Dia de amor y amistad

So next week the Colombian version of Valentine's Day, Love and Friendship Day, is celebrated. My students tell me that the main reason it's in September is because there were already too many holidays in February with Carnival and all. My class today insisted that we play "secret friend" (kind of like Secret Santa that we have at Christmastime, or at least used to when I was younger). You basically switch names and then buy the other person chocolate or candy of some kind. Another group told me that a common combination here is chocolate and beer for the boyfriend or girlfriend. Other than that, there's not much to it. It's just as commercialized as Valentine's is in the US. We actually have our mid-semester break this coming week, too, so that's kind of nice that we get a couple of vacation days to get out of the city.

Other than that, not much has been happening. Bought a blender, which is essential for making juices out of tomate de arbol (below)

and zapote (to the right). Yum, yum, yum. There's lots of crazy fruit here, or if it's not crazy, it's got some other costeño name (like watermelon = sandia = patilla).