Sweet 15

As I have quickly discovered, in Paraguay they don´t have big ¨Sweet 16¨ parties like the stereotypical American does. Instead they have massive 15th Birthday parties. And they are huge! I got to go to one on Thursday night with my host sister and it was crazy. First of all, it didn´t start till about 10 at night (like most nightime activites), but being on Paraguayan time, we got there about 11. From the street the entrance was all decked out like an Egyptian palace and once we entered, it only got better. There was a main dining room with tables, which I understood to be for the more important guests. All of the teenagers crowded around the doorways while the birthday girl climbed down from this grand staircase wearing one of largest dresses I´ve ever seen. It was completely white and covered in sparkles and must have weighed a ton...there was so much volume to it! She danced with her father and a couple of my male classmates. After passing through a smaller room, filled with every kind of food imaginable, we reached what appeared to be the kids´hangout. There were couches and a dance floor and a bar and tables of food....

After the birthday girl had been ¨presented¨ to what seemed like everyone in Paraguay, we went to the dance floor to watch a group of dancers. This part of the night seemed to resemble a bachelorette party more than anything else, considering the fact that the women were wearing only a bra (with glitter, of course), underwear, and fishnet stockings. The men had on jeans, black mesh muscle tanks, and some sort of plastic outer shell. It was pretty hillarious watching people from ages 6 to 60 watch the performers dance. Let´s just say their style of dancing wouldn´t have flown at a Sitka High dance. :) It was definitely a completely new experience!