A Very Peruvian Weekend

We had a short week of training this week because of the independence holiday. From what I gather, July 28th is the actual independence day, but the holiday is celebrated both on the 28th and 29th. Because of that, we didn´t have training on Friday or Saturday of this week. We felt like little kids on school vacation when we got out on Thursday because it was so exciting to have a three day weekend.

On Thursday night, Hana and I made soft tacos for dinner for my family. We made flour tortillas and guacamole from scrath and they were so delicious! They were a big hit with my family and I was so happy since it was such a disaster the last time. I wanted them to know that I really can cook well. My little host brother ate about 4 tortillas in ten minutes. He loved them! I must admit that even I was impressed - watch out Cactus Cantina! They were ranting and raving all dinner how good everything was. I asked if it was better than the last dinner and they all immediately said YES!!! It was so funny. My host mom wanted to contribute something to the dinner too (even though she bought all of the ingredients) so she made us strawberry cocktails out of pisco. They tasted like strawberry smoothies and were so delicious! As far as I´m concerned, she can contribute those to any meal and I´ll be happy. Haha. We also made Hana´s magic bars to take to a party with us later that night, but we shared some with my host family before we left. They were also quite a hit. We definitely left a lasting impression on them.

On Friday morning, we left at 7:30 am (even though it was supposed to be 6:30) to go to Marcahuasi with a group of our friends. We were accompanied by our friend Jorge´s host sisters and a couple of their friends. Marcahuasi is this town way up in the mountains where there are rock formations in the shape of turtles, frogs, human profiles, etc. dating back to pre-Incan times. However, it is a 2 hour hike to access Marcahuasi, so everyone drives to this town called San Pedro de Casta and hikes up from there. San Pedro is almost 10,000 ft. above sea level so it took about 2.5 hours to get there. We drove on the narrowest, windy, dirt road to get there (the same one that we drove on to get to the crazy horse races) so you can imagine how bumpy and uncomfortable the ride was - not to mention the bus that we rode in must have been made for midgets because even my knees were digging into the seat in front of me so much that I had to sit sideways the whole time. We were crammed right in there so sleeping was not an option even though we´d all only had about 4 hours of sleep the night before. We did have our own bus though so that was really nice, but within the first 30 seconds of the trip, the driver reversed right into this pole and hit it really hard. That was really reassuring of the ride to come.

We arrived safe and sound in San Pedro around 10 am and I immediately fell in love with the town. It was so charming with a cute little main plaza and cobblestone roads. There was a gazebo in the plaza and a few little restaurants and tiendas (stores in the front of people´s houses) with a couple of vendors selling hand woven scarfs and sweaters and the like. Nestled way up in the mountains, it has a spectacular view. It made me think of a town we might be placed in for the next two years so I was really happy to feel so comfortable and happy right away.

After getting our hotel, which cost less than $2 for the night, we went to eat "lunch" at a family friend´s house before we set out on our hike. It was kind of funny to me to be eating such a big meal at 10:30 in the morning before we set off on this big hike, but it was so generous of the people, that we all graciously ate our big bowl of soup and overflowing plate of arroz con pollo (chicken and rice). The house was really tiny and quaint. For the first time since I´ve been here, I really felt like I was in Perú. This was what I had imagined when I envisioned coming here. Not that I don´t love my family here in Santa Eulalia, but I certainly never would have imagined living in a house with two computers connected to the internet!

Despite our food comas, we set off on our hike around noon. We hired a guide to lead us to make sure we didn´t get lost and to help us identify the different rock formations. He had a donkey with him that carried all of our backpacks, but I had my camelbak in mine with all of my water so I carried it myself. I was drenched in sweat when we got to the top, but at least I was hydrated! The hike was pretty intense since Marcahuasi is 12,000 ft. above sea level and we were hiking during the hottest part of the day, but it was well worth it! The views were really incredible. I´ll try to post some pictures (even though they don´t do it justice) because I can´t explain the beauty. I almost enjoyed the hike more than seeing the actual rocks because it seemed like many of them were open to interpretation. The first few I had a really hard time seeing and some of them I never actually saw the resemblence. You can look at the photos for yourselves and see if you can identify the pregnant lady, turtle, Chinese man, human face, and bird in them. It was neat, but also very amusing and after a while we just started cracking jokes like, "oh didn´t you see that merry-go-round over there?" or "i think that one is the new york city skyline" or "what do you mean you can´t see my face in that rock?". Haha.

We were pretty exhausted once we finally made it to the top so we decided to rest and have a litte picnic of crackers and jelly, fruit, tunafish, raisins, and other random things we had packed for the hike. It was great to sit and relax and just enjoy the view and each other´s company. It also felt so nice to be doing something outside of Peace Corps (not that I don´t love it) with a small group. It was a lot chillier at the top of the mountain and I was beginning to be very grateful that we weren´t camping up there like most people do. Although I love camping (especially when there is a wind storm - haha), I probably would have froze to death that night. We did notice, however, while we were enjoying our picnic (or "picinicky" as Hana´s family likes to call it) that there was a huge cloud of smoke that kept growing bigger and bigger. No one else seemed to be concerned besides us, but it seemed to be moving rapidly. Later, on the hike down, there was a whole section of the trail where the ground around it was black and still burning. Still none of the Peruvians seemed to think twice about it while we were all very concerned.

We got down from the hike around 6 pm and all decided to take a nap because we were exhausted. That didn´t work out so well for me though since the bed was the most uncomfortable bed I´ve ever slept on. I guess I shouldn´t expect too much when I pay less than $2 for the night. There were tons of horizontal bars running the length of the bed that dug into your back no matter what position you were in. It also didn´t help when we heard one of the beds collapse in the other room. We all shared beds to save money so Hana and I were a little worried we´d be the next ones on the floor. It was so funny. Between that and the excitement from the hike, my mind was racing too much to be able to fall asleep, but it was still nice to just lay down and rest my body a little bit. To give you a better idea of the hotel, the toilets didn´t flush (the one in the women´s bathroom overflowed) and the sink drained into a bucket because there weren´t any pipes. It was quite an experience and made our houses here seem like luxury! Hana was joking that she never thought she´d be so excited to return to her house where they use a bucket to flush the toilet (that doesn´t have a toilet seat) and her matress is covered in plastic. Also, our neighbors blared Bob Marley from their room all night long and burned insense. Interesting.....

That night we thought there´d be a huge party in the main plaza since it was independence day and Peruvians love to party, however, it turned out that we were just about the only ones in town because most people had headed up the mountain to camp at Marcahuasi. While Hana and I were calling the doctor for our friend, Sarah, who got really sick from the altitude, our friends Amelia and Jessica made friends with this group of guys from Lima. They were supposed to hike up to Marcahuasi that night and camp for two nights, but they ended up staying and hanging out with us all night. They were really nice guys and we had a lot of fun talking with them and hanging out in the gazebo. It was nice to practice our Spanish so much too because we wouldn´t have spoken any Spanish had we not met them. They all knew a little bit of English so they kept trying to say things to us. Most of what they know are song lyrics (like Bob Marley) so it was pretty funny. Somehow they convinced us to sing the Star Spangled Banner (that´s a popular request around here), which was hillarious. We never actually made it through the song because we´d start laughing at how bad we were - especially since my tone deaf self was carrying the team. After that we proceeded to sing for the next hour or so, but we couldn´t think of many songs we knew all the words to so it was pretty funny. At one point we sang "Part of that World" from The Little Mermaid and somehow we also sang "I Believe I Can Fly" by R. Kelly. That was a hit with them and they kept requesting for us to sing it again. Haha. They even tried to record us on their cell phones and camera! Hahahahaha. One of the guys taught Hana and I this song about Marcahuasi (called Cerrito de Marcahuasi) that he learned from one of the little old ladies in town. It was so cute. Just a sidenote, the guy happens to be in love with Hana and his name is Jesus so we, of course, thought it was hillarious (A Jew for Jesus). Hana said her dad used to send her stuff on how to say no to "Jews for Jesus" when they came to campus. Uh oh, Abba, don´t be mad. Two of the guys were also really good at twirling these chains with fire on the ends (I don´t know what it´s called) and Hana and I convinced everyone she knew how to do it. They kept asking her to do it, but she said she only does it in Synagoge. It was really funny, but we finally gave in and told them it wasn´t true because we couldn´t stop laughing about it. She tried anyway without any fire and ended up getting charcoal all over her fleece. Oh my little Hanita. She and I were exhausted from the long day so we went to bed at 1:30, but the party was still going strong. It was funny because they had met this group of 4 sisters on the bus ride up to San Pedro from Lima and they promised the girls to accompany them on the hike up since they were going at night in the dark. While we hung out with the guys, the girls hung out with our guy friends, Jorge and Pete, who came with us. It sort of reminded me of a middle school dance. Anyway, Jorge told me that the girls were getting really annoyed and kept wondering when they were going to leave for the hike. Jorge guaranteed them that as long as the gringas were around, they weren´t going anywhere. He was right - they all ended up camping in San Pedro that night and hiking early the next morning. What a great night! We finally made some Peruvian friends!

I felt so bad for my friend, Sarah, who was so sick. The Peruvians have all of these crazy beliefs of why people get sick. One of which is drinking cold beverages. When I had a fever and diarrhea, they told me it´s because I drink cold water everyday. So after we talked to the Peace Corps doctor and he said Sarah probably had altitude sickness and was dehydrated, we bought her 2 bottles of gatorade. Jorge´s Peruvian sisters told us we needed to put them in the sleeping bag with her to warm them up or it would kill her lungs and she´d get even sicker. They also tried to tell us she was sick because she ate a mandarin orange. Don´t ask me why - they have their reasons I guess.

The next morning we didn´t do too much because we were all so exhausted from the day before. We ate breakfast at a little restaurant in the main plaza, but some of us brought our own food in because we didn´t want to pay when we had brought so much with us (that´s normal in Perú and they don´t find it offensive as long as somoene buys something). The rest of the morning we just sat in the gazebo in the main plaza talking and playing cards while we waited for the bus to come pick us up. It was supposed to be there at noon, but we didn´t leave until 2 pm of course - that´s called "La hora peruana" (the Peruvian hour).

The ride home was crazy because we had to pass a lot of cars on the narrow road. It´s unbelievable the way people get road rage even on a windy, mountain road that´s only wide enough for one car. They get mad if they think you should have stopped to let them pass and they keep driving at you while you back up. At one point, we were trying to pass this huge dump truck and our bus was literally backing into the rock wall next to us. We could hear the tires spinning and rocks crunching under the bus. Most of us had our eyes closed because it was so scary. While the truck was trying to pass us the first time (without success), Pete reached out the window to knock on wood - the wood of the truck we were passing! Oh Dios Mio! We did make it home safe and sound though around 4 pm and all went home to finally shower and take naps. When I took off my sunglasses, I had a line from all of the dirt that had been blowing in my face the entire ride home! It was definitely the best shower I´ve had since I got here - I even had hot water! What a luxury!

On Sunday morning, I finally got to "sleep in" for the first time in a long time, though by sleeping in, I mean that I was up by 9. While I was eating breakfast with my family, my host mom told me we were going to go to my uncle´s house for lunch because it was his son´s birthday and they were making a Pachamanca for him. Pachamanca is a very traditional dish from the sierra where everything is cooked together in the ground! My uncle just lives down the street from us so they replicated it on their roof. They built a little pit with bricks around it and then put very hot rocks and coal in the bottom. Then they put potatoes, sweet potatoes, meat (chicken, beef, pork, and sometimes cuy), bananas (really big and sweet), abas (which I think are fava beans), and cheese (it was cooked in a little pot). Then they cover everything with huge leaves from a banana tree and then puts lots of layers of plastic and blankets on top to keep it warm. Apparently it´s so hot inside that it only takes an hour for everything to cook! It´s pretty incredible. About two minutes before we left, they asked if Hana wanted to come. Luckily she wasn´t busy so she got to come along for the experience. It was really fun because it´s such a Peruvian thing to do and they were so excited to show us. They let us help pull some of the food out when they uncovered it all and it was extremely HOT! They were also all about us taking pictures and were so proud to feed us our first real Pachamanca (apparently I had it once before in my first week, but it was made in a pot and isn´t nearly as good). One of the best parts about it is that you eat everything with your hands! There is something so fun about eating with your hands.

Of course they wanted us to drink with them too because what´s a birthday party without a little beer. The way they drink socially here is to pass around one cup and one bottle of beer (though they are much bigger here) and everyone shares the same cup and beer. You pour a little for yourself in the cup, drink it, and pass it on. I used to be freaked out by it because of all the germs, but it´s one of those things you just have to laugh at and get over because it´s not really accepted to ask for your own cup or not participate. Since it was a Sunday afternoon, Hana and I would just pour a little swig for ourselves and then pass it on. Then they started passing around this wine made from honey. It comes from the selva (jungle) of Perú and was surprisingly really good. I was laughing when we first arrived and my host mom introduced me to my "cousin" whose birthday it was because he was way older than I thought. For some reason I thought he was only 12 or so, but he actually turned 23 yesterday. I was a little off. He´s the younger of the two kids too. Oops.

Later that afternoon, Hana and I went to play soccer on the little canchita in Santa Eulalia with some friends. It was supposed to start at 4:30, but we just vollied the ball around for the first 30 minutes because none of our friends were there and lots of other people were using the court. We finally got to play around 5, but there were only 7 of us so we played 3 guys on 4 girls. It was really funny because most of us aren´t that great, but I had a really good time anyway. It was nice to run around so much after eating such a huge meal earlier in the day. Plus, I needed to work up an appetite for Picarones that we ate at Hana´s house afterwards. They are sort of like fried dough, but in the shape of a doughnut, however, they´re made out of sweet potato and zucchini. I know they sound disgusting, but they´re actually sweet and really good. They serve them with honey poured over the top, but it´s homemade honey that they make from orange peel and leaves of different fruits. They were really delicious, but I was about to explode afterwards from all of the food. I guess it´s good I ate so much though because Lindsay invited us over for dinner, but her mom never came home so we had to leave without having anything. It was really funny, but I was somehow really hungry anyway. I had to tell my abuelita that I had already eaten though when I got home or she would have tried to serve me this gigantic meal at 9:30 pm. Instead she gave me about 2 lbs. of arroz con leche when I told her I just wanted a little bit. She´s so cute though.

So I know this was the longest entry ever to talk about 3 days of adventures, but so much happened this weekend that I wanted to be sure to tell everyone about it. I had such a good time and the best part was that it was all very Peruvian. This was also the first time I really felt like I was in Perú. We´ve been living in a pretty urban area and have been so caught up with training and being surrounded by gringos all the time that sometimes it´s easy to forget why we´re really here. It was so nice to be away from training for a few days and spend the weekend in Marcahuasi with some of my favorite people in our group. I had a really great time bonding with those people and getting to know them on a deeper level than we can in training. I´m really looking forward to spending time with all of them over the next couple of weeks. It´s hard to believe how quickly training will be over. We go away next week for almost two weeks and then we only have two weeks of training left! Part of me is so excited and the other part of me is really nervous.

Tomorrow is a really big day for all of us because we get our site assignments. I´ll finally know where I´ll be living for the next two years of my life - how exciting! Of course that means I´ll be posting another entry very soon. I´m going to try to put up some pictures now in another entry of the weekend. I took some of my house too so hopefully I´ll get those up pretty soon too.

Catching Up

This weekend is Fiestas Patrias (Independence Day) in Perú as well as the change in government. I´m anticipating a big weekend so I thought I better post an update before I forget everything that has happened. My host family was going to take me up the coast to a city called Trujillo to visit one of their old volunteers, but now another one is coming to Lima for the weekend so they´re going to stay here. A friend of mine is going up to this town in the mountains where there are pre-Incan ruins and he invited a bunch of us from the group. I´ve heard it´s really beautiful and extremely cold, but I´m really excited to go.

For those of you who don´t know much about Peruvian politics (don´t worry, I didn´t know anything before I came), the new president who will take office on July 28th is Alan García. He was actually president of Perú from 1985-1990 and left the country in political and economic turmiol. However, from what I´ve learned from talking with other Peruvians, there is a lot of hope that things will be better this time. He was only 35 the last time he was president so many people think he is much wiser now and has more experience under his belt to be a better leader of their country. I have also heard that he was better than the other candidate, though that is up for debate. The first election was too close to call so they had a run off with only two candidates. Everyone knew that Garcia wouldn´t win by himself so many political alianzes formed to help him come out over Ollanta (the other candidate). I believe the other candidate used to be (or maybe still is) part of the military. Many people think he had some very good ideas, but he was also very aggressive in his messages (especially of Nationalism) to the point that many people found him to be too violent and were scared of electing him. On the other hand, I´ve heard that Garcia is very charismatic and that´s probably why he won. They say he has an incredible manner of speaking and that he can talk about any subject and sound like an expert. They said his speeches can move mountains. He also has much whiter skin than Ollanta, which unfortunately, plays a major role in the elections down here. So, from what I´ve heard (and understood) from my conversations with Peruvians, they all are just praying things are much better this time around. They say Peruvians have a bad memory and for that reason re-elect previously bad leaders. Anyway, this should be an interesting weekend and I´m curious to see how it all unfolds.

So, back to the bubble that I live in called Peace Corps training, things have been busy as always. We had our second round of Spanish interviews and I have moved up a level. I am now in the Advanced Low class so I was really happy about that. I hadn´t really felt like I had improved that much until I got into my interview and realized how much easier the conversation flowed compared to my first interview. We also had an interview with one of the training directors to talk about our progress thus far. I thought they were going to tell me I need to participate more in group settings or give me some other suggestions of things I need to work on, but they didn´t say anything negative or anything I need to work on so I was really happy. It was definitely reassuring since I often doubt myself and my abilities. It´s all just so overwhelming at times that it´s hard to keep a positive attitude all the time.

One of the best things about moving up in Spanish is that we get to go on more outings into the community to talk to people on the street. The other day we went into Chosica and had to ask people about how Peruvians celebrate Fiestas Patrias. Of course I chose the crazy lady to talk to. I kept trying to ask her about it and all she wanted to know was where I was from, what I´m doing here, and how long I´ll be here. In the beginning I didn´t mind because everyone is curious to know about the gringos and I expect that. However, she continued to ask me the same three questions for the next 10 minutes. Everytime I tried to turn the conversation to Fiestas Patrias, she just thought I was trying to tell her that I´m only going to be here in Perú for the holidays. So once again, I had to explain that I´d be living here for two years and the cycle of questions started again. She told me she wanted to talk to me some more and asked if I could come to her house. I told her no so she asked if I could give her my address so she could come to my house. I kept saying no because I´m really busy, but she would not let me go. I finally told her I would look for her another day when I come to Chosica because she´s in the main park everyday from 7 am to 2 pm. While I was meeting with my group, she came over and kept telling me she needed to talk to me and find out exactly what day and time I´d be back. I just told her I had to leave and went to the bus. Of course that didn´t work though and she followed me to the bus and kept telling the teachers that she needed to talk to me for a minute before we left. Oh boy.

So today my Spanish class went to Chosica again. We split up into groups again to talk to people, but I was constantly on the lookout for her so I could avoid her. After our first little 20 minute assignment, we were back at the bus talking and there she is, about 10 feet away. My friend Josh blocked me while we ran away to go talk to more people. I honestly felt like I was running away from the Paparazzi. I turned back after we ran away to see if she was following us and noticed that she wasn´t, but she was standing at the bus by now, talking to the driver, Jimmy (he´s Peruvian). When I got back to the bus about 20 minutes later, Jimmy told me I needed to get in the bus right away because we had to drive around the block and park on a side street to talk because this lady won´t leave without talking to me. I got right in the bus, but before we could drive away, she had come around to the other side (where I was sitting), reached in the window, and tapped me on my shoulder to ask me when I was going to go to her house and when I´d be back to talk! I´m sure she´s innocent and just lonely because she´s older, but I know if I go to her house, that will not be the end of it and it´ll just keep getting worse. How do I always meet people like this? By the way, she is also known as the "relationship police" in our group because she walks around the park with a whistle and goes up to any couple sitting on a bench and blows her whistle at them (if they´re kissing or even just cuddling) about 3 feet from their faces until they stop!

Another funny experience from Spanish class is that we tried to make pizza the other day. We were learning about things in the kitchen so we decided to make pizza. We couldn´t find mozzerella cheese anywhere in Chosica so we finally went into a pizzeria and asked where we could buy some. After much debate, they decided to sell us some of theirs and we got two big balls of cheese. Haha. The next day we had class at my friend Erin´s house and we tried to make Hawaiian pizza. However, Erin´s host mom didn´t know how to use her oven (they rarely use their ovens for anything here - Hana has never seen her mom use it in the month that we´ve been here) so it took us at least an hour and a half to cook the pizza. We would turn it on and think that it was baking, but then we´d open the oven to check on it and realize there was no hot air inside and the oven had shut off somehow. This continued for 1.5 hours so we finally just ate it even though it was still kind of raw in the middle. It wasn´t very good at all because we had tried to make our own pizza dough, but only used flour and water. It was actually pretty gross, but really funny at the same time. It was my last day of class with my Spanish teacher, Isabel, so I was really sad because I love her and don´t want to have a new teacher. After we ate our pizza we watched a Peruvian movie. It was good, but really sad (hard to understand since it was all in Spanish, but I got the gist of it).

I better have a successful cooking experience soon or I´m going to loose all of the faith I had in myself of being a good cook. Tomorrow Hana and I are making soft tacos for my family. I learned how to make fresh tortillas from scratch from my friend Brent on Saturday and they were delicious. I´m not going to lie, they definitely ranked right up there with Cactus Cantina and some of the best places in San Antonio! I also made delicious guacamole to go along with them and brought them to this BBQ we had on Saturday. Between the tortillas and guacamole that Lindsay and I brought, and the huge bag of animal crackers that Hana brought, we were the life of the party I think! Hana also brought her frisbee which was a big hit. I attempted to toss the disc with her and some other people and it was hillarious. I got pretty good at catching it, but throwing was a whole other story. Giff would have been embarassed because I was pretty horrible. It was really funny though. What was even funnier was when Hana tried to throw it really long and it landed on some lady´s balcony! Haha. Hana is really good though so don´t get the wrong idea. The BBQ was really fun and delicious. I call one of the girls in our group Betty Crocker because she is always making something amazing from scratch. She made 4 homemade pies for our 4th of July celebration and has been making crazy stir frys, curry dishes, and chocolate chip cookies at home. She was sort of in charge of the food for the BBQ and made plum salsa along with all of these great marinades for chicken. The food was all really good, but a lot of people ended up getting sick this weekend and the doctor thinks it was something at the BBQ. Mind you, our "BBQ" was the tiniest little raised fire pit that we put a big pan over. Interesting, but we adapted.

Oh my gosh the dogs outside are barking up a storm. There are stray dogs everywhere that all look like they are dying and they all bark for hours on end. One of the guys in our group actually got bit by a dog the other day! Apparently the dog bit 3 people in one day, but they´re still not going to put it to sleep. I figured it was a stray dog, but he told me that it has an owner and the guy is just really stubborn. Someone tried to poison the dog, but the wrong dog (another volunteer´s dog) drank the poison and almost died!

My friends and I have started taking these Afro-Peruvian dance classes on Tuesday and Thursday nights. They are only an hour long and cost 1 sol (about $0.30), but they are so much fun. I probably burn more calories laughing at myself than actually dancing, but that´s okay. Our teacher is this guy in his mid-40s with a huge belly, but he was way more rhythm than all of us combined and he loves teaching us. It´s a lot of fun and if I keep going, I´ll probably be an expert by the time I leave here - yeah right! Oh yeah, the classes are held on the roof of one of the schools nearby. Part of the roof has clothes lines hanging across it so you have to be careful not to cut your head off because it gets dark half way through class and it´s impossible to see them.

On Monday night I went to a "gym" with my friend Sarah to go to these two exercise classes. The gym was pretty old with really old school equipment. There were hard wood floors throughout the whole place and tons of body builder pictures from the 80s and early 90s hanging on the walls. It made me realize how much I take gyms for granted back home. Even the crappiest gym I´ve been to at home would be state of the art compared to this one. The ways the floors creeked and the small little rooms with only a few machines in each room sort of reminded me of an old library in a wierd way. Anyway, the first class we took was dance. There was no instruction whatsoever in the moves. There was a teacher and everyone did what the teacher was doing, but Sarah and were the only ones who had no clue how to do the dances. Luckily it was crowded enough in there that I couldn´t see myself in the mirror most of the time, but when I did, it was hideous. The teacher was really nice though and tried to come over to us for the really complicated steps so we could watch her more easily. I don´t know that it worked, but it was nice. We were clearly the gringas with NO rhythm at all. I did recognize a few of the moves from my dance classes with Daniel, but we did them about 100 times faster in this class. By the end of the class, my brain hurt from trying to figure out how they moved their bodies in ways I can´t even imagine. I didn´t even know your body could move in so many different directions at one time. It was mentally and physically exhausting, but fun.

The next class was supposed to be Step so I was really excited in the beginning because I know how to do Step. However, about two minutes into the class, she started throwing in these crazy dance moves, but didn´t break any of them down. I tried so hard to figure out what they were doing, but I couldn´t get any of the combinations and neither could Sarah. It was really frustrating because we´ve both taken a lot of Step classes before and are both good at picking up the combinations, but this was impossible. The teacher also completely ignored us the whole time until the very end when we finally gave up and started doing our own thing. She came over to tell us to be careful not to hurt our knees. Thanks for the advice, but it´s a little overdue since I just killed myself trying to figure out how to do all of your routines. Sarah told me that when I looked over at her and just saw her standing on top of her step, it was because she was paralized with laugher watching me trying my hardest to figure out what we were doing and still not even coming close to getting it. It was really frustrating and not very much fun at all. It didn´t help our knees that it was a hard wood floor and the steps were just big huge blocks of wood also. Oh well. It was quite the experience (but not one I´d like to repeat). I´ll stick to my at home workouts and dance classes with Daniel.

Oh boy I´ve already said so much and there is so much more to report. I had an awesome experience last week with this girl Rosemary that I´m doing a project with. She is 19 and Peruvian (another volunteer´s host sister) and we meet once a week just to hang out so we can learn something from one another about our cultures and form a friendship. Our first meeting was pretty awkward because she felt like it was an interview and it seemed really formal even though it´s not supposed to be. She also brought this guy along whom she didn´t introduce to me and he just sat there the whole time without saying a word, which made me feel uncomfortable. So this time I told her that it´s not supposed to be an interview, just friends hanging out. We ended up going to her best friend´s house and we had so much fun! For the first time, I really felt like I was among friends in Perú. The three of us just sat and talked about relationships, friends, going to college, and many differences between our two cultures. They told me lots of stories and I told them a few too. I felt really comfortable around them and was really happy that they felt like they could open up with me. I learned way more about Rosemary than I did in the first meeting. They were also really encouraging of my Spanish and kept telling me I was really good (because they both live with volunteers that are in a lower level than I). It was so much fun and I think we would have stayed there for 3 more hours talking if I didn´t have to go home for dinner. It was an awesome feeling and made me realize that I really will be okay here.

I had another interview with Kitty, my supervisor about my site. The last one I had didn´t go very well, but this one was much better. She said she had a few sites picked out for me that she thinks I´ll really like and she´s envisioning me working with adolescent girls. I envision the same thing so I was happy to hear that. She is looking for a place in the Sierra because I said I´d like to be in the mountains so I was happy about that too. She said she´s heard a lot of great things about me from the trainers and that she loves my positive attitude! I found out afterwards that she told a lot of the other people where they´d most likely be so I´m kind of jealous that I have to wait and find out, but oh well. We get our site assignments on Tuesday and I can´t wait to know where I´ll be living for the next two years. I really hope it´s in the same department as Hana and Lindsay so we won´t be 12 hours away from each other. This country is so big!

We´ve also been having a lot of sessions with current volunteers who come and share their experience and youth development projects with us. They have all been really informative and by far my favorite part. It´s really nice to meet actual volunteers who are out in the field doing stuff because it gives us good ideas of some things we can do. It also allows us to ask them tons of questions and get reassurance from them that they all felt as nervous as we did before they started. One of the girls had her sister visiting so we met her too. It was her sister´s second time visiting and she´s going to come one other time too! So lucky! So start looking for plane tickets everyone.....

I was going to stop, but I just remembered that I forgot to write two important things. First off, I had lasagna the other day! I was so excited because my family kept talking about it on Thursday night. I told Hana the next morning on our walk that I thought I was going to have it for lunch that day because they kept talking about it, but then I got back from my walk and there it was on the table, for BREAKFAST! What??? They served me a big piece and I thought it was really strange, but it tasted so good that I didn´t even care. They also must have told me 18 times during breakfast that another gringa taught them how to make it, but she usually makes it with spinach, basil, tomatoes, and onions - they just didn´t have time in the morning to do that. I better make something good for them fast so they can brag about me to the next people! Haha. Mom, I need some recipes....please.

Lastly, (and I promise I´ll leave it on this note) Hana and I went to Lima on Saturday with my host mom and siblings. She was the cutest little tour guide and brought us all over the city. We couldn´t go inside at a lot of places because it was Sunday and they were closed, but we did go to a museum about the Inquisition and also visited some Catacombs. The first was a little boring, but the Catacombs were really interesting. We actually tried to go there with my group when I was studying abroad, but they were closed. She brought us to the main plaza (where the presidential palace is), to see the Congress building, to some important churches, the supreme court, and many other points of interest. We also found this festival to celebrate Pisco (grape brandy I think) - the most popular liquor made here. My host mom bought us each a little sample and then some of the vendors gave us a sample since we´re gringas. It was really fun to see. They also had a little craft fair there and sold many of the traditional dishes made in Perú so it was fun to see those. After that we took this little tour to the top of one of the hills to get a good view of the city. It´s usually pretty overcast in Lima and it was that day too, but we were still able to see a lot. This is a huge city! At the end of the night, we went to the grocery store to look for a few things (including chocolate chips that are $7 for a bag!) and then to see a movie! My host siblings really wanted to see a movie and there aren´t any movie theaters closer to our house so we went. We saw Cars, but it was dubbed. Hana and I were both really tired from the weekend and walking around all day so we both took a little nap during part of the movie, but I saw most of it and it was pretty cute. Luckily you can get a lot of it just by watching. We never got any dinner that night and were both starving. We didn´t get home until 11:15 that night, but it was so much fun!

Alright I´ll stop now. I´m sure I could go on and on, but I need to go to bed. We have two days less of classes this week because of the holiday! Woo Hoo!

Keep sending me email and mail. I LOVE hearing from all of you because I miss everyone and think about you all often.

Crazy Weekend!!

On Saturday we went into Lima with our Spanish classes instead of having more training at the Center. It was my first time to Lima since we arrived (almost a month ago!) so I was really looking forward to the trip (mostly to get some good old American food, but to see the city too). I went to Lima three years ago when I was studying abroad in Chile, but we were only here for about 24 hours as we were passing through on our way to Cusco. The last time I was here, I remember thinking the city was really dirty and poor, but I thought the main plaza with some of the government buildings was kind of cool. This time I was pleasantly surprised to see that the city was nicer than I had remembered. It´s still pretty dirty (I was getting sick from the pollution when we were riding on the bus), but we visited a few different districts of Lima and I really enjoyed them.

We started in Barranco, which is a bohemian-type neighborhood. The architecture was really nice and I loved all the brightly colored buildings. It was also close to the ocean so we were able to walk down and see the Pacific! We didn´t walk all the way down to the beach though because it´s really dangerous there and easy to get robbed - no thank you. Next we went to Miraflores, which is an upper middle class neighborhood of Lima. We saw a few movie theaters there, a lot of trendy stores, and of course, lots of American restaurants (Chili´s, TGI Friday´s, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, Dominoes, Kentucky Fried Chicken, etc.). We stopped at Dunkin Donuts to have a mid-morning snack. I rarely even eat donuts when I´m in the States, but anything from home is really appealing when you´re so far away so six of us decided to share a dozen donuts and they were amazing! They had lots of the traditional ones like "Krema de Boston" and then others that I had never seen before (one covered in toasted coconut and filled with dulce de leche).

From there we took a bus to the center of Lima and walked to the main plaza where all of the government buildings are located. On the way to the plaza, we walked through this whole strip of stores that reminded me a lot of Santiago. I don´t understand why they do this in Perú and Chile (and maybe other parts of Latin America too), but in shopping districts, you´ll find all the same type of store clustered together. For instance, we passed at least 2 blocks of stores that sold nothing but eye glasses. How do they all stay in business? Is there really a demand for so many glasses? Hana told me her class walked by a whole block of stores that sold dentist chairs! Don´t ask me.

Before we arrived at the plaza, we also stopped to visit a big Catholic church that was built in the 1500s. It was incredible how powerful it was to be inside of the church. Rarely do I feel a strong emotional or spiritual connection (for lack of a better word) when I´m inside a church, but when it does happen, it´s amazing. For one reason or another, I seem to have these feelings more often when I enter a Catholic church in Latin America. I´m not even Catholic, but it´s hard not to feel moved when you enter the churches down here. Many Latin Americans are only "culturally" Catholic, as they say, because they don´t go to church, but they truly believe in the power of the saints and it´s truly incredible to observe their devotion to their faith when you´re visiting a church - even if they don´t express it in the traditional sense.

After the church we visited the main plaza, but didn´t go into any buildings. I wish we had gone to a few museums, but my host mom said she´d take me back so that´s okay. Class was done by about 1:30 so Hana, Lindsay, and I took off to find a Pizza Hut. We spent about 30 minutes in class on Thursday drawing a map of where we could find Pizza Hut and what buses to take from the center of town. We were doing really well until our bus turned off the main road. Lindsay and Hana thought we were fine, but I knew we were headed in the wrong direction. We wanted to get off at "the" McDonald´s, but quickly realized that was an awful point of reference as they are everywhere in Miraflores. Anyway, we got off at a McDonald´s and realized we had no idea where we were. We were determined to find Pizza Hut though and after walking for about 15 minutes, finally found out. We were starving when we arrived and probably could have consumed everything in the entire place, but settled on pizza and breadsticks. It was delicious! It´s so weird how Pizza Hut tastes the same whether you´re in San Antonio, TX or Lima, Peru. The funniest part though was that the restaurant itself was way nicer than you´d ever see in the States. It was pretty fancy and expensive, but well worth it!

After lunch we headed to the supermarket to buy some peanut butter (my one jar is almost gone already!). The supermarket was so nice on the inside. It had an inner courtyard and sold lots of stuff besides food. It wasn´t nearly as big as Jumbo - the one I used to go to in Santiago, but it was fine. It even had a Benihana sushi stand inside! We drooled over the chocolate aisle as it had snickers and m&ms and such, but decided not to get any since it was really expensive. We did buy all bran cereal though and peanut butter - both of which were really expensive. It was Peter Pan peanut butter (unfortunately they didn´t have Trader Joe´s....) and it cost almost $6 for the jar! Desperate times call for desperate measures....haha. While we were in line, this really attractive guy came up to the check out lines and we were sure he was American. He looked very American so Lindsay dared Hana to go talk to him for 5 soles (approx. $2) and ask him where he´s from. Of course she did because it´s Hana, but she approached him in English since we were all sure he was from the States. We were hoping he´d be Hana´s boyfriend and we´d have this great story to tell, but turns out he´s actually from Lima. He lived in the States for a few years though so he speaks English really well. Since we had no idea where we were, we asked him how to get back to the center of Lima to catch a bus back home. While we were talking, we found out he was waiting for his girlfriend to pick him up.....we can still dream though Han! It was really funny! Before getting on the bus, we bought McFlurry´s from McDonalds to satisfy our craving for ice cream and were on our way.

It took about 1.5-2 hours to get back home, but we survived our first trip home from Lima alone. We decided to take naps for about an hour because we had an all night party to go to on the soccer "field" (really just cement) in the town we live in. We headed up to the party around 10 pm and somehow stayed up dancing until 4:30 in the morning! It was unheard of for me and I really have no idea how I survived, but it was so much fun! My friend Kevin and I pretended to have a dancing contest with Lindsay and another guy. We decided we won because the people selling beer gave us some for free for our great dancing - haha. I also danced with lots of people´s host siblings (mine were home sleeping) and the security guard from the center. They were trying to teach me Peruvian dances, but I don´t think I was very good. I had a blast though hanging out with our group and lots of Peruvians. The whole party was free and they even served us this amazing dinner! Not that I needed any more food that day, but it was really warm and delicious and freezing outside so I ate it. Yum! The craziest part though was when we were being chased, that´s right CHASED, by fireworks! They make these cows (out of who knows what material) that are covered in fireworks. Then some guy puts the cow over him and they light it on fire and chase people around the field! Aaaaahhh. My friend Sarah and I tried hiding behind this shed with Roxanna (Jorge´s host sister) and then tried leaving the field and going out into the street, but it followed us! It was so funny and scary and crazy all at the same time. My host mom said it´s called "vaca loca" (crazy cow)! Hahahahaha. Welcome to Perú!

Lindsay, Hana, and I slept at Sarah´s house that night because she lives right across from the field. At 7:30 in the morning, the band that had been playing all night, decided to start a parade and march down the street so it was impossible to sleep. We decided to just go home so we could get more rest, however, when I walked in my house, my host mom told me we were leaving in an hour and a half to go to the mountains! Oh vey. I really wanted to go and be able to appreciate their outreach, but I was sooooo tired. I was able to sleep for about an hour and then we took off for the mountains.

We drove in this little truck/jeep thing. It has a bed like a truck, but is much smaller than a truck and sits 5 people in the front like a car. Anyway, there were 7 of us in the front of the truck and 4 kids riding in the back. It was a 2.5 drive into the mountains on this windy road that reminded me of the trail on Mt. Whitney it was so rocky and uneven and the kids stood in the back the whole time! Oh lord. I was so nervous for them and kept having visions of my life flashing before my eyes, but all my host mom said to them was, "hold on tight"! We kept having to stop along the way to put water in the engine (?!?!?!) and the car kept stalling so that was fun. We also had to stop for about 10 minutes in this town because they were having a parade down the street for the Virgen Carmen (??) and blocking the entire road. I was so tired and was hoping to sleep in the ride up there, but it was so rocky and uneven (sometimes we drove through a little stream) that it was impossible to sleep. Honestly my body hurt the next day from riding like that for 5 hours. On the way home, we had to spend about 10 minutes trying to figure out how to get passed this huge dump truck type thing. It was really scary. He still managed to hit our car because if he moved over one centimeter, he probably would have fallen off the mountain side (picture the Pacific Coast Highway for those of you that know it).

So our road trip was to this little pueblo in the mountains called Vicas. Apparently my host dad´s family used to live there, but he never did (he´s the youngest of 8 children). It was a really beautiful location way up in the mountains, but it´s very isolated. There are only about 100 people that live there and they have to go all the way to Chosica (about 15 minutes further than my house) to buy most of their food! It was so pretty though - lots more green than I´ve seen in a long time. I hope that if I live in the mountains, I won´t be that far away from fresh fruits and veggies....

We went to Vicas to watch this horse race that they hold every year. Now erase any images you have in your head of Saratoga Race Track or the Kentucky Derby (I think that´s what it´s called) because this was no traditional race. This was a race down the steep, rocky, and windy mountain side! We got there around 1:30 and ate lunch that we had brought from home. Then we walked around the community, enjoyed the view, and talked until the race started around 4:30 (of course it was supposed to start at 3:30). Three people went at a time to race with their horses. They timed the races to find out who was the winner out of all of the heats. The two big prizes I saw were bunk beds or a huge piece of furniture (like an entertainment center). It seemed sort of odd to me because I don´t even know that their houses we big enough for those two pieces of furniture, but I didn´t ask any questions.

The race was really entertaining and absolutely crazy. I tried to take some pictures so hopefully some came out well and I can post them to my blog (with all the others I need to post of my life here). One of the guys fell off his horse because he was so drunk. My host mom said, I can understand having one beer before the race because you have to be crazy to want to do this, but three beers is ridiculous and some of them drink all morning before the race! It was really fun to watch though and quite the experience. I´m really glad I got a chance to go with them and watch this event that only happens once a year.

Luckily we left as soon as the race was over. I was so tired and ready to be home. Nothing too crazy happened on the way home other than we pulled over to get branches off a calypso tree. I think we may have taken the whole tree with us there was so much in the back of the truck. The kids all had to lie down on it during the trip back so it wouldn´t fly away! They must have been freezing back there because it was cold for me just standing outside. Oh boy.

At home my abuelita taught me how to make banana pancakes so I can make them for myself at my site. We made a lot of extras so I could share them with my friends the next day at school since I always rant and rave about them. I think they wanted me to take enough for everyone because they wouldn´t let the kids eat too much so I could save them. I told them it didn´t matter because I only needed a few. At first they insisted that they´d get up early to buy more bananas and make more, but I convinced them that it wasn´t necessary. They´re so cute.

Well I have lots more stories to tell of this past week, but I´ll post those later so I can go to bed. Thank you to all of you who continue to be interested even though the entries get longer and longer. It means a lot to know that you care so much.

And please keep sending me mail because I get so excited when I have a postcard or letter. Thank you to all of you who have sent me stuff - it means a lot!

My Community and Family

Since I last posted, we´ve had two days of going to a local school. On Tuesday, we broke up into groups (my neighborhoods) and observed a class for 2 hours. I was in a 5th grade math and then "art" (you´ll see what I mean by that later) class. In the math class, I gave a brief introduction of myself - who I am, what the Peace Corps is, and what I´ll be doing in Peru - and then the teacher got on with class. Some other trainees said they were able to have a brief question and answer session with the kids, but my teacher seemed eager to start class. The class was crazy to say the least. The kids were bouncing off the walls and the teacher had no control over the class. I think she only asked them to be quiet once or twice, but usually she just spoke in a louder voice and talked over them. I don´t know how any learning could have been going on because there were kids running around like maniacs outside (and the classrooms are all off of this inner courtyard) and climbing the walls outside our classroom to peek in the windows - apparently it was Hana´s class trying to show her that I was in there! Haha.

They were learning how to do long division and the teacher was writing on the white board in different colored markers. Apparently the kids have to use the same color pens in their notebooks to copy the notes because they kept asking her questions about what color they should use to write certain things. I felt bad for them because they seemed more concerned about the color of the pen then what they were actually learning and I kept wondering if anyone was even picking up on the lesson. I already know how to do long division and I couldn´t even follow the lesson.

Between art and math class, there was no teacher in the room and the kids swarmed around me. They wanted my autograph and kept asking me how to say certain things in English (mostly names, like Hana or Sara that are the same). They kept staring at me and poking me. I felt like I was on display and barely had any room to breathe because they kept coming closer and closer. It was pretty funny, but very overwhelming. Then the art teacher came in and she was exactly the opposite as the first teacher. She had this huge stick that she´d slap on the table if they were making too much noise and she kept yelling at them to sit down and be quiet. I was even scared of her. I had to go to the bathroom so bad, but I was afraid to get up, but I finally did and she didn´t yell at me! The art class was so weird though because there definitely was no art being done. They talked about a region in Peru and what the climate is like, what the grow, the natural resources, and where it´s located. Then they talked about the local authorities in their town and later reviewed questions for an exam they´re going to have about the Incas. I didn´t understand.

Before we left they gave us a million kisses goodbye and wouldn´t let us leave. Luckily we were coming back the next day so they finally did let go of us. I left there completely exhausted and it had only been 2 hours. We went back today to do a little activity with them about self-esteem. We made little personal flags to represent ourselves. We asked them six questions and they had to draw their answers in the different boxes. Afterwards we shared them in groups and it was to teach them to be proud of themselves and the things they like about themselves and what they want to be when they grow up. We did the activity in two different classes - 4th and 5th grade. The 4th graders were hyper too, but they were pretty well behaved. It helped that their teacher was in there to help us. They were really enthusiastic though and very excited to have us there and ask us anything they could think of. The next class we went into was the class Hana was in the day before. For some reason their teacher never showed up to school today and no one seemed to know why so they were without a teacher. When we got into the classroom, this woman told us she was just in there for a second to try to calm them down, but since we were there now, she´d leave us in charge - oh great! Those kids were of course a lot more rowdy and hyper. We had a really hard time getting control of the class. They too were really fixated on minute details of things and would have spent an hour trying to draw the Peruvian flag perfectly on the board if we had let them. It was really interesting to see this as a repeated theme in everything they did. They were really excited to have us there and were so sad when we said we had to leave that they formed a barricade in front of the door so we couldn´t leave. It was funny for a second, but then we really needed to go and it was difficult. Luckily a parent had come in during the activity and asked them to move. They would not let go of Hana though and we practically had to pull her away from them. It was quite an experience!

My Community and Host Family
So to tell you a little bit about where I live, the town where our training center is located is called Santa Eulalia and is about 45 minutes or so outside of Lima. I haven´t yet been to Lima since we landed there at 11 pm the first night, but we´re going this weekend with our Spanish classes and I´m really excited. The climate here is pretty mild. It´s very dry here (sand and dirt everywhere and it gets really dusty by the afternoon) so it´s cold in the mornings and at night and heats up a lot during the day. This is really gross, but it´s so dusty and dirty here, that underneath your fingernails it´s always black and when you blow your nose, it´s also black. The sun is very strong so you could be wearing a fleece jacket and long sleeves in the morning and a tshirt by lunchtime. It´s been getting progressively colder at night though as we move deeper into winter. They had to give me another blanket the other night, but it´s not much of anything so I´ve been opening up my sleeping bag (one of the BEST things I brought) and putting that over me. It gets REALLY cold in our houses at night because they are open to the outside. The first few nights I remember thinking it felt like I was walking outside when I left my room and then one day I realized that I was because the roof doesn´t cover the whole house. They were telling me the other night about all of this flooding they had in the late 80s and early 90s and how all of this water came in the house since it´s open at the top! Please God don´t let that happen while I´m here.

Judging by the houses, it looks like there is a lot of poverty here, but we had a presentation the other day, and we learned that we´re actually living in mostly middle class neighborhoods (some a little better than others). On the inside, the houses are much nicer than you´d imagine them to look. Some of them are even comparable to houses in the states. Many are 2 stories, but don´t have carpets since it´s so dusty here. My house is really big, but barely has any decorations on the walls and very sparce furniture. Others I´ve been to though, are very well decorated (many with Catholic figurines) and even have entertainment centers with TV, VCR and DVD players and many have stereos too! I was very impressed. My host family keeps telling me I´m being spoiled here and I believe it. This is not what I was expecting at all. I´m so spoiled to have internet. We don´t have cable TV so they must have decided to spend their money on internet instead (works for me!).

The people here in Santa Eulalia are really friendly and seem to be very accepting of us. However, my host mom said the people on our block aren´t that friendly towards one another, but they used to be. She said politics divides them a lot. I actually found out that one of the houses on the block got robbed around 10 pm the other night and nobody claims to have heard or seen anything so that´s pretty scary. We were still awake in my house. My host family told me that our house has never been broken into so I hope that´s true and stays that way. Our neighborhood is very loud. People play their music at extremely high levels at all hours of the night. We have these three guys living on the third floor of our house (a father and his two sons - they were abandoned by their mom) that make so much noise and always have people over when I´m trying to go to bed. Luckily I´m a deep sleeper or that would drive me crazy. It´s also incredibly noisy from all the dogs in the neighborhood. Half of them are stray, street dogs and the other half are pets. Some people don´t let their pets into the houses, but we do so I can´t even imagine how dirty he is. The dogs bark incessently, but no one seems to care because they never tell them to be quiet. It drives me crazy because our dog has a really high pitched, squeely bark that is piercing to my ears and he just barks and barks and barks!!!

I don´t have too much more to say about my family because I´ve already told you a lot of stories about them. I really like living here and they make me feel very comfortable. Sometimes I feel like I don´t have any privacy because the little kids always want to know what I´m doing, but for the most part, they´re good about it. In some ways I feel like a celebrity with the kids because they´re always so excited to see me and they follow me around a lot. It´d much rather that though than to feel so lonely all the time. They help me with my Spanish too so that´s really helpful.

My host mom is so sweet and such a happy woman. She loves to talk with me even though she´s extremely busy. She told me she loves having people stay at her house because she feels like she has so much to give and also wants to learn a lot from us. She is a really strong and independent woman. She is very hard-working, but also finds time to spend with her kids - helping them with homework every night and spending time with them on the weekends. She seems to be a very involved parent and have a great relationship with her kids and I really admire that. She talks to me about a lot of different things and I always really look forward to our conversations. Last night I sat down and talked to her and my host grandma for two hours! It´s really interesting because a lot of topics that are taboo in the States, are public knowledge here. For example, one of the first nights I met her, she told me all about her marriage and all of the problems they had in the beginning. People are really open and honest about their personal lives (which also means they´re not afraid to ask you and it´s not considered offensive).

My abuelita is adorable. She works so hard around the house all day, cleaning, preparing all of the meals, and washing the clothes. She´s only going to be 70 this year, but she looks much older for all of the work she´s done in her life. She is also a very strong woman and very dedicated to the family. She has these beautiful eyes that are very expressive of her emotions and you can´t help but smile when you´re around her.

That´s it for now....I´m sure I´ll have more stories soon. Thanks for being so interested in my life!

A Wrap-Up on the Past Two Weeks

Looking back at my other postings, I just realized that I´ve been so busy and caught up in writing about my cooking disaster and food, that I´ve barely told you anything about training so here goes.

Training is very exciting, scary, overwhelming, and busy all at the same time. Based on how I feel at training, I can definitely see how these next two years are going to be a roller coaster of emotions. I often wonder while I´m sitting in training, how the heck I´ve managed to get into this. Sometimes when they talk about teaching values, self-esteem, leadership, etc. to youth I wonder if I even know how to teach those things. Luckily though, our youth development training is very helpful and each time, I feel more and more confident that I will actually be able to do this, it will just take some time. I must admit that I´m really glad to be in youth development rather than small business because when we have tech training, we learn new ice breakers and do lots of fun activities that we´ll be able to take to our sites with us, whereas, the business people hear a lot of lectures (I heard they were talking about supply and demand the other day - boring!). On Saturday we got a book full of games and activities we can do that relate to the main themes we´ll be promoting. The book is probably over 200 pages long and judging by the 4 activities we did from it on Saturday morning, I think it´s going to be my bible over the next two years. One of the things I just realized recently that I think is really important for me to keep in mind is that it´s okay if I haven´t created a project in the first 3 or even 6 months at my site. I´ve been so worried about how I´m ever going to think of a project or figure out what my community needs right away, but we´ve been talking a lot recently about how important it is and how long it takes to really get to know your community before you settle on a project. You don´t want the project to be some idea you came in with that the community doesn´t even identify as a need because then you´re not really being an effective volunteer. Our job is to fully integrate into the community and develop a project based on what they identify as their needs. I was talking to a friend the other day who is doing the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and she reminded me that 2/3 of our time in our communities is just spent getting to know the people, spending time with them, learning about their culture, and sharing with them things about yours. We can often teach people a lot just through our lifestyles alone and maybe that´s the best way to break into the community. A current volunteer reiterated the same thing when she said, watching you pick up trash and not just throw it on the street will probably have a bigger impact on the people in your community than a workshop about not throwing your trash on the street.

Anyway, enough on that tangent, back to training. Our days are spread out between Spanish class (sometimes at the center, sometimes in our homes), technical (youth development) training, learning tools for community analysis/development, presentations by the country director or other PC staff (such as the doctor about diarrhea...), focus groups, and group projects (outside of training). Our days are jam packed, but the information is very informative and they try to break things up so we´re not sitting in one classroom all day (although the other day we had Spanish class for 6 hours!!). I get up every morning around 5:30 to exercise and then walk with my friends at 6:15. Sidenote: Naomi loves to watch me do my exercises and asks me every night if I can wake her up the morning to do my exercises with me. I alway say no though because I think she needs her sleep. The other afternoon I was doing Yoga in my room after class to help me relax before I had to start homework and she knocked on my door to see what I was doing. She asked me if she could watch me do Yoga and of course I said yes. So the next day, we did it together and I´m going to try to keep doing it with her so she feels included. I come home to shower quickly, get ready for class, and eat breakfast. My host grandma cooks all of the meals for our family. She even cooks breakfast for her son (who is 10 years older than my host mom) who lives in another town with his wife and son, but comes to our house every morning to eat breakfast before work. I leave to walk to school around 7:45 with Brad, Joy, and Lindsay (who all live on my street) and then we have training from 8 am until 5 pm. We get from 12-1 off for lunch. If we´re at the center that day, our host families bring our lunch to us at school, but if we´re at home having Spanish class or doing a community activity, we eat lunch at home with our families. When I eat at home it´s only with my abuelita because my host mom, brother, and sister are all at school and they don´t eat "lunch" until they get home around 3 or 4 pm! I have no idea how they don´t die before then because I´m usually starving by 11 am and it takes all I have to make it until 12. That´s why our dinners are much smaller though because they aren´t hungry for a full meal by 7 or 8 pm.

After our long days of training, we´re all exhausted, but the day has only just begun because then we have to go home and speak in Spanish with our host families and do our homework. My host sister, Naomi (8 years old), is so cute and follows me around everywhere. She always wants to know what kind of homework I´m doing and wants to know if she can help me with it. I tell her no, but we usually do our homework together (and sometimes with her brother, Fernando (9 years old) too) so I can practice my Spanish and spend time hanging out with them. I never thought I´d love having kids that age around me so much, but they are really helpful with my Spanish. They are very patient with me and correct me when I´m wrong. They also like to teach me things. The other night Naomi got out this huge dictionary because she was trying to explain something to me and I couldn´t figure it out. The word wasn´t in the Spanish-English dictionary so she got the encyclopedia/dictionary thing. She got distracted while she was looking up the first word because she saw the swear word for "poop" and thought it was so funny and kept wanting to show me. Haha. I must say that even if I´ve had a bad day at school, usually by the time I get home and start spending time with the kids, they make me feel better (they act like I´m a celebrity)! After we do homework, we all sit down to dinner together, which even though it´s small, usually takes 1-1.5 hours because we eat and then have a cup of tea. It´s really nice though because I get to practice my Spanish (mostly listening skills, but I try to say something once and a while) and it´s a great way to unwind for the day. My family is so supportive and understanding. They are really amazing - I lucked out with them!

I´ll try to summarize some of the stuff that has happened in the past few weeks in bullet points before I get too carried away here. Feel free to just skim over them because I know it´s a lot, but this blog is also for me to journal so I want to be sure to write about all of it.

• I placed in the intermediate high level for Spanish. I was glad that I didn´t place in advanced because those people are a lot better than me and I feel like I could really use the practice of a smaller, more intimate class setting (only 4 students in my class). Our teacher told us we´re at the level where people usually plateau so I might not advance to the next level by the end of training, even though my Spanish might be better. If I´m lucky, I´ll make it to advanced low (that´s my goal).
• We had preliminary interviews with our program (youth development) director about what types of things we´d like to have in our sites (bathroom, electricity, internet, location, near other volunteers, etc.). It was good, but they obviously can´t make any promises (especially because I think more is placed on matching your skill set with a site rather than the amenities you´d like).
• I had a mental breakdown in my Spanish class because I was feeling so overwhelmed by everything. I thought I was fine until they asked me to talk about something and I just lost it. Luckily my 3 fellow classmates and my teacher were incredibly supportive. I talked to the training director (who is the nicest woman in the world) and I felt much better afterwards.
• The staff they have here is really incredible. They are so eager to help us in any regard and they all make it clear that more than our teachers/authority figures, they are our friends and really just want to help us in any way they can.
• Thursday, June 29 was a national holiday (for San Pedro and San Pablo) so instead of having class, we had a project to do in Chosica, the neighboring town (bigger than where we live). My partner and I were going to meet down there at 11 am, but when I was eating breakfast, my host mom said we were going down at 8 for Naomi´s parade. I was really confused because it was 7:50 and everyone was still in their pjs. We finally left around 8:30 and once we got down there, my host mom left me with Naomi to go home for some reason, but she said she was coming back. Turns out she was getting their dog to walk in the parade with them. The parade was for Naomi´s whole school (private, girls catholic school) and each grade dressed in the traditional clothing of one of the departments in Peru. It was really neat. I was also in the parade because it turns out the parents walk with the kids too! After the parade, each grade did a 10 minute dance followed by a volleyball tournament among the parents. We also had this dish called "pachamanca" which is a traditional national plate. It was really fun, but I was exhausted from being in the sun all day and left a little earlier than my host mom and Naomi.
• The project I had to do in town that day was visit a Catholic Church and talk to the priest about how many people attend the services, how often they have services, what kind of social services they offer, etc. We also just had to talk to some local people in the streets about the education system in the community. It was really interesting, but I wish we had spent more time on it. My partner´s sister goes to the same school as my host sister so she had been at the parade and festivities also. Her host mom is really protective of her and seemed to want us to complete the project quickly. She even came to the church with us and waited for us to finish and then seemed really hesitant to leave us alone so we could go talk to people about education. It was a good start, but I think I could have benefited a lot more if we had spent more time down there.
• I´ve been having some really great talks with my host mom over dinner and through my homework. The other night we spent a long time talking about her childhood. She is an amazing woman and seems to be a lot more liberal than many of the people I´ve met here. She was very poor when she was little and her father wasn´t very present in her life. She told her mom from the time she was 8 years old, that she´d get a great job someday so she could support herself and buy her own house. She had no desire to get married after watching the way her father treated her mom. She did end up getting married, but she also teaches knitting at a local school and works really hard. She told me at the beginning of their marriage, she paid all the bills while her husband looked for a job. She now owns her own house that her brother built for them and is raising her family here, with the help of her mom, while her husband is working in Spain. And she still has time to help the kids with their homework and take in a gringa. She´s awesome.
• We have a meeting every Friday afternoon at training to make announcements and reflect back on the week. Last week, one of the guys said that he wanted to thank everyone in the group because he doesn´t think he´s ever felt so comfortable so fast in a group as large as ours. He said he really appreciates that we´re all really genuine and open people. It was a great way to end the week.
• We learned how to create our own gardens so we can grow vegetables for ourselves at our sites since we might not be getting a lot of them. I have no idea how to garden and haven´t really done any besides the few times I´ve helped my Dad and Uncle Bruce in theirs, but the workshop really got me excited about it and I definitely want to do it. They gave us little plots of land to practice while we´re in training and use them as resources. We even learned how to make a compost pile and which vegetables are/are not compatible to grow next to one another. So cool.
• A group of 7 girls got together last week to cook an amazing dinner at Hana´s and speak english, laugh, vent, and relax. I think I wrote about it before so I won´t elaborate, but it was really fun. Afterwards we went out to two different clubs in Chosica with a couple of Peruvians (host siblings) and some other people from our group. The clubs were surprisingly really nice. I thought they´d be gross and dingy, but they weren´t at all.
• I pooed at Hana´s house and it wouldn´t flush. I´m spoiled at my house because I have a toilet seat and the water is always on so the toilet always flushes, but neither are the case at Hana´s house. Usually she just fills a bucket of water and fills up the back of the toilet and it will flush. Of course we did that 3 times before I left and it still wouldn´t work. I had to leave so I wouldn´t be home late, but I felt horrible. Hana came over 5 hours later to report it was still sitting in the toilet. Great....her family must love me....
• I already wrote about our DISASTROUS dinner. We don´t need to repeat that story again.
• We had youth development training in the park the other day. It was fun, but I started to get really overwhelmed that I´m really not qualified for this and how in the heck am I going to be able to just walk into a community and set up this meaningful program. Lindsay and Hana helped calm me down. It´s all part of the rollercoaster we´re on. As we say here, "poco a poco" (little by little).
• We had an AWESOME 4th of July celebration - probably one of the best ones I´ve ever had and we´re in Peru. We broke into 5 or so teams and then played all of these different games all morning. Our team was called "Pared de Papas" (Wall of Potatoes) and we should have won the whole thing, but they kept robbing us of our points. Oh well, it was a lot of fun and a great way to bond with some people I hadn´t spent much time with before. After the games, we had a huge picnic with hot dogs, guacamole, veggie burgers, and lots of great desserts. One girl made 4 different pies, and other people made chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and rice crispy treats. It was a delicious event. We wolfed down the food! YUM!! Later that afternoon, we went to two different friends´ houses to watch part of the World Cup games (the first I´ve seen in Perú), but didn´t stay until the end because we were exhausted from being out in the hot sun all day (it´s really strong here) and went home to take naps instead. That evening I got to go to Lindsay´s house to have a piece of this DELICIOUS tres leches cake (as if I hadn´t already had enough sweets that day) she had made for her host sister and her son´s birthdays. They also served us this delicious cocktail (made with guava, milk, cinnamon, sugar, and pisco) so we were excited.
• July 6th is a national holiday here called "Día del Maestro" (Teacher´s Day) so none of the schools are open and they have events all day long (actually all week) to celebrate teachers and all of their hard work and dedication to education. What a great holiday! I think it´s particularly interesting here where the education system is really bad. Anyway, my host mom invited me to this event at night with her, but after sitting around for 2 hours waiting for it to start and then listening to them recognize about 75 retiring teachers (one at a time) and hearing the mayor talk for at least 20 minutes, the electricity went out in the entire stadium. We sat there waiting for about 15 minutes, but there wasn´t any sign of progress being made. My stomach hurt and I was freezing (since they don´t have any heat inside their houses or public places) so I asked my host mom if it would be okay if I left to take my host sister home because she had fallen asleep on my lap about 30 minutes before the electricity came out. My host mom came home about 45 minutes after us and said they still hadn´t turned the lights back on!
• We had to do a community project the other day to ask people in the town various things about their community. My part of it was to find out about people´s daily schedule. I wasn´t having much luck with the first few people I talked to, but then I met this man, Ricardo, who is a high school math teacher and happened to be outside his house when I was walking by and started to talk to him. It turns out he has 5 daughters and does most of the cooking and cleaning in the house. He also has tons of side jobs and built his own house. He was so nice and wanted to share so much information with me. He even invited me into his house and told me I have to come back so he can show me his photo albums of his wedding, the construction of his house, and of all of his daughters! It gave me a lot of confidence that I can actually do this and things will work out for me. I definitely want to follow through and go back to his house!
• On Friday we broke into 3 smaller focus groups which will meet once a week or so to discuss various topics. Our first one was on world views and it was really interesting. We have a good group and I really like our facilitator so I´m looking forward to more of those.
• A few friends and I made a big dinner of spinach and cheese omlets and french toast on Friday night after a long week of training and it was delicious. We were so happy to be eating a meal without white rice and potatoes!
• Saturday morning we had a very informative training session about activities we can do with the youth we´ll be working with at our sites. We also received a handbook full of activities that I´m sure will serve as my bible over the next 2 years.
• And if you read the posting about the food here, you know what happened next....I got really sick and was confined to my house all weekend (running between my bed and the bathroom). The two good things about that were it allowed me to catch up on some much needed rest, and fill all of you in on my life. Maybe you don´t look at that as such a good thing though and you´ve probably spent 10 hours reading this entry. I promise I´ll try to start posting more regularly so they´re not all this crazy!

For those of you who made it to the end, congratulations! I wish I could say there is a prize waiting here for you, but I don´t think my Peace Corps stipend covers that. I miss you all and THANK YOU so much to those of you who have sent me mail! It was definitely a highlight of the week last week so keep the letters coming!

So you want to know about the food....

I thought I´d write some details about food, culture, my town, host family, etc. here in Peru to give you guys a better understanding of what things are like for me on a daily basis. I´m sorry if I repeat somethings that I might have already posted or just ramble on for too long, but bare with me. Since there is a lot to say about each topic, I´ll spread them out over a few different entries and combine it with a story of what has been going on with my life (so you don´t get too bored).

FOOD
You know how much I love talking about food so this will probably be a long one..... The food here is really very good - much better than when I was in Chile. They use a lot of herbs and spices in their cooking so it´s very flavorful. When I arrived at my host family´s house, I decided to tell them that I´m a vegetarian, but I eat chicken because that´s what they think a vegetarian is down here and then I knew they wouldn´t try to force me to eat red meat or seafood. I really lucked out with my family because the kids don´t really like red meat so they rarely eat it anyway and they´ve only had fish once since I´ve been here (they made me chicken). They keep telling me I have to try "cuy" (aka guinea pig; pronounced coo-ey) because it has the highest protein and lowest cholesterol of all meats. They said it´s white meat so I´d like it. Oh boy, I can´t wait for that day to come....

Of course no meal here in Peru would be complete with white rice and potatoes (great for my IBS), but luckily they don´t force it on me that much. We were told before we came that Peruvians eat a lot and will give us enormous portions. I told them from the beginning that I can´t eat such big portions and I´d rather start with a little bit and get more if I want it rather than waste food. They´ve had 6 other "gringas" before me so they are very understanding about that. They love to tell me what the other gringas liked and ate a lot to see if I like it too. I heard stories about the other girls every night at dinner. Their dining room table is covered with glass and they pictures of all the other girls under the glass. So when they tell me a story about one of the girls, they always point out which one it is. By now though, they know that I know so they wait for me to point out which girl is it before they continue on with the story. They´re so funny.

Sometimes we eat lunch at the training center and you wouldn´t believe the amount of food some of the other trainees get. My host grandma asks me everyday what everyone else gets so she can get some ideas. I don´t usually tell her about the students who get white rice with mashed potatoes on top. Talk about carbohydrate overload! I´ve heard they grow 600 different varieties of potato here though so that explains the presence of potatoes in every meal. Peru grows a lot of it´s own food so they don´t have to import much, but my host family told me they don´t export that much either. Everywhere you go there are mercados on the street overflowing with fresh fruits and vegetables, but I don´t understand where they all go. My host family eats very few fruits and vegetables (more fruit than veggies though), but luckily I get a lot of them since I said I´m a vegetarian. I heard one of my friends say the other day though that she hasn´t had anything green in 4 days! We do eat a lot of avocado though because they grow them here. They are HUGE though, I didn´t even realize they were avocados at first because some of them are almost the size of my head! They also have these weird bananas that are a pale orange color. They are harder than regular bananas and a little drier, but still sweet. They also aren´t ripe until the skin is practically black and covered with bruises. I would never eat a banana like that in the states, but when you open them, they are perfectly ripe. They have regular bananas too, but the orange ones are more common.

I have already found some favorite foods of my here. My host grandma cooks 99% of the meals and is a very good cook. She makes these things called tortillas that sort of resemble pancakes. They are made out of flour, egg, and bananas, spinach, or vegetables depending on what meal we have them with. The kids eat the spinach ones for breakfast and put strawberry jelly on them! I tried it - not so bad. The tortillas are so good though! I also have this stuff for breakfast everyday called "quacker" that is mostly milk, but it has little chunks of very fine oatmeal in it. She seasons it with cinnamon and cloves and it´s really good. There are lots of different ways of serving it and for some people, it´s much more thick and they have to eat it with a spoon, but mine I definitely drink. Anyway, it´s really good and I kept wondering what is was because I had never heard the word "quacker" before. I finally realized the other day that it´s really Quaker (the brand we have in the states) and that is just how they pronounce it. Haha. I also get a lot of fried eggs served with my meals. The other day I had one on top of lentils and while rice (of course), but they also serve it on this dish called "arroz a la cubana" that is delicious. It´s fried plantains with rice and a fried egg on top and it´s delicious. The kids and I love when we have it. The chicken here is good too - always served on the bone with the skin, but very flavorful and moist. And man do they know how to get that chicken clean. There is not an ounce of meat left when they are finished. They must think I´m such a waster because I don´t get it nearly that clean (not to mention it freaks me out a little bit to eat it off the bone like that).

I could go on and on, but I promise I´ll end this soon. I had a spinach salad the other day and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. We were told that we should really avoid lettuce at all costs because it´s so dirty unless you know it´s been cleaned really, really well. If not, it´s one of the things that could cause diarrhea because of all of the bacteria on it. My host grandma told me that she soaks it in water, washes it by hand, and then does it all over again so I figured it was safe to eat. It tasted amazing and I was so excited to be eating it that I didn´t think about the repercussions. I had it again the next day and asked her if she washes it in boiled water (because she knows I´m supposed to have boiled water for everything and she told me she uses boiled water in all of her cooking), but she said no she uses tap water because the tap water here is "really clean". Uh oh. I knew I was in for it, but all I could think about was how delicious the spinach tasted.

On Friday we had a presentation by the doctor about diarrhea and bird flu. We found out that we have a 122% chance of getting diarrhea while we´re here in Peru and that we can actually get it just by shaking hands with someone! If that person has the bacteria on their hands, and you don´t wash your hands well before eating, you have a 40% higher chance of getting diarrhea. He also said the most common reason is by consuming contaminated food or water and the only safe thing is to cook your food or wash it really well in boiled water. Sure enough, on Saturday afternoon it hit me and I was going to the bathroom every 10-15 minutes with a 101.6 fever. WELCOME TO PERU! The doctor told me to take this pill we have in our medical kits for it and drink lots of liquids. Lindsay, Brad, and Joy came over last night with 3 bottles of Gatorade for me and Hana and Lindsay both visited me this afternoon. My host grandma made me drink this weird remedy from the "campo" this morning that looked like watered-down, dirty milk. She said they drink it in the mountains if they have a stomach ache and diarrhea and can´t get to the doctor in time. It was all blended together, but it´s made of rice, carrots, the pit of an avocado, cinnamon, cloves, and a little sugar. It was weird, but I drank it since I couldn´t think about drinking any more water. She gave me some noodle soup for lunch and that was the first thing I´ve had of substance since 7:30 yesterday morning. I´m feeling much better than I did yesterday, but still not 100%. Hopefully I´ll feel better soon....

Un Disastre!

Where do I even begin? I haven´t written in almost a week so I have a lot to say, but first I have to start with the disastrous evening Hana, Lindsay, and I had tonight in our first attempt to cook for my family. Last night, a group of 7 of us got together at Hana´s house to cook dinner together because we´ve had just about enough white rice, potatoes, and chicken (and we´ve only been here for a week). We decided to make a big vegetable stir fry with soy meat and a fruit salad since our diets here have an abundance of white starches and are lacking in the fruit and vegetable department. The stoves here are really small and they don´t have a wide varity of pots and pans so we had to cook the vegetables in rounds and then add them all together in this big pot on the side. Despite the limited resources though, the meal was delicious!!! As if that wasn´t enough, Lindsay and I had taken charge of figuring out dessert because that is another essential part of our diet here in Peru that is lacking. We had little pieces of chocolate cake with ice cream and these incredible marshmellow bon bons/moon pies we discovered. The bon bons were definitely the icing on the cake and they will no doubt be our downfall while we´re here in Santa Eulalia because they are delicious and extremely cheap.

Anyway, we had vegetables left over from our dinner last night so Lindsay, Hana, and I decided we´d replicate last night´s dinner for my host family tonight. Well, somewhere along the line, we had this brilliant idea to try a new dish (even though it´s the cardinal sin to never try a new dish when you´re cooking for guests). My host family was so excited for us to cook for them because they told me they always love the food the gringos cook for them. So we went to the market and bought the ingredients for this great Thai dish we were going to make using eggplant, basil, and chili peppers. Well, to make a long story short, the dinner was a DISASTER. We ended up buying the spiciest pepper they have here in Peru and put not one, but two of them in our stir fry. We started getting suspicious when we started sneezing up a storm and our noses couldn´t stop running just from the aroma in the kitchen. But then Lindsay and Hana tried it and their mouths practically caught on fire. Hana described it as "extremely spicy, but bland". Oh boy. There were my host sister and grandma (abuelita) watching us cook, so excited to try what we were making, and we´re laughing hysterically because we have no idea how we´re going to salvage this disgusting dinner. We thought about asking if Dominoes delivered around here, but didn´t think that was very likely so we turned to plan B. We tried adding anything we could find to the dish. We added soy sauce, tons of ginger, sugar, and even tried adding a little cheese (because doesn´t cheese make everything taste better?). Still, it was unbearably spicy. We had cooked noodles to go along with it so we buttered those and wondered if we should just serve those as the meal. We also considered making them pb&j since we had broken into my stash of peanut butter earlier in the day. At that point, anything would have been better than what we had prepared. So I started to break it to my abuelita that we were normally really good cooks, but this dinner was disgusting. We told her we bought this pepper that was really spicy, but we didn´t realize how spicy it was and now the dinner is so bad that we didn´t want them to eat it. She started laughing and said that she wanted to try it. Well I think she almost passed out when she tried it and laughed a lot more. She was so diplomatic about it though and said it had a good flavor, it was just too hot. Yeah right. It was gross and we knew it, but all we could do was laugh. We did our best to explain that we normally cook really good food and next time we promise it will be really good, but I´m sure they were thinking, yeah right, there won´t be a next time.

After we finally realized we weren´t going to be able to salvage it, we decided to just sit down and eat. The three of us tried to eat some of it so it wouldn´t go to waste, but everyone else ate chicken noodle soup that my abuelita had made for lunch. She was probably saving it for us to have the rest of the week because there was a lot leftover, but instead, we ate it all tonight. Even Hana, Lindsay, and I had to eat it because we couldn´t handle the other stuff. We were sitting at the table crying and laughing at the same time at this disaster we had made of dinner. We passed the tissues around the table as we ate. That´s not to mention that my host mom told us about these two guys who ate the peppers like a fruit and just bit right into them. One of them immediately swelled up like a balloon and turned bright red....the other died! Needless to say, we stopped eating our dinner instantly. We kept joking that we hoped we´d wake up in the morning and wouldn´t have a heart attack in the meantime. They were so cute about it though and told us not to feel bad, but of course we did. My abuelita said one time she forgot about some vegetables that she was cooking and they all burned to a crisp, but we didn´t think that came anywhere close to the disaster we had made of the night. They kept teasing us about it, saying we now had a story to tell our grandchildren about the first night we tried to cook for our families in Peru.

As you can tell, it was horrible. It was definitely a bonding experience for all of us and I´m sure one we´ll never forget. We´ll also never forgot that you should never try a new dish on company or use two whole peppers when you have no idea what the flavor will be like. I think we burned more calories laughing than we consumed so we made up for it after dinner by sharing a granola bar I´d been saving for an emergency (this definitely qualified) and taking the long way home to Hana´s house so we could stop and buy chocolate bars and bon bons.

Oh what a night! We´re all praying that we wake up in the morning and aren´t incredibly sick.

I think I´ll save my other stories about last week for a different entry because this one deserves it´s own entry.

Now we´re trying to decide what to make for them the next time. We have to knock their socks off the next time to make up for this disaster. Any suggestions are more than welcome!