ONE MONTH!

Sarah and I at the Temple of the Moon

I’ve been back from the jungle about a week and a half and it’s been super busy! A lot has happened…. And as of today I’ve been here exactly one month! Crazy.

First, it’s gotten a lot more rainy. It rains every day, which also makes it very cold…not Michigan cold…but very cold J Thank God for rainboots.

On our way up to the Temple of the Moon

Second, last weekend I went on a four hour walk with some friends to see some more ruins. It was the one day this month it didn’t rain and was actually sunny!! It was beautiful. We all got fairly sunburnt but it was definitely worth it.

Third, I am now working in a daycare in a poor community in Cusco for kids ages 1-5. Their parents work in the markets during the day and pay about 5 soles per month for their kids to stay at the daycare. Five soles is about $2.00. The kids are SO cute and the staff are extremely grateful. The daycare is really small, but there are kids everywhere! And they all come up to about my knee :) There are two other guys volunteering there this week as well and we’ve had a lot of fun with the kids. Basically we just play with them and (try to) keep them from crying and fighting. I have done more puzzles the past couple of days than I ever have in my life! That’s pretty much the main activity they do there. Today, the two guys and I were cleaning up the room because the puzzle pieces were all over and a couple kids spilled their animal crackers and proceeded to step on them. We’ve done the puzzles so many times that we know exactly what pieces go with which puzzle, and which puzzles are missing pieces…we were walking around trying to distinguish between crackers and puzzle pieces making comments like “the fruit puzzle is missing the strawberry but we played with it earlier…” or “the number puzzle is missing a couple numbers…” The daycare workers want us to put the pieces back when it’s time to clean up because they often find stray pieces in the kids backpacks when it’s time for them to go home :)

Temple of the Moon

The kids were a little scared of us at first…The room is very small and I showed up with two tall American guys. But they have warmed up to us quite a bit. We get hit with wooden puzzles on a daily basis, screamed at and crawled all over. Shawn even has a little boy that calls him “papa”! For the last half hour, we danced to kids songs and when we left, the songs were stuck in our head for the half hour walk home.

Fourth, I’ve been taking some private Spanish lessons just to keep practicing. There’s also a program through my organization that sets you up with a student learning English so I meet with him once a day and talk in English for half hour and Spanish for half hour. He’s very nice and is studying English because he just got a job as a tour guide.

Fifth, next week I’m going with four other people I live with to volunteer with a family that lives on a farm in the outskirts of Cusco! Again, no electricity, outdoor showers, no big city…it’ll be interesting! We’ll be there from Monday to Friday…and when I get back, it’ll almost be March!! (and something exciting happens in March…..I’ll give you a hint….someone has a birthday……J )

I’m taking my camera to my placement tomorrow so I’ll upload more pictures very soon :) 

The Amazon Rainforest!!!

We are home from the jungle! And (somehow) the 6 people from my house and I all made it back in one piece :)

This is the only way to get to the reserve! Crossing the river via zipline.

We arrived in the jungle Monday around 1:00ish after a 10 hour bus ride, which was not the most comfortable bus ride I've ever been on. It was extremely bumpy, we were driving along the edge of the mountains and not exactly slow. But we made it. And it was BEAUTIFUL!! I was put in a small bungalow with two other volunteers- we had our own bathroom and beds with mosquito nets. Everyone else was in the big bungalow that housed about 20 people. We were exhausted when we got there so we just rested for the afternoon and went for a short hike to a waterfall where we were able to swim!

The reserve we were staying at had a couple pet monkeys...one of them joined us on our hike, riding on our heads the entire way.

The next couple of days involved volunteering in the morning and hiking/reading/eating/swimming in the afternoon. Just like the rest of Peru, plans are never set in stone :) For example, Monday night we were told to be ready at 9am the next day because we were going on a hike to monitor animals in the reserve area. (And we could not be late!!!) We were all ready with our rain boots at 9am.....9:30am....and finally the guide came over and said plans had changed and that the guys were now going to be cutting down a tree that was about to fall on the volunteer bungalow. It was kind of raining so the guide didn't think we'd still want to go on the hike...but we're hardcore, and we did. So he took three of us girls and we hiked for about three hours, saw a beautiful waterfall, some pretty butterflies, climbed over rocks, scaled rocks, and walked through the river. It was fun except for the fact that I was wearing the rain boots they provided for us....and they were three sizes too big.

Chico the monkey :)

The next couple of days we stayed around the reserve and helped plant trees, weed and plant some vegetables. The guys finally got the tree cut down...it didn't fall on the bungalow but it did fall on the greenhouse. Somehow most of the plants were okay. We cleared an area on the reserve and planted some vegetables and then took plants from the greenhouse into the jungle to repopulate the trees...I have never had so many bug bites. We got ATTACKED. But besides that, it was fun and I learned a little about gardening! My mother will be proud.

The most exciting and eventful day of my trip thus far: Friday. Our last day. We were all pretty excited to leave Friday night because we hadn't really showered, we were tired and eaten alive by bugs. But, home didn't come soon enough. Friday morning three people woke up sick and another girl had accidentally eaten some gluten, which she's allergic to. (not too serious, but she wasn't feeling great) Then, a group of people went on a hike to a vine swing they always take volunteers to. You jump on the vine, swing off a cliff and when you look down, all you see are the treetops. Well, one of the girls fell off, falling 30 feet into the trees and bamboo. SOMEHOW she landed on a branch that slowed her down before she hit the ground but needless to say she was in a LOT of pain. I've never seen bruises so dark and huge!!! She's okay, but she was pretty shaken and hurt. The reserve decided to try and get all of us a 10 person van to get home in since she was in so much pain and some of the people were still sick...but it didn't work. So we had to wait until 7pm to catch the bus home. We thought we were home free once we were finally settled on the bus and ready for our 11.5 hour ride home...NOPE! The bus ride was our favorite and most exciting part...

My house for 6 days!

To make a long story short, our bus ride was an hour and a half longer because 1. we got a flat tire, didn't have a spare so they had to physically fix it on the side of the road. Safe? I have no idea, but I'm still alive. and 2. because we were stopped three times by the police who got on to search for people bringing Coca leaves back to Cusco. The leaves are not illegal (they were probably bringing them back to sell) but they are only allowed to have a certain amount. The first time we were stopped, none of us foreigners knew what was going on until the police started searching our stuff and taking bags of leaves from the ladies around me. I was right in the middle of the action. Before the police got on, the ladies around me started shoving bags of leaves anywhere they could--in the curtains, windows, seats, wrapped up babies...A fight even started when two women started arguing over a bag. A lot of bags were confiscated, but we were extremely surprised when it was the ladies bus stop and they started walking up and down the bus taking bags from every single window/curtain/seat!! (Actually, two of my friends found a bag in their seat before the police showed up and accidentally ripped it...leaves went everywhere and everyone started freaking out trying to clean it all up) They had bags stashed everywhere! It was a pretty exciting 11.5 hours but needless to say, we were exhausted and just wanted to get home. We finally arrived home at about 6:30am, very happy and hungry. The staff at our house fed us breakfast that we devoured verrrry quickly....and then we all took much needed showers :)

Overall, the jungle was a great experience. It was extremely beautiful, and very peaceful falling asleep to the sound of the river every night :) Buuuut, as much fun as it was planting, hiking and swimming, I don't mind being back in Cusco away from the bugs :)

The pictures aren't loading very well right now...I'll do a post of jungle pictures when the internet is better!!

dangerously close to becoming vegetarian...

Too bad Red Robin is my favorite restaurant :) but I had two experiences this weekend that would turn several people against meat. First..at my placement on Friday I was walking around with a little girl named Geraldine when the cook asked us if we'd help peel the green beans. So we sat outside and did that for awhile, but the cooks helpers didn't come that day so she asked if I'd take Geraldine back and then come help her make lunch. So I did..it was actually pretty fun, she was cooking for 100 people and I've never seen such a big pot of soup! I helped roast the peanuts and stir the soup for awhile. Then, she told me to work on the meat. She took out a huge bucket, reached in, and came out with 6 sets of lamb HOOVES. They were still connected and had the skin on them. So i was looking at the complete legs of the lambs minus their fur. Never seen anything like that before. She had me cut off all the fat and the hoof skin and put it in as flavoring in the soup. It was a little rough...and I'm glad I wasn't eating it.

Next...I tried cuy! aka guinea pig. We went to this tiny little town an hour away from Cusco because apparently they have the best cuy. We rode a bus, which dropped us off on the side of the highway lined with restaurants offering cuy, in the middle of nowhere...we were then attacked by restaurant owners offering us their cuy...We chose one of the restaurants, ordered 2 cuy for 5 people and it came to us on a pile of noodles and potatoes. Head, teeth, paws, everything. We took pictures and then they cut it up right in front of us. I had 2 bites and that was enough for me...honestly it just tastes like chicken but the presentation was just too much for me!!!! Everyone's been commenting on my facebook picture of the cuy reminding me of my pet guinea pig and all their pet guinea pigs. My friends in Costa Rica told me it looked like one of my favorite little dogs named Tupi from there. Soooo..needless to say I couldn't look at it haha :) After we had our cuy we started walking along the highway towards what we thought was the town (getting honked and yelled at because who sees 5 gringas walking down the street on a regular basis?) and when we got there, it was the wrong town. So we just hopped on a bus to go home and realized the town we wanted was the other way :) oops! We went back to Cusco and got some ice cream...much better than any animal.

Now I'm off to the jungle until Friday! We're leaving at 4:30am tomorrow and will be back about 5am on Saturday...no internet, no electricity and lots of bugs! Please pray for us!! I'll post pictures when I get back :)

fotos...hopefully

I just tried adding some pictures but my internet quit all of a sudden...so hopefully this time works. It takes a long time to upload pictures here.

Today was pretty rainy so I couldn't take the kids outside. We played catch, did math problems and colored. One of the girls asked me to draw her a picture and then all the other girls wanted one too so that took up a lot of time :) Then, one of their teachers came in and gave them a music lesson. It's their Summer break right now so they don't have classes, but he comes in once and a while to sing. It was fun, we sang quite a few Christmas songs because he asked for suggestions :)

the program I'm here through has placements all throughout Cusco and are really flexible in letting you try different ones. So, about 8 of the volunteers from my house and I are leaving to help out in the jungle on Monday at 4:30am! We'll be helping plant, look for animals, reforestation type stuff. We'll be there till Friday, living in bungalows and sleeping under mosquito nets with no electricity! AND we'll be at a much lower altitude so it'll be warmer..and easier to breath :)

Here are some pictures!

This is Ángel...he might come home with me... 

Alison teaching me how to dance in her therapy class

Miriam! she always smiles like this

Hade

My roommate, Amy, walking around San Blas-a little town by Cusco

a market in Pisaq where we went last weekend

some fun stories for you!

~Today at the clinic I was walking with two of the girls, Clarisa and Maria Louisa, when the cook asked us if we would sit outside and peel mandarins for lunch. Sure! So we sat down with a bowl of about 40 mandarins and began peeling. I peeled about 35, Maria Louisa peeled about 3 and Clarisa licked 2 and threw them on the ground. I didn’t want to give her any because I didn’t want to waste them but she kept screaming until I gave her some. My fingers were raw and sticky afterwards, but when the cooks saw that I had thrown away the parts Clarisa licked, they told me to take them out. I explained what happened, they smiled, and took them out of the garbage bag haha yuuum!!

~I found out yesterday that Maria Louisa has a crush on one of the security guards at the clinic. Yesterday we were sitting by the security entrance with a couple girls when they all started shouting “CELESTINO CELESTINO!!!!” at one of the guards. Maria Louisa immediately started laughing and shaking her head and hiding behind me. Apparently it’s common knowledge that she likes him…. although I think Celestino was more embarrassed than she was. Today, the cook gave us an extra mandarin to eat and I made Maria Louisa take it to him and say hi. Just call me matchmaker :)

~One of the girls in my house knows how to salsa dance..like REAL salsa dance, with a partner and everythinggggg! SO…she was teaching some of us. So great. If you know me then you probably know that I watch Dancing with the Stars religiously…I am now one more step closer to being on the show!!!!

~One of the Americans here had to teach a “how to” lesson plan for her English as a Second Language class and she taught them how to make ants on a log (celery with peanut butter and raisins…) She shared the leftovers with us and the non-Americans that I live with couldn’t believe we put peanut butter on anything besides a sandwich! A couple of the other Americans and I have been searching for peanut butter ice cream since we got here. I’m really not sure why, because I hardly ever eat it at home, but it just sounded amazing. But we decided that they needed to try something else with peanut butter so when we failed to find the ice cream we just bought peanut butter and vanilla ice cream and mixed it together. Amazing. Everyone has passed along the word to their home countries that peanut butter is good on pretty much anything. We now eat peanut butter on bananas for breakfast :) 

Semana numero uno!

On our way to Pisaq, Perú

I've survived my first week as a Peruvian even though my converter doesn't work so I can't dry my hair or charge my computer :) BUT, other than that, everything is still going well!! I’ve been at my placement for a week now and I’m still getting used to everything and getting to know everyone at the clinic but I really like it! I’m at San Juan de Dios working with kids who have disabilities. Most of the kids have cerebral palsy so the majority are in wheelchairs. There are 39 kids and they all live at the clinic. I don’t have specifics on each one of them yet, but for the most part they live there because their parents couldn’t afford or didn’t want to take care of them so they left them at the hospital. I’ve been working mostly with the girls because there are two guy volunteers there who have been helping with the boys. I get to the clinic around 8:30 and help bathe the girls, brush their hair, and help them go to the bathroom for the first hour-ish. Then I just hang out with them because they are in the clinic 24/7. It's amazing how happy they are with nothing to really do. There’s a little path behind the clinic where we go for walks, I help them out of their wheelchairs and we sit in the grass and hang out so they can crawl around. At 11:00 we have lunch. Usually I just feed one baby, but Friday I had three babies to feed because not as many nurses came to help. Of course, right as I put the food in each of their mouths, they start screaming bloody murder and spit everything right back out. All the other nurses were sitting with their happily hungry babies and I’m surrounded by screaming children. I learned that the airplane trick actually works, just so you know…but only for a couple bites. Then I had to resort to feeding them dessert first... probably not the best parenting technique, but it worked. It took us awhile, but they finally finished their meals. Another fun story--one of the girls at the clinic is 15-years-old and her name is Maria Louisa. She can't talk but she understands everything. She carries around a little booklet with letters on it and spells everything out so we sat at a picnic table and had a conversation that involved me talking and her spelling!

Moray, Perú

Saturday I went with six other girls I live with to visit the Peru salt flats, and a town called Moray where we saw some Incan ruins. It was really pretty, but we had more fun taking pictures than actually looking at the ruins. Sunday we went to a cute little town called Pisaq where there was a huge market and lots of shopping. I’ve already invested in the Peruvian tourist pants and sweater with llamas on it. And we're living and learning how to not get tricked by taxi drivers. We took two taxis to Pisaq because some people wanted to visit some ruins before they went to the market and some wanted to just go to the makret...when we arrived in Pisaq the taxi driver decided to tell them it would cost more to get to the ruins. BUT..we're getting better at bartering. Don't worry.

Tomorrow I start another week of working at the clinic and in the afternoon I'm going to work with the speech therapist instead of taking classes. I don't know anything about speech therapy, but it'll be interesting!! 

Thanks for all the prayers and support :) I miss you all! Besos!

Ciao!!

LIVE from cusco.

Before we go any further, I’ll answer the question I know you’ve all been dying to ask me. YES, I have had rice every meal since I’ve been here. No beans though, which is a little disappointing because if I had to choose between the two, I’d go with the beans. But it’s fine..we got some other type of white, grainy starchy thing to go with the rice :)

Anyways…I’m here! And didn’t have any major issues with flights. Spending the night in the airport wasn’t as bad as I thought either because there were tons of people doing the same thing…most of them asleep on the floors, in the restaurants, bathrooms. You name it, there was a sleeping person near by. The flight from Lima to Cusco was about an hour and we landed right in the middle of the mountains, it was beautiful. We also exited the plane outside!! Just like you see the President do on TV…walking down the stairs from his own private jet, waving at everyone. I thought it was cool. 

Anyways..As I was waiting for someone to pick me up, I met another girl who was waiting for the same person…turns out we were going to the same house! Housing was my first surprise….I’m not living with a family like I thought, I’m in one of the volunteer houses with about 12 other volunteers from all over the world. My roommate is from England. I’m not the only one who thought they were living with a family either, so I’m not completely stupid. But it’s fine, it’s been good living with other people because we’ve walked around together and hung out quite a bit. I’m coming from 3 months in a town in Costa Rica literally the size of my college so to go from that to Cusco is a HUGE change because if you know me, then you know I’m horrendous with directions. Just ask my friends that went to Mexico with me. Nothing started on time, usually because I was lost and they had to come find me. That’s a slight exaggeration, but it definitely happened more than once. Buuuut, the house is very nice except for the cold showers. They feed us breakfast, lunch and dinner, do our laundry and clean for us. Basically like a dorm.

Surprise number 2 was that I have internet in the house!! YAY!

Today we had orientation and then I went to visit my placement. I’ll be working in a Clinic with children with special needs. They were so cute! Basically I’ll just be doing whatever they need help with. There’s not enough people to give the kids one on one attention, so I’m there to help with that. I’ll play with them, help feed them and help with their therapy. (Sidenote—they have alpacas in the courtyard of the clinic. Hanging out, just like dogs.) To get there, I’ll walk about 25ish minutes to a bus stop and get on a bus (which actually is a mini-van full of people…) for about 10 minutes. I walked it today and let me tell you…going up the slightest incline feels like you’re climbing Mount Everest because of the altitude. Maybe not quite that bad, but I was definitely out of breath after walking 2 minutes.

I’m going to take probably just a week of Spanish classes and after that I’m hoping to be able to spend more time at my placement. I also signed up to meet with a local Peruvian for an hour a day and talk for half hour in English and a half hour in Spanish so I can learn and they can learn!

For at least this week, my days will look like this: Volunteer from 8:30-12ish, come home for lunch, talking with a local from 2-3, Spanish class from 4-6 and then come home for dinner at 7. Which is late for me. So somewhere in there I’ll be eating a snack :)

So I'll leave you with this...the weather here is perfect :) it's sunny but not too hot because there's a breeze. And I'm sunburnt.

Pictures coming soon....Miss you all!! Throw a snowball for me!!