En la casita!

7/03/11

On the plane back to Miami from Lima, I sat by a sweet lady who lives in Florida but is Limeña. One last Spanish speaking experience. I got to speak to her the whole flight in Spanish and we just talked about how much we loved the people of Peru and how big their hearts are. She understood exactly what I was talking about, how something about them, especially the children, is just so loving and warm. Once you meet a Peruvian once it’s like you’ve known them forever. It’s embraces and kisses and smiles from then on. It sounds cheesy, but they really do touch your heart. We had a great time talking and she was so so excited that I study Spanish and that I spoke well and what I had done in Peru. She has family here that she comes and visits once a year and she goes to the public hospitals like we did and gives out donations every time she comes. Seriously she was like such a little angel sitting next to me. I told her about how I am studying Spanish, but am trying to enter med school this year I hope. First of all, she was so complimentary and impressed with my Spanish and second when I told her  “Ojala que entre en la facultad de medicina el proximo ano…” she looked at me and said “NO, VAS a entrar en la facultad de medicina, no ojala.” Even though she knows me from nowhere it was so comforting to hear someone speak with such confidence. Then when we landed she was precious, we were talking about being excited to be back home and she just kept putting her hands together as we landed saying “Gracias a Dios!” and “Estamos en casita!” (We're home!) with a huge smile on her face. I have really met all kinds of people on this trip from young world travelers bouncing from hostel to hostel across the world to sweet old people to gorgeous loving children, to the wealthier older travelers. This morning I was standing in line for my boarding pass and started talking to a rich limeño businessman traveling to Bolivia for business when we saw a group of musicians in front of us in line with all matching jackets, who he explained to me is a famous salsa group from Peru (AC Orquesta) touring and he recognized the main singer and introduced himself who then introduced himself to me and started talking to me a bit. Funny to meet a Peruvian celeb, because they are just traveling the same annoying airport way as the normal citizens, not like US celebs in private jets. Also, they served my favorite Peruvian meal on the plane one last time, lomo saltado! And free wine and chocolate?! I’ve never heard of that on the plane- LAN is awesome…I will NEVER fly Star Peru again!

Wow…I didn’t really realize how sad I was going to be to leave Peru until I was finally alone and on my own again. After Lena and I parted in the Lima airport this morning, I just wandered around on my own for the very first time in a month. I literally have always been surrounded by someone if not all of our group at all times. I now realize how close we all became, I truly gained a little family in Peru. Also, when I walked around the international departures part of the Lima airport I became sadder and really realized I’m leaving Peru for good when I saw all the stores asking American dollar prices and speaking in English to people. I am going to miss hearing and speaking Spanish all the time so much! It is such a beautiful language and English is just so boring…Also, holy crap I’m going to come back a tight wad. Everything in real Peru is sooo cheap! About 2.8 soles/1 dollar. But in the airport, everything is touristy and like double the price of Huancayo. I miss my Huancayo home and family already!! After yesterday’s fiasco in the airport all day in Cuzco I was soo ready to get home. Maybe it was just because I was worried I wouldn’t make it home when I was supposed to. Although I still can’t wait to get home to see all my lovely family and friends, I am now really having Peruvian withdrawals. I feel like I have become partially Peruvian over the past month of living here without even realizing it until I am torn away. L Regardless, it has been an amazing experience. I have learned so much, met so many wonderful people from all parts of the world, and built relationships with so many beautiful loving children that I will never ever forget. I don’t want to just leave those precious faces and never do anything for them again, so I am hoping I can keep writing some of them and maybe our group can join forces and fundraise to do special things for them, like at Christmas. I thought at first I would just chalk this up as a great experience, but never really want to come back to this part of Peru because there isn’t that much to visit and tour and I have already seen it once. However, the more I think about it the more I would love to come back and bring other people to experience this second home of mine some day and visit all of the children when they have grown up a bit.

Reverse culture shock for real…When I landed in the Miami airport I am wandering around like a lost puppy. I swear I feel more like a foreigner here right now with all this English. It’s weird to have everyone ignore you and not stare at you all the time because you are the only white blond girl around! Also, I keep saying little instinctive comments to people in Spanish…like my incredibly white waiter at the restaurant I just ate dinner at. I said “La cuenta por favor.” (Check please) and Permiso…(Excuse me.) when I was walking past him. He just chuckled…ahh plus it’s sooo freaking expensive here!! And tax and tip! There is no tax on anything in Peru and no one tips, it’s just not a custom…So what the price of something is is exactly what you pay. I was shocked when I saw my bill and how expensive it ended up being…But omg the water…I just downed like 3 glasses of tap water because I havn’t been able to just drink water in so long without buying a water bottle! So glorious! And toilet paper everywhere…I can’t complain. It’s good to be back. I think I have come back a lot less vain. While I was there I hardly ever looked in the mirror, as we shared one tiny one with 9 people. I hardly spent any time on myself or getting ready, which was really really nice. It wasn’t so much about me for a month, it was about anything and everything we could do for those struggling around us. However, within a few days of being back I can already feel myself getting sucked into the materialistic American life again, which I hate! It’s so hard not to get sucked into the daily blowing money on totally unnecessary things here. But I do feel like when I left Peru I brought back with me their sense and knowledge of what is really important in life, which is God, family, friends, relationships, and showing love. Nothing else really matters. They don’t care what their houses or cars look like, they don’t even have cars! Hot showers and clean water don’t really bring you happiness. (Although I might argue this one! J)Though most Americans probably wouldn’t believe it, I found out that you can live quite happily without all of the extra excesses, in fact often these things just add extra burdens and stresses that you don’t need. I had little to no stress while I was living in Peru, and within a day of being back I already feel all the stresses of the things I need to be doing. I’m going to miss Peru, but I definitely came back a new person, or at least with a new and refreshed outlook on life in its raw and beautiful form.

THE DAY FROM HELL!!!

7/02/11-Living on a prayer—literally!

So we left pretty early in the morning on Saturday and got to the airport around 9:30 to catch our flight from Cuzco to Lima at like 10:55. However, when we got there they told us our flight was about an hour delayed because of the weather still being so bad. No big deal, we’re used to delays now…HAH little did we know they would continue to delay it every hour without giving us any real information until finally around 2 or 3 pm we begin to freak out thinking we were not going to get out of Cuzco and make our flights to the US the next day. I remained optimistic, but Lena was seriously freaking out! Because the weather was not even bad at all in Cuzco, but it’s kind of like Telluride, CO in a bowl in the mountains where you have to make a really fast steep descent to land and since the cloud coverage was so thick and low no flights were able to land, so the problem was the airport was completely shut down and we had no planes to fly out on. Except, LAN the way more expensive airline was flying out all day because their planes had the better instruments to land. One of the most frustrating/exhausting/emotionally draining days of my life! It was so funny though because everyone trying to get to Lima on our flight had befriended each other and it was like one big comradery. The thing that was so awful was when other airlines began to have flights coming in, though many flights were completely cancelled, and we just waited in agony watching for the Star Peru planes to land, everyone jumping up and getting excited every time we saw a small plane come in only to be disappointed to see the damn LAN symbol! The worst part was that there was no communication, no one knew what was going on and we couldn’t get any information from the airline. Finally, this awesome man paid for internet on his iPad and would go around updating us, bringing us good news about 2 Star Peru flights finally taking off from Lima heading to Cuzco. So around 3 or 3:30 we got so excited with relief knowing we would make it back to the US after hours of agony and uncertainty wondering what in the world we should do if we miss our flight and get stuck in Cuzco because the weather for the next 4 days looked just as bad and how much it was going to cost us. (And how bad my dad was going to kill me!) So pretty much all of us on our flight went and got a Cusqueña (Peruvian beer) and toasted in excitement! Only to be incredibly disappointed later after the first Star Peru flight made it out and we, the very last flight and people in the airport, boarded our plane which finally arrived around 5:15 in a frantic rush as the airline was hurrying us to board because in Cuzco it is law that they have to take off no later than 5:30 because of the dark and the steep mountains. (Hilarious chaos to watch!) So we get on the plane thinking we have finally made it only to be deboarded about 10 minutes later and after waiting in the airport for another hour told that we were going to try and fly out at 6 am the next morning. So now we are pissed after wasting about 10 hours in the airport all day and freaking out again that I won’t make my connecting flight to the US at noon the next day. So we head back to Pirwa hostel, where we were greeted with looks of surprise by the staff who thought we were long gone. We told them our horror story, went to grab some good dinner and a calientito (hot mulled wine) and hit the bed only to get up at 4:15 again to go back to the dreaded Cuzco airport where we waited in line for like an hour and finally boarded and Gracias a Dios made it back to Lima by like 8:20 am!! Such a miracle because this morning it was still bad weather and cloudy, but the cloud coverage was higher above the mountains so we were able to take off and I made it with tons of time to spare for my flight home! The most awful and painstaking flying experience I’ve ever had, especially being stuck in a foreign country. It was a real bummer because we were supposed to reunite with the rest of our group in Lima last night at the hostel and spend one last night together, but I didn’t even get to tell them bye because I just stayed in the airport. Lena didn’t fly out til late tonight at like 10 pm, so she got to go back to the hostel and hang out with them today. Bummer, but so so so thankful I was able to make my flight back to the US! Made me very ready to be home!

What a day…a NIGHTMARE, but a patience building experience, let me just tell you. Crazy though because if this had happened in the US and how poorly they communicated to us there would have been cuss words and fists flying. But we had the most chill group of passengers, we were all very patient and just hung out together all day in the airport. We got to know a funny group of Brazilian guys, some old American men, and 2 older women who were like our moms. I was just proud of Lena and I for being able to handle the chaos in another country in a foreign language and making it back to the hostel and everything just fine. Also, another hidden blessing from the horrible day in the Cuzco airport was Lena, who is Jewish although not necessarily a practicing Jew, and I got to have about an hour and a half long religious conversation about Christianity in the airport. It was weird because I had been praying for an opportunity as such to be able to share my faith on this trip with my group members, many of which were actually atheist or non religious. I’m not even sure how the conversation began but she ended up asking me to tell her all about the history of Jesus’ life and what he taught and why he was crucified, none of which she really even knew about before. It was really great to if all else fails at least inform her of what Jesus was really all about and what Christianity and my faith is really all about in the midst of all her poor misconceptions of Christianity due to the bad rep it gets from many extremist and crazy “Christian” churches and groups. Thankfully I had just taken a World Religions class this semester and so I knew enough about Judaism to relate and not sound totally ignorant. She said she really does want to learn more about Jesus’ life and Christianity and so I directed her to certain parts of the New Testament and gospel to read and I pray that she really does read more on her own.

Machu Picchu finally...

7/1/11-Friday…Machu Picchu:

So after basically no sleep, we got up early at like 4:45, the hostel cooked us breakfast and coffee which was awesome! (We only had to pay like $15 for all of this) Then we bundled up, with no rain jackets since we didn’t bring any, and headed out to take the bus up to Machu Picchu park in the rain. Thankfully they were selling cheap ponchos, which didn’t really work well. A girl from Australia, Anthea, traveling South America on her own tagged along with us all day. It rained ALL day long, and at first when we got there it was so cloudy and foggy in the mountains you couldn’t even see anything, so we were really bummed to have spent all that money and energy to get there. Thankfully, it began to clear up a little and the clouds and fog would come and go. Actually, the clouds around all the mountains and ruins made it seem even more magical to me, like a truly hidden city. The only downfall was the rain was so cold and we were soaked and miserable, I mean miserably cold all throughout our tour of the ruins that morning. We found a guide outside pretty cheap (like $10 a person) who was really good and walked us through all the ruins, explaining all of the history for almost 3 hours. Then we were so miserable we had to sit out of the rain for a few minutes and get some coffee at the café. Since the weather was so bad and visibility was not good we didn’t even bother to hike up Machu Picchu mountain, which was kind of a bummer. But, we ended up hiking up to the Sun Gate temple ruins, about an hour hike half way up the mountain, which has the typical postcard incredible views of the ruins from really far away. From there, the city of Machu Picchu is tiny, like you could hold it in your hands and the view of the surrounding mountains is the most incredible view I’ve ever seen. These are a different type of mountains because Machu Picchu is on the border of the high jungle. It truly looks like the floating mountains from Avatar, especially with all the fast moving floating clouds between them. They must have copied these mountains for that movie. It is truly mystical and magical. The crazy thing is even though about 4,000-5,000 people visit this top 7 wonders of the world site every day, when you hike up to sun gate it’s pretty much just you and it’s so so quiet. The Incans had built a stone path all the way up to this temple overlooking the city, which was an amazing path. It continued to rain off and on on us but it cleared up enough most of the way to have amazing views. People always say to see Machu Picchu in person is such an amazing experience because there is just so much energy there and I never really understood that. But it’s really kind of true, it’s amazing how smart the Incans were in how they constructed everything and it was really neat to learn about their religion and how the way in which they constructed and placed everything all had religious purposes. They worshipped all the powers of nature, but especially worshipped one supreme being, Pachamama, mother earth, which they saw in the form of a mountain, Huaynu Picchu in particular. I don’t blame them.  If I lived in the setting they did I would probably depict God and see God in the breathtaking creation of the mountains surrounding their city as well. It really is a very spiritual place, creation at its finest and in its most natural form. Walking among these mountains or just sitting and looking out at them really does give you a sacred feeling. If I were to visualize Heaven in any physical earthly form, it would be a whole lot like this area. It’s just majestic. Yet at the same time throughout the day, we felt like we were in Hell we were shivering from being soaked, cold, and wearing soaking wet tennis shoes all day! It was funny because all the people we passed going up the trails I would automatically instinctively greet in Spanish, hola…Buenas…It was interesting because this was my first instinct even to all the non-Spanish speaking foreigners. I feel like I have become partially Peruvian and while in Peru I am Peruvian and should speak to everyone in Spanish. Plus, it’s kind of fun to fool people and confuse them on where the blonde girl is from! It’s also amazing how much has held up for so long. They say the Incans built Machu Picchu for about 500 residents around the beginning of the 15^th century. It was then discovered by an American, Hiram Bingham, in 1911, which was cool because this year is the 100^th year anniversary of it’s discovery. (really rediscovery—it was known about by a small village of natives in the valley of the mountain but nothing was done about it and it was all covered in vegetation…it wasn’t until Hiram Bingham arrived that he had it all uncovered and researched). I’ve always hated history, but even I found the tour and history of the Incans fascinating because it’s amazing what all we can know about their lives just from anthropologists investigating all the architecture.

After a tiring day exploring Machu Picchu, we headed back to Cuzco on the 3 pm train, where it was still raining. We had reservations at Pirwa Backpacker’s hostel in Plaza San Francisco, which turned out to be awesome!! By far the best hostel I’ve ever stayed at. The staff was awesome, so friendly, some spoke English. The people staying there were really nice and fun and it was just a cool place with a courtyard inside open to the outside and all the rooms around it (which made for a cold night though). They even had a little restaurant/bar upstairs and a hangout room, so we never even left the hostel for dinner or anything. Plus it was only $9 to stay there! We had a delicious pizza and Brazilian caipirana drink to warm up and thaw out. We were living out of only our backpack for these few days, so we were beginning to run out of dry clean clothes. We met all kinds of people on all kinds of treks around the world (from Israel, London, a cute couple from Texas!, Peruvian girls who work there, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, all over!) They always have activities there at night making it a fun hostel. The night we were there they had a dance class upstairs taught by some of the Brazilians staying there who were amazing dancers! (Calypso mostly) It was so much fun! We just had our own little party and danced and attempted to learn Calypso and other Brazilian dances and other people’s dances from all over, like the Mexicans, all night! We stuck together with the Texans making fools out of ourselves but having a great time trying! I love Peruvian music and dance. There is actually a style and skill to it unlike American grinding…I’m really going to miss it, I’m just going to have to find somewhere to Latin dance when I get back! It’s funny because now even when American music would come on we would find ourselves dancing with Latin moves and footwork even to normal music, haha it’s contagious you can’t get it out of your system! I have really enjoyed all the hostels we have stayed in in Peru. It’s such a fun way to travel and meet all kinds of cool people.

last dinner with mi familia peruana in Huancayo :(

Machu Picchu mountains...majesticly amazing

Lena and I...surviving the cold and rain

Machu Picchu from afar, from the hike to the Sun Gate temple ruins

Adventure to Machu Picchu...

6/29/11-Wednesday—6/30/11-Thursday:

After having our last Elena dinner with our whole Peruvian family, so sad, Lena and I left Huancayo at 11 pm on the night bus with Cruz del Sur. We were pumped because these buses are so comfy and roomy and the seats lean all the way back so you can sleep. However, this time we got stuck on the top layer of the double decker bus and didn’t have quite as enjoyable an experience. As soon as we started winding through the mountain roads we felt like we were going to tip over constantly! We just looked at each other and burst into a hysterical giggle fit because we just knew our plans of getting 7 hours of good sleep on the bus just came to a quick hault, much less the possibility of getting sick just increased dramatically up there. However, somehow with the help of some Dramamine I was knocked out soon and didn’t wake up until we got to Lima! Miracle. We were so tired and out of it when we got to Lima, but I had to wake up enough to scramble around and get us a taxi immediately to the Lima airport, without getting the complete gringo rip off. We managed to make it to the airport in perfect timing for our 9:15 flight. We were able to leave our huge suitcases in storage at the Lima airport, which is a blessing because we could have never made it around backpacking with those things. Somehow, to our surprise the two of us gringas were making it around all our many transportation connections flawlessly so far! Everything was working out too easily; we couldn’t get over our luck. We flew Star Peru, one of the cheaper airlines, to Cuzco. It was a smaller plane and we ended up in the very front row with by far the most leg room I’ve had in a month in Peru! (the people here are tiny short!)—Seriously, we were wondering how in the world we were getting so lucky considering how difficult it was to book and plan all of our quick travels to Machu Picchu. We were bouncing off the walls after an awesome Dunkin Donuts breakfast and coffee…Ahh felt like America!... and stealing a ton of chocolate covered espresso bean samples from the Café Britt store in the airport. Working on little to no real sleep we were full of adrenaline and ready to go for the day once we arrived in Cuzco after the short 1:15 flight. However, typical Peruvian time, naturally our flight didn’t take off until the time which we were supposed to land in Cuzco (10:15 am). By this point, this doesn’t surprise me in the least. Peru has definitely taught me patience and to give up stressing about time. We have yet to go anywhere without waiting or people showing up late. They just don’t worry about it. Once we arrived we just wandered around Cuzco, with no real plans for the first time in this busy month. We had a great afternoon, just leisurely walking the cobblestone streets of Cuzco and following my guidebooks walking tour map like we were on a treasure hunt! It was kind of hilarious because I was walking around reading from my guidebook like a tour guide about what we were seeing and then we would get so excited when we actually found where we were supposed to be. We kind of just wasted the afternoon away admiring the neat Spanish architecture of Cuzco and views of the town all over the mountains. Then we stopped and had the best pina/naranja fresh fruit juice batidos (kind of like a natural smoothie) that I have had since I’ve been here. We walked around some more then saw the glorious yellow ice cream cart girl walking around , which you see all over the highlands area of Peru where you can get this amazing flavor of ice cream cone for only 1 sol! (like $0.40) Us fat gringos, everytime we see them we have to get one! Later that afternoon, we caught a combi (like a small minivan public bus) through the gorgeous Valle Sagrado to Urubamba and then to Ollantaytambo, where we caught the train to Aguas Calientes (the town right outside Machu Picchu). This combi ride was hilarious!! We were on there with one precious older lady who talked to us the whole time and like 4 other men and a super fat driver who our lady friend kept calling Gordito (Little Fatty) to his face! She laughed and explained to us that in Peru, unlike the US, it’s ok for people to say that to each other and no one gets offended, in fact it’s cariño, a kind of an endearing term. The music on the radio is always hilarious and a pleasant surprise to hear old American hits mixed in with current Latin music. You never know what you’re going to hear. This ride was particularly awesome. Our gordito driver went from jamming out to Rocky, Eyes of a Tiger to Make it Hurt So Good to Put Me in Coach to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun…to salsa…They were loving it because Lena and I were singing Karaoke to all the English songs in the back and they kept wanting us to sing louder. It was like a discoteca in a combi the whole way there as we speed through the winding mountain roads at what felt like about 90 mph! We stopped briefly in Urubamba to drop off the sweet lady, which is a pueblo set in one of the most gorgeous mountain settings I have ever seen, with towering steep snow capped mountains ride in the backyard of the town. Then we headed on to Ollantaytambo, our stop, which is also such a cute little mountain town along the Urubamba river. It was kind of like a Peruvian twist on a Colorado ski village. We got there in time to have an awesome meal at a little restaurant called Orishas along the river. It’s cold here, so it was so nice to go inside by the fire and have cappuccinos and my favorite meal I’ve had here, alpaca bruchetta (like kabobs with the llama like animal, alpaca, meat and veggies). Still, everything was going perfectly and we were so happy. Then finally we got on the train to go to Aguas Calientes at 7 pm and got there around 8:45. The train was the cheaper backpacker train so it was filled interesting backpacker types from all over the world. So fun! You sit at little tables of 2 people facing 2 people. My seat was with a precious about 30 year old couple of singers from Argentina (Buenos Aires) and a 25 year old Brazilian guy. They were so interesting to talk to and I had Spanish convos with them the whole time and actually really kept up. I felt almost Spanish, like I was one of them and I even understood most of the Brazilian’s Portañol (the equivalent of Spanglish between Spanish and Portuguese). I was surprised because I had never really heard Portuguese before but it’s a beautiful language, very similar to Spanish but with a more pretty Frenchy flowing accent and different words for a lot of things. In fact, he claimed he didn’t know Spanish very well and that I was better at Spanish than him! It is hard to tell when you are somewhere if your Spanish is really improving, but right then I really felt like I have improved because I am so much more comfortable now to just converse without thinking first or having planned out what to say. Sure I still screw up all the time just as much, but I now feel comfortable enough to just improvise and on the spot speak to people before even thinking about what to say. I think teaching all of the health lessons to the children and mom’s really helped me with this because being the only real Spanish speaker, I was forced to be the one to improvise and just speak to them rather than just reading a lesson. Cool feeling! When we arrived in Aguas Calientes, it was freezing and raining! In the whole month we have been here there has hardly been a cloud in the sky and no rain because it is the dry season and of course when we go to Machu Picchu it is awful weather…our luck begins to turn drastically starting about then…But we were met at the station by one of the workers from the hostel we booked, who was so nice and walked us back to our hostel, Supertramp, no it’s not a brothel, I have no idea why it’s called that but it had great reviews and it was actually really neat. The staff was super helpful and explained to us exactly what to do the next morning to go to Machu Picchu. Unfortunately, because of the bad weather our plans had to change a little. All along we were planning on getting up at about 3 am to be in the first 400 people to enter the park so that we could hike Huaynu Picchu (the steep mountain overlooking Machu Picchu). However, the hostel people warned us that if the weather continued it would be pointless because you won’t be able to see Machu Picchu because of the clouds. Also, they said it is overrated and overhyped just because there is a limit set on the number of people because of the narrow and steep trail. They recommended to us to instead climb Machu Picchu mountain if the weather was good, which is a longer hike and actually the tallest mountain by Machu Picchu with a much better view of the ruins and usually only about 40 people a day do it because no one really knows about it. Plus we only had to get up around 5 am, not 3. So we were excited, but the rain didn’t stop all night and I couldn’t even sleep it was raining so hard and loud on the roof.

picnic at the parque with HIV kids

Divertilandia-Peruvian Disneyworld!

Claudia y Sajhurdi rocking my shades

Valentino so excited for the motos!

Last day in Huancayo...

From Wednesday, June 29...

Today was such a fun/bittersweet day. Last day in Huancayo. :( We took the HIV shelter kids to a park this morning to play futbol and volleyball and just have a fun day away from the shelter since they don't get to do that much at all. We took all 20 kids today, some of which we hadn't met before because they are usually in school when we are there in the afternoon. At first I felt awful because the "park" we went to was horrible. Just a crappy concrete volleyball court that we had to pay for just to play for an hour and rent a ball. So we ended up leaving and taking the kids to another recreational park, called Divertilandia (Funland) way far out from Huancayo. It is like the third world version of Disneyworld in Peru. haha Once we got there it turned out really well and the kids had a blast! It was still like a kinda crappy place, but it was fun because they had little paddle boats to rent in this tiny little creek, old, dirty, disgusting horses and ponies to ride, and little four wheelers to ride. You would have thought we were in the nicest amusement park in the world though! We had bought food ingredients for the "moms" of the shelter to make arroz con pollo and chicha (the purple corn juice drink that tastes like grape) for all of us and the kids, which we brought with us and had a big picnic first. It was just so fun to watch the kids have a great time, free, with no worries, and to be able provide everything for them that they wanted to do. We paid for them to each choose one activity. The little girls were soooo excited to ride the horses and do the paddle boats, things which they had never ever done. The girls were so excited/terrified to ride the little horses at first, even though they barely moved and the man walked them around in a field for a few minutes! The little boys were pumped to ride the four wheelers around too. So so fun to watch and take pictures as they screamed with excitement and laughter. After, a super sweet girl from France who is fluent in Spanish, Laura, a volunteer from the organization that Betsy works with, Expand Peru, who came with us today, bought all the children ice cream! They loved that! We just spoiled them all day. Then they just ran wild all around the park with us chasing them around making sure they didn't fall in the water. The girls found a stick with a net on it for fishing and got so excited to try and catch all the little minnows swimming around in the nasty water. I was chasing around 7 energy filled girls who kept almost falling in and ended up with mud covered tennis shoes by the end of the day! They were absolutely precious. We stayed there from about 9 am til about 3 pm. It was crazy on the way there. I was packed in a small taxi with I think 10 other kids, crazy! But they had the best time just on the way there. On the way back all 20 kids packed into Henry's 9 passenger van, while we waited on him to return and get us, nuts! So sad to tell them bye, as they were all giving us tons of kisses saying "ciao tia!" (they all call us tia instead of senorita) And gracias gracias gracias....LOVE these kids! I was able to give Sajhurdi, one of my favs, a bag of my clothes this morning when we picked them up at their house, which she was soo excited to have. I wish I had more room in my suitcase to bring like all my clothes to give these kids and those at Rosario. I don't know know how much difference we really made in any of these children's lives or if we made any at all, but I do know that we were at least able to provide entertainment and put smiles on their faces for the past month and they definitely put a smile on my face and love in my heart which will last a while...

We had to tell Henry (our driver) bye...so sweet, he was genuinely sad, said he was going to miss us much. I LOVE him, he and I finally started to talk a lot the past few days, about how he and his precious wife met. He gave me a hard time about my love life/asking me about if I have a novio...telling me about the boys in Peru who are quick to fall in love, asking if the boys in the US son honestos...HAH

Tonight was our last dinner with Elena. :( She made us her famous pisco sours and gave us all gifts, these gorgeous Peruvian color filled tapestries. I was really sad to tell her bye. As Lena and I packed our backpacks for Machu Picchu I really felt like I was packing to go on a trip from my actual home, that's how much at home I feel here. It's like I'm leaving my family of 9, so sad to leave them, we spend every waking moment together, but we will see them again in Lima on Saturday night.

Soo pumped for Machu Picchu but so sad to leave my home...Brasilia, bumpy dusty road filled with mangy dogs and cats, oh how I'm going to miss you...

I'm so sad...We just got back from my last visit at el orfanato El Rosario. We just colored and hung out with them outside all afternoon. They love to just color. Some of the little boys were entertained forever by having tire-pushing races with scrap tires that were around! haha hilarious. I LOVE these kids and I'm so bummed I'm not going to be greeted by their smiling faces and kisses on the cheek anymore! I have really grown close to one little girl, about 11 or 12 years old, Haydee, in particular and she was so torn up today when I told her today was my last day. She drew me a picture saying "Te amo Zara! Que te valla vien!" (Which is funny because not only could she not spell my name, she misspelled the spanish, which is really que te vaya bien! meaning may you go well...) After I drew her a sign with her name and a little letter telling her I was going to miss her, but she would always have a place in my heart and I gave her my address to write, she literally wouldn't let go of my neck all afternoon telling me "Voy a extranarte mucho senoriittta!" I brought all my clothes today to leave at Rosario. I was supposed to leave just all of my clothes with the director to distribute, but I really really wanted to set aside a few that I knew would fit her to give directly to Heidi. Perhaps it is selfish of me, but there is something about actually seeing a child receive a gift and light up in person. So at the end when were leaving I ran back to the little house where Haydee lives in and gave her a bag of clothes and told her to put them in her room. She was soo excited, but so sad to tell me bye. Broke my heart. All the kids here share a little apartment like home-style dorm rooms and a little kitchenette with a little family of other children and one "mom". It's really a neat set up because they made it feel more like a community of homes than an orphanage. It is such a beautiful place. Also, right before we left I was talking to Doris, one of the older 16 year old girls, who I had helped with homework one day. I just complimented her green sweater and she jokingly said no I like yours better wanna swap? I had on my black mountain hardwear jacket that I had planned on leaving in Peru anyway but thought I might need to keep it until Cuzco and Machu Picchu because it will still be cold. But after she said that I could not keep it on any longer. Who cares if I get a little cold over the next few days, these kids wear the same ratty clothes every day. Doris especially wears the same sweater and same leopard print fleece pants everyday. I just told her sure you can have it, but she would not believe me and wouldn't take it at first saying, "Mentira, mentira! No vas a dejarla!" (Lie! like you're teasing, you're not going to really leave it!) Finally I convinced her that I really wanted her to have it, and she just lit up in shock. She gave me a big hug and a kiss and at that I left Rosario. :(

Last night was a lot of fun taking our two favorite doctors out to dinner. We had a good time Spanglishing with them and they were very appreciative. Dinner here is like in Italy, unless you ask for your check you will be there all night. I think we got there at 7:45 and didn´t leave until 10:00! We talked to them more about medicine in Peru and all the differences with the US. They told us more about how there really aren´t specialties in medicine in Peru, except for in Lima. Lima is the only place where all the specialists will go. In Huancayo and other central highlands pueblos all the doctors pretty much do it all. Also, Yumpo told me that here doctors can only work 4 hours a day because the government only pays them for 4 hours a day! ´They can work more than that, but they won´t get paid. Also, they are on call 8 times a month. It´s horrible! It´s crazy how busy Dr. Yumpo is. He literally answers his phone during his rounds about 10 times per morning at least. They all do this, they will just stop right in the middle of a patient and answer their phone every time it rings! Crazy. I realize now though it is because he also does a lot more since he can only work 4 hours a day, such as HIV programs, TB programs, and other things. Also, they were telling us about how the university here in Huancayo, which is more than just the med school has closed down for at least 7 weeks because the alumni have stopped supporting it financially. So sad, because this would never happen in the US. The students don´t even know what to do with themselves. It was fun to be able to have real in depth conversations in Spanish for several hours, because though Yumpo speaks some English, Dr. Suazo only speaks Spanish.

Today was my last day in Daniel Carrion hospital. Only 4 of us made it because the rest of our group is sick and didn´t come this morning. Our group is dropping like flies! I feel completely better now thankfully, but starting yesterday several others got sick to their stomach. I am wondering now if it may be a 24 hour stomach virus that I caught and then spread...hope not. One girl does have my cold now though, I feel bad. I hate that everyone is getting sick here at the end. We did rounds with Dr. Yumpo in women´s internal medicine. One lady who was struggling so bad yesterday with most of her lung capacity gone from past TB and now pneumonia died over the night. :( We saw more similar kinds of cases with pulmonary and cardiac problems. I never got to see a surgery, which is kind of a bummer. Only about half of our group got to, but I did get to see lots of interesting cases and learned a lot about the different kinds of health problems here. After Carrion, we went to the special needs school one last time to hang out a bit and mostly just say bye. This was probably my least favorite part of our schedule because I never felt like we did much good there, but just cause them to get all excited, fight, and more chaos. They always loved to have us but it is just so unruly! It really makes me sad how poor of care they get, and how few people they have to attend to them. I thought I might punch a special needs kid today, there is one bully who is bigger and older than the others who is just awfully aggressive and constantly tries to fight and hit the other kids. Today he was no different and was even flipping people off. I seriously almost just knocked him out. haha The others are pretty sweet. Sad also because at their snack time there were several whose parents didn´t send them any food for lunch so they only got a tiny piece of bread from the school. Awful.

This afternoon I think only 3 or 4 of the 9 of us feel well enough to go to Rosario! We are giving a lesson on controlling anger and just playing as usual. I´m going to be so sad to say bye to the kids at Rosario. We have really begun to form relationships with these kids and get to know them, since we see them like every other day. I´m going to try and get the orphanage address and send letters to some of the ones I have gotten to know, because I can´t just invest all this time in them and then just flat leave and never keep in touch with them or do anything for them again!

So everything started to look up last night when I was dreading getting in an ice cold shower to make things even worse, when miraculously I had a legitimately HOT shower for the first time since I've been here! Ahh, soo wonderful! Then this morning I woke up feeling fine and had my appetite back. Thank God! This morning, we went to Daniel Carrion hospital. I decided to bring some of our many school supplies we have here to the hospital to give to the small pediatric ward, because the last time I went up there I noticed how awful it was. The kids are just sitting in beds in pain with literally no entertainment, no TVs no nothing! So today before we did internal medicine rounds, we went up there and handed out paper, markers, colored pencils, clay, cars for the little boys, and Disney princess stickers for the little girls. They instantly brightened when walked in with all of this, especially the moms were relieved and so appreciative to have something to distract their kids. There were a couple sweet young little girls, 2 and 4 year olds, and their moms, who I particularly talked to for a while. They had both fallen, and the 4 year old  (who was precious and so happy and spunky) had broken her leg really badly and had her legs suspended up in the air at a 90 degree angle and had been there for 2 weeks and still for 1 more week before they were going to cast her leg. Poor thing, but yet she was just as smiley and sweet as ever. One little boy, poor thing could not even talk because his face was so messed up from falling from somewhere really high. This morning made me realize again how much I LOVE pediatrics and really think this is the area for me, because I am just energized and get joy from interacting with child patients and trying to bring them some smiles, even though their cases are sometimes sad. I really realized this when everyone else in my group couldn't wait to leave the ped's ward because it was too sad for them to look at some of the kids, when I felt like I could have stayed much longer! After this we continued with women's internal medicine rounds with Dr. Yumpo, the one we all love so much. We saw many of the same patients, plus a new woman who was poisoned intentionally by her husband, awful! One of the older women, Dr. Yumpo said basically has no good lungs left because of awful pneumonia and her trachea had shifted blocking one of the lungs. Sad because he said there is basically nothing more they can do for her here and she has no financial support from her family so it's not like she can go to Lima to get better care. Basically, she is just buying time til her death. Today was the first day I heard someone speak Quechua, the indigenous Incan language. It was the 96 year old woman we saw last week who was moaning and groaning in pain. Tonight we are taking Dr. Yumpo and Dr. Suazo, the two nicest and most patient doctors with us, out to eat at a restaurant on the plaza. 

After Carrion, we went to EsSalud, the insurance hospital. Today, I was in the psych ward, which turned out to be hilarious when one of the nurses suggested we turn on music and dance. Oh my word! HILARIOUS! Another Peruvian surprise, you never know what you're going to experience here. We all were in a circle dancing to reggaeton and salsa and two of the younger girls were getting down! The men were hilarious because they are so drugged up that they move so slow and act like 5 year olds, so fun. They grabbed us and had us dancing with them in the middle. And then the crazy head nurse had the two young girls sandwich a young male nurse and then made me join the sandwich and act like I was smacking his butt in the air...She was yelling "Castigalo!!" (Punish him!) WOW they don't hold back here...hahah I guess she was trying to make it like a discoteca in the psych ward. But they had a great time. Always an interesting experience in the psych ward. 

After lunch, Lena and I went to the plaza to a cafe and got the best cafe helado (coffee milkshake type thing) that I have ever had at Cafe Grosella. Sooo good. Then just 5 of us girls went to the HIV shelter because the rest were sick, probably from the Chifa (peruvian chinese) restaurant they went to last night, thank God I didn't go already feeling sick... We just helped the kids with homework. They have sooo much homework here for young children. I love helping them with homework, especially with English. After that we just played lots of volleyball, which they love. Alex and I won the competition of who could keep the ball going the longest! haha they looove "volley". Then we taught them the short lesson on handwashing. We gave them all lots of pencils for each of them, and colors and glue and scissors for the group, since they are always doing homework, and they were sooo grateful! They were so careful to put them away and guard them. These children are some of the most well-behaved, precious, and intelligent children I have ever met. We are about to have a lesson from the med students on Health History 2 tonight and then we are taking out Dr. Yumpo and Dr. Suazo as a thank you to a restaurant we really like, Restaurante Detras de la Catedral. 

Wheww, today was a rough day. Starting around 3 am this morning I woke up feeling awful and proceeded to hug the toilet for the rest of the night til about 7 am. Apparently, I ate something bad on our excursion yesterday. I can no longer brag about being the last one standing in our group to not get stomach sickness. Now officially every single one of us has had food troubles! Ahh, can't wait to get back to American food where we don't have to worry about that. So today has been pretty rough because after last night I had nothing left in me, so I have been very weak all day and unable to do much. I think I've had a total of like 5 ritz crackers all day. Everyone went out to eat tonight, but I just couldn't do it, so Elena made me soup, which is good because I was able to eat some. I am actually feeling much better, just tired. Not really sure what it was, but you just never know around here. So today pretty much consisted of laying around, moving from my bed to the roof for part of the day to get outside a bit, and some cards, which we play like everyday! Anyway, hopefully I have no problems tonight and tomorrow I'll be back to normal. Only two more days in the hospital and Wednesday we take the HIV kids out of the shelter to a recreational park all day and then help cook for them! And then Wednesday night, Lena and I are off to Machu Picchu! And Sunday, HOME! :) and :(

Today we went on a long hike to the Huaytapallana glacier, which was soo awesome!! We had to drive about 1 1/2 hours away on a horrible bumpy dirt/rock road...We weren't sure if we were going to ever make it at first because we had to wait about 40 minutes where they were doing road maintenance once and then had to get out of the bus one time and walk up a bumpy road a ways because one road was closed and the one we had to take was really bumpy and dangerous in one section so he made us get out and then they drove the bus over it! haha rough start, but then we finally arrived in the middle of nowhere at a little restaurant where we parked and began our hike. I seriously have never been in a more remote place in my life. Peru has so many remote areas in the mountains, it's crazy! We first had to use a bathroom at the restaurant which literally consisted of a hole in the ground you had to stand over, so that was lovely. One thing I will not miss about Peru is the bathrooms, awful!! The hike started out really difficult immediately and really steep! We had a precious little Peruvian guide because we had heard you can't hike it without a guide because it can be dangerous as there are no real marked trails, which turned out to be very true. We first had to climb directly up and over a steep mountain to get to the glacier which was on a mountain on the other side. They don't do it like Colorado here with lots of switchbacks, oh no, they just go straight up, its like doing a million lunges up a mountain! We were so out of breath all the time because it was so steep and the altitude was really high. This was by far the most difficult hike I've ever been on because it was so steep at parts and because the trail was so rugged. At times there was not even a real trail, we just walked through rock quarries. Thank God for our guide, we would have never made it without him! We finally made it up to the peak of the first mountain we had to climb over in about 1 1/2 hours, which had an incredible breathtaking panoramic view. The Andes mountains are so different from mountains in North America, so so rugged and remote, not a sound around except for ourselves. We sat here and caught our breath again for a bit, which was much needed! It took us about 3 hours total to climb up to the glacier itself, they don't all it a glacier but rather playa de nieve (snow beach!). From the peak of the first mountain it wasn't as bad to the glacier, although much of it was just hopping over rocks, not a trail. Only a couple of us, me and the 2 guys and a peruvian couple that was with our tour group went up on the glacier because the rest wimped out. But our guide was very cautious and knew exactly where we could walk and only let us go on that certain area. It was unbelievable! I've never seen anything so enormous in my life. It was a massive amount of snow and glacier all over this one huge mountain ,which popped out of nowhere because all the other mountains are so dry. The peak of the glacier mountain extended so high up that you couldn't even see it because of all the clouds covering it. The peak is over 15,000 feet, but where we were on the glacier was around 14,500 according to our guide. Air was very thin! We just walked around on the glacier for a bit then I pretty much crabwalked it down because it was steep going back down and slicckk. I wasn't trying to fall into the several open crevices nearby! So so cool. I've really never seen anything like it. The only thing living up there were some birds and some cows near a couple gorgeous lakes below the glacier. The views the whole way back looking back were amazing as well. Betsy, the girl who went to Texas A&M and her boyfriend came with us. I really enjoyed them coming they are soo sweet! Good to meet some good ole fellow Texans deep in the heart of Peru! I also loved talking to our sweet guide, who was practically sprinting up the mountain while I try to keep up huffing and puffing and trying to talk in Spanish to him. It's unreal how unaffected by the altitude the Peruvians are, doesn't even phase them! Great experience, so awesome to see all the crazy different types of natural terrain in Peru. However, the whole hike took about 6 hours so we are totally exhausted now!

our team at the Sicaya Dia del campesinos festival

one of the winners of the fattest cuy competition! ridiculous, this is what they eat

poor cuy

Maite, precious girl at Rosario at the birthday fiesta, we attempted to make balloon animals

Maria Eloise

balloon sword fights

traditionally dressed woman at Sicaya festival, you see older women dressed like this everywhere, and mom's carry their babies in those little clothes on their back

Today was a fun day! We went to the dia del campesinos (farmers) festival in Sicaya, the rural village outside of Huancayo this morning and had a booth with posters and information we made about nutrition of cuy (guinea pig) and quinoa (a grain from the Andes that is much better for you than rice, higher in protein)--My job was to teach about quinoa. We also had posters and info on how to purify and filter water using bare essential resources. We also had an example and showed how to make a water faucet to wash hands and such out of a reused big water bottle upside down for those who do not have any running water. Also, we taught about the dangers of the smoke from cooking with a wood fire inside the house, which many people do here and in small houses it is even worse. It can cause damage to the lungs and heart and cataracts in eyes, and even lung cancer. It increases the risk of TB because it decreases your immune system. The festival was crazy, I think everyone in the whole town was there and it lasted all day. It is a very rural farmer's hardworking town, and so all the kids even got out of school for farmer's day. Mostly people just walked by and looked at our posters and we handed out flyers with all the info and talked to them some if they wanted. Mostly though all the school kids especially would come just hang out at our tent and google at us because we are the only white people around and maybe that they've really ever seen. Most of their questions weren't about our information, but rather about us and the US! I had 2 little boys who hung around our area for hours and they just drilled me on questions about the US, I mean they went through every animal, every plant, every type of food asking me if we had that in the US too! So curious and so cute. We got to walk around and try all the different ways cuy and quinoa were prepared. Not so much a fan of cuy, I think I'd rather have it as a pet, but they are actually really nutritious for you. It probably didn't help that they had pens and pens of alive cuys for sale for people to buy, reproduce, and eat! We also saw them cooking the cuy on open fires, nasty. They even had cuy judgings to judge who had the fattest cuy and then dressed the winners up in traditional peruvian attire, hilarious! I'm going to be glad to get away from all the nasty dogs here too, they are everywhere on the streets! And I think the cat population in our little house compound grows everyday! We probably have about 15 cats in our little gated houses area.

After a long day at the festival we went to Rosario orphanage and helped with a big fiesta for all the children who had birthdays between January and now. I think they have like 65 kids total there, so it was tons of fun! We dressed up like silly clowns with some of Elena's friends who go around and do that and dancing for kid's parties. We did games and dancing competitions and they had a huge cake and lotttss of candies. They had a great time and it was fun to see them be able to have all the fun they wanted to. We leave tomorrow morning for our glacier hike, which should be fun! Thankfully, I'm breathing a little better, so hopefully I'll make it up there!

This morning we got to sleep in a little more since we don't go to the festival until 9, which was really nice. I went up on our roof top to read this morning, which is such an awesome view in the morning because the sunrise is so strong. The mountains are panoramic all around and all the houses here are built on top of each other with rooftops for laundry so you see all the people up and about on their roofs doing laundry and such. It's a very communal way of living here. privacy not so much a factor.  The only thing I could hear was roosters and a local church service singing nearby really loud, which was neat. It's awesome to see these people constantly praising God amidst all the dusty roads, collapsing roofs and extreme poverty. Wow. They are not praising God for all the prosperity and material things they have, they are praising God for life alone. Pretty awesome. Peruvians as a whole are very happy people, always greeting you with a smile, a hug, and a kiss on the cheek. For example, yesterday when we did our Everyone is Unique lesson with the kids and moms at the HIV center, at the end we got everyone, moms and kids, to go around and say an adjective or quality about themselves, either personality trait or talent, and almost all the mom's just said "Soy alegre!" (I'm happy!) Yet, they all have HIV, they all have no money, no house to themselves, they make artesan crafts during the day at the shelter to sell and make some money. So awesome to see people who can truly enjoy the real blessings and joys of life without any need for anything material!! God is good. In everything, God is good.

This morning at Daniel Carrion I did rounds in the men's internal medicine ward. We had no one with us today, so I just had to ask questions to the med students because it is so hard to hear the doctors with their masks on and like 20 people around each patient. No joke, it's crazy how many people follow the doctors around. Today we saw a lot of cardiac problems, and more pulmonary problems like pneumonia. We're getting good at reading pulmonary x-rays by now, that's like all we ever see in internal medicine. It's crazy because they have no place to read x-rays here and the lighting inside is horrible but they just kind of hold it up and look at it...We also saw one younger teen who had supposedly tried to kill himself by drinking a lot of some poisonous liquid and had his stomach pumped. Quite a few of the patients are diabetic and have complications from that. The diet here definitely promotes diabetes. Also, the reason why we all have to wear masks in internal medicine ward is because apparently tuberculosis is really common here. Dr. Jumpo told us this is a problem because the rooms have poor circulation, just a few windows open for air, and also many of the patients are not sure they have TB for a long time because they don't have the fast prick test we have, they have to do a culture which takes 30 days...

After the hospital we went to a friend of Elena's school to do the lesson on handwashing and dental hygiene. This school was a more well-off "private" school in Huancayo than those that we usually go to outside the city. The children ranged from age 2-5, they start school so young here! Oh my goodness they were the most precious children I've ever seen! After our lesson, we taught them a few songs in English, like Heads, shoulders, knees and toes and they sang us a song they had prepared, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star...hilarious!! We then went into their classrooms, I went with the 4 year olds, and taught them some basic English like colors, numbers, animals, basic body parts, and family names. They were really smart and some already new colors and numbers. They were soo excited for us to be there and they presented each of us a little gift at the end and said in English, "Thank you for visit." I think we almost all shed some tears they were so sweet. We hardly did anything for them, yet they were so so appreciative. I think we each got at least a couple kisses and ciaos from each of them before we left! I really enjoyed this morning.

This afternoon we are going to the HIV center to do a lesson on everyone is unique and promoting self-confidence in individual talents and such. We have some crafts and activities planned. We have been working hard this week on different lessons for the Dia del campesinos (farmers) festival in Sicaya tomorrow where we will have a booth and teach the community about the nutrition of quinoa (my part), nutrition of cuy (guinea pig), basic methods to filter and sanitize water for poor people with bad water and no real resources, and the dangers and harmful side effects of cooking with open wood fire in houses. Should be fun/interesting. We have already booked with a "tour" group, our driver, Henry's friends to go hike to the Huaytapallana glacier on Saturday, which is an all day hike. Hopefully I'm completely better by then because I think the glacier is at over 14,000 feet! I can't believe I only have like 5 days left in Huancayo...Our group was talking and it seriously feels like we live here now. We don't even think twice about where we are going when we walk back to our house or our daily routine. It's going to be a serious adjustment to be back in America living with all the luxuries we have and knowing that when you speak English everyone understands you! haha This trip has been like a week in a day and a day in a week all at the same time. Our days often seem long and busy, but at the same time the weeks and time fly by!

Yesterday we went to Daniel Carrion hospital in the morning again, but this time the doctors were really on tiempo peruano and were taking forever to show up for their rounds, so instead of doing rounds some of the med students taught us how to take blood pressure and we just practiced that forever. That was cool to learn, and a lot trickier than it looks especially with the older equipment. We then went back to Rosario orphanage to do the emergencies and prevention for the other kids who are not in school in the afternoon. In Peru children either go to colegio (school) in the morning or the afternoon, there are two waves depending on your age and the school. After lunch we went back to Rosario to give a lesson on the importance of exercise and eating healthy to the children and a lesson on nutrition to the mothers. This was a fun lesson because we had planned out a sort of field day for the children after the lesson to go with the physical fitness idea. We had all kinds of little relays with balloons, and other silly things, a simon says exercise warm up game, pull up competitions and just other fun running active games like freeze tag and red light, green light, and of course futbol in the end. I don't think a day will go by without all the little boys wanting to play futbol. One thing I have learned with working with children especially in Spanish, you can plan all you want to and put tons of time into a plan, but when it comes down to it nothing ever works out as planned. We are constantly having to be flexible, adjust, and just improvise random games and activities on the spot that just work better because it is often chaotic!

Last night, Lena and I went to a dance studio/exercise class gym nearby to do a dance workout class that Betsy, the volunteer we met from another organization recommended to us. Though it was nearly impossible to find (gyms are pretty much nonexistent here and nobody knew where it was) it was soooo much fun! We had a blast and it was a killer workout! It was basically like a Zumba class, just real Latino dance and not called Zumba, and the instructor was this young guy who was an awesome dancer. We met a few other gringas from Belgium who are actually living here full time and working for another volunteer organization. How in the world you end up in Huancayo, Peru from Belgium I have no idea! We are definitely going back to his class on Friday and maybe Monday night, so fun. We are thinking of trying to learn a Zumba song to teach the psych patients at EsSalud next week! After we went out to eat at Anteojitos, a place we had gone before, which has great wood fire pizza and live Peruvian music. I am starting to feel a little better, but still have a cold and pretty congested. Kind of a bummer. But thankfully I have still been able to do everything, so it could definitely be worse.

Ice cold shower when you are sick with a bad cold in the cold weather=miserable!! Of course tonight would be the night when our shower is not the slightest bit warm...burrr. Today was a good day besides the fact that I was even more sick. At the hospital this morning I got to follow Dr. Jumpo who is by far the nicest doctor at the hospital and speaks some English, so we learned a lot this morning. We were in women's internal medicine ward, which was a lot of cardiac patients and mostly pulmonary, like pneumonia. There was one 96 year old woman there who had an MI which caused a lot of brain damage, so she couldn't talk or eat or anything. The saddest thing I have seen thus far was this one like 80 something year old woman who is pretty much just withering away on her death bed. She was so so skinny and her poor cheek bones and mouth were so sunken in, you could not even understand her at all when she tried to talk to the doctor. She had a pleural stroke and was just wimpering like a baby in pain. Sad. All the women were pretty old and they are mostly the traditionally dressed indigenous women with long braids.

This morning we went to the special needs school which went a lot better because we each separated to play with them separately rather than all in one room. I entertained the sweetest girl Jackie, who cannot really use her legs to walk without help or her arms, not sure exactly what is wrong with her, the whole time. She and this little toddler Victor, who has downs and is swollen up and chubby like a little balloon wobbling around everywhere. He is hilarious because he thinks he is like 10 and can do everything that the big boys can like climb all over the slides and stuff. They are so hilarious and precious.

After lunch we went to Rosario orphanage and did a lesson on emergencies, prevention and how to handle them, such as burns, electrocution, earthquakes (which are really common here), and other basic emergency situations. After we just played and I helped a few little girls with homework. It was one of my favorite little girl's birthday the other day, and so I simply made her a card and gave it to her today and I swear she was so so happy to get something like that. They are the mostly loving and affectionate kids. We just sat around after playing and braided the girl's hairs and pour attention on them which they looovee! I have a feeling that they don't get much attention on their birthdays.

Tonight we are going to watch a dance company put on a concert from the US that we got invited to, and probably meet the US ambassador for Peru. Again, hopefully tomorrow I will be feeling better. Peru is the worst place ever to have an awful cold because they don't believe in toilet paper, you can't find it anywhere in bathrooms! ahhh

Today I started internal medicine rounds at Daniel Carrion, this week I am in the men's ward. It was good and we got to see lots of different things but it is really hard to hear and understand because we all have to wear masks in internal medicine so hearing the doctor's speak spanish is very difficult. Thankfully our psych intern friend Pierra came along with us and I got to ask her lots of questions about the patients. I was really disturbed by one patient in the men's ward today. He kept groaning and grunting like the sound of a cow the whole time like half asleep. When I asked someone what was wrong with him they told me he has prostate cancer, possibly cancer in his kidney, a urinary tract infection and his bones hurt really bad. He is in so much pain and groans like he does because apparently at Carrion they don't have much pain medicine to give out, only at the specialist hospitals, so he is just in a ton of pain. Sad. Unfortunately, starting yesterday I started having a really sore throat and this morning woke up really congested and sick, but hopefully with some rest I will be fully back again soon because I don't want to miss any days, but I also want to be careful not to spread my sickness around at the hospitals. I think I got sick from the HIV shelter because a lot of the kids there are always sniffling and sick, and Elena, our coordinator is sick too.

After Carrion, we went to EsSalud, the insurance hospital and today I was in the pediatric ward where we took balloons around and made them into animals for all the patients (or at least we tried to haha) they loved it! This afternoon we went to the HIV home and just helped the kids with their homework for a couple hours, which was good. They are all so smart and such hard workers! Kids here learn things in school much younger than we did because they graduate high school at like age 16 and go on to the university if they are going to. Most of the med students we follow around at the hospital are younger than us because they go directly from high school to med school, like 18 or so, crazy! We also taught the HIV kids a basic lesson on contamination, with germs, food, dirty water, wounds and such. They are so so sweet. Today has been a rough day because I am feeling pretty awful, but even though I have a cold at least I think I am still the only one who has really not gotten stomach sickness and nausea from like the food and altitude!  Hopefully tomorrow is a better day.

Today we went to the Sunday market in Huancayo, where artisans from surrounding towns come and set up stands to sell their crafts. It was so fun, we just walked around for hours shopping. I tried picarrones (Peruvian donut which is just straight fat fried but really good with honey!) Everything here is so cheap! I stopped and talked for a long time with one young 14 year old girl, Gabby, at her jewelry booth. She and her young brother were there by themselves selling all of their awesome jewelry, which they all handmade themselves. She was sitting there making it as we talked. It's so sad because everything is handmade and the artisans are so talented, but everything is so cheap that they can't make any money! Our friend Pierra met us at the market and shopped with us helping us barter and not get ripped off, which was great. After the market we all came back and just chilled. Today was the hottest day in the afternoon since I've been here so I actually went up on the roof and laid out in my swimsuit and took a nap, so nice! Then this afternoon I took a jog around the city, only the second time since I've been here...the altitude and the rice are catching up to me. Today was a nice relaxing day with no real agenda for the first time ever. Can't believe we only have a week and a half left in Huancayo, I feel like I live here now, it's going to be weird to leave.

Actually from today...It was really nice to have a day with no real plans today. We woke up pretty early still because we're so used to it and we hiked up to Torre Torre, these awesome natural rock formations on the side of a mountain on the edge of town. The walk up to them through this really poor "neighborhood" was kind of sketchy as we had been told it was a dangerous neighborhood, but we had a big group and it was all fine. It was a really fun morning because we didn't really know how to get to Torre Torre, we just continued to ask our way around to find the paths. Once we got up there it was a really awesome view of the city in the valley and it was cool because we just made our own paths all around the formations and climbed all over them! We were all by ourselves until a few peruanos came up there and again we felt famous because they instantly wanted a picture with the gringos! It was quite the adventure, but we all made it back alive and well. Then we went out to eat lunch off the main square in Huancayo at a great little restaurant called Restaurante Detras de la Catedral. I had the best salad (here salads are not really lettuce but avocados!! my dream..) and an awesome lucuma (a famous fruit here) juice smoothie...We were pumped to have some really good food, plus this super nice european white looking man, Daniel (a limeno), who was the manager came out and started talking to us in english!! He gave us all kinds of advice about the area and history of Huancayo and Peru. He also gave us some tips about the glacier climb and which tour group to use, because apparently it's pretty intense and you need equipment. He told us that in like the late 1980's and early 90's Peru had all kinds of terrorism problems with the group called El Sendero (The Shining Path) especially around rural highland areas like Huancayo. Apparently, car bombs and other terrorist acts made it impossible to travel between the small village towns around here. He was explaining that this is what contributed to such poverty here because when this was happening the richer people fled the area but all the more impoverished people stayed here. It was very refreshing to be able to speak to a native who spoke English so well, and I think he was thrilled to talk to a bunch of white people because they don't come around here much!

This afternoon we went to a meeting thing that the KuraMe local EsSalud hospital volunteers invited us to today where we got to watch the girl who attempted to teach us Marinera actually perform the dance with a partner all in full costume. Sooo impressive! Tonight madre Elena cooked us trucha (trout) from a local river which was really good and then we are about to go to a movie at the mall here tonight. 

Torre Torre view of Huancayo (Lena from Chicago, goes to UC Berkeley)

haha goofing off trying some yoga on the rocks! tree pose, about to fall off!

Torre Torre from a distance, where we started

Marinera dancer friends

the path we had to walk up to Torre Torre through the rough neighborhood

from the festival on Friday at the school in Sicaya, Samaniego Vivas, sooo cute

the young class's little dance

other school in Sicaya that we taught lessons to on Friday, La Florida

i wanted to just take all these kids back with me in my suitcase!

the boys so into all the games we were making up

From yesterday, 6/17/11...

Today started out a good day with the normal madre Elena’s Friday morning banana panqueques for breakfast and her amazing hot chocolate, (which is nothing like normal hot chocolate, it has like cinnamon and just so good when it’s 40 degrees out still)!! Soo good…we always get so pumped when we see this rather than the normal bread and the occasional egg…but usually just hard bread and more bread…

Last night we had a fun night full of Latin dancing with Pierra one of our Psych student intern friends from the hospital. This morning we went to a new school in the rural highland village community of Sicaya called La Florida to teach a lesson on handwashing, dental hygiene and then we gave fluoride treatments and toothbrushes. The kids at this school were very young and very precious, some kids go to “kindergarten” starting at age 3 here! They are all so receptive and well behaved and are just so excited to have us strange gringos there! After we played some games with them outside. Just simple games like pato, pato, gonzo (duck duck goose), red light/green light, and some other fun running around games we kind of made up as we went along but they LOVED! It’s amazing how easily entertained these kids are, they don’t need video games and crap, they were dying laughing and having the time of their life just playing the simplest games. Again, when we did the fluoride treatment, we noticed how awful their poor teeth are already! I guess because of the bad water, which does not have fluoride in it and then really just not brushing their teeth. They are always so excited to get the toothbrushes we give them.  These kids out here are so dirty with filthy clothes but they are so gorgeous and so loving, they just want to hug all over you!

After this we went back to the school from last Friday to take soap and go to their 46th anniversary celebration that they invited us to. Quite the event! It lasted like all day, starting with a mass service, which was really sweet, led by an ancient sweet old nun we have met and then I guess like the town priest. Then many people talked forever, and then the different age groups of kids performed cultural dances from their regions in traditional clothing, which was soo adorable! Then at the end, the kids we had played with last week came and grabbed us and made us try to do their dance with them which was hilarious because it was very difficult! We felt like celebs today though, because all the parents and families were taking pictures of us and coming up after asking if they could take pictures of their kids with each of us! Really I’m not sure if some of these people have ever seen white people before out here. Elena, our coordinator, made me go up and say a few words for our group in Spanish in a microphone to all of the people at the festival and give them the soccer ball we got the children…crazy!

After being offered trucha (trout in full fish form still) cooked by some local women, we quickly left and went home for lunch! After lunch we went to EsSalud and the KuraMe Peruano volunteers attempted to teach us for fun the Marinera national Peruvian dance, which was really hard and quite hilarious! Tomorrow afternoon at 4 we are going to watch one of the girls we met who is like a national champion Marinera dancer actually dance the traditional dance with a partner in full costume, it is so impressive! After this we went to the med school where a med student taught us a class on taking health history of patients and its importance in diagnosis. Sad night because Clare, my roommate from Canada left us to go home! L We have all gotten so close, and I especially have to her so it’s going to be weird around here without her. But we had a great going away meal of lomo saltado and our madre even made us pisco sours (the famous Peruvian drink) and chocolate chip cookies! In the last 24 hours we have gotten quite the workout from dancing, so needless to say we wiped out early last night.