of a grocery store…
We somehow ended up making it to the hotel in time after walking through Lima in giant heels. The hotel was very nice, and Gracie and I were right on time. After giving some information, Gracie and I waited for Jeanne and Tiia to arrive. Tiia came with her date first Jared (from Canada) and we all took some pictures. After the quick photos, Tiia and I said a goodbye to our dates and went into a separate room so that we could try on our graduation gowns.
Once the gowns were in place, we all got in line and got ready to walk for graduation. The exchange students were all last, and then arranged in alphabetical order. This meant that Tiia was to go first, then me, and finally Jeanne. However, after Tiia’s name was called they called Jeanne’s name, which was a little embarrassing as I had already had started to walk through the door. Nonetheless my “name” (or something resembling my actual name) was called and I walked out to join my classmates for our graduation ceremony.
The ceremony in all honesty was very boring with speeches and a few songs. Nonetheless, eventually, we all got our diplomas and our yearbooks. Except, our yearbooks were very screwed up. First off, they all had our pictures on the front. Honestly I couldn’t help but laugh, the photo company must have thought that I looked so ugly in my picture that they photoshopped me to the point where I was unrecognizable. It was also pointed out to me that while I had received the book with my face on it, I had Jeanne’s name on my book. Jeanne had received a book with her face and my name, which was spelled wrong. Additionally, any time my name was written in the book it was spelled completely wrong. And finally, as if the yearbooks couldn’t be any worse, in our class photos, the same girl’s photo appeared 3-4 times, replacing other girls in the class.
The yearbooks were so horrendous that it was comical (what else could we do). However, the school ended up collecting the yearbooks after the ceremony to have them fixed (still haven’t gotten my yearbook back). Just after the ceremony ended, we all got to throw our caps off our heads before joining our dates at the tables.
Once at the tables we laughed, joked, and ate our dinner. Once the music started, none of the Peruvians got up to be the first ones dancing. This meant that Jeanne, Gracie, Jared, Joshua (Jeanne’s date), and I all got up to open the dance floor. This is something I never thought I would do, especially in South America. But we all got the dance floor going and had our own fun. I quickly learned how hard it is to properly dance in a long dress, but also learned how to make it work. The night ended up being a good memory with my fellow exchange students and the few friends (like 3) I had made in school.
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