The Second Floor

Smoke and regaeton
A ringing Peruvian guitar and
The smell of burning steak
The incessant dog, samba.
No work tomorrow dia libre
Let's get drunk on pisco sour
and love.
I can lose myself in that
Spanish chatter
High pitched laugh.
I am the ceiling.
concrete and re-bar
blind.
But I can feel the drum
Smell the burned tobacco
I am homesick.
I never want to go home.

Blahg entree.

I may or may not be gaining weight.

Why am I hungry all zee time? Like, I never even used to eat breakfast, and this morning, I ate scrambled eggs and two pieces of toast, and some chocolate, and I'm still craving something...
I wanna go to the panaderia and get some tres leches or flan. duhhhlishis.

Diana and I taught english classes three days last week. It was exhausting. We worked seriously 15 hour days- waking up at 7 to leave to Huaycan, teaching four classes a day, getting back to the office at 3, scrounging up some lunch, then preparing lessons for the next four classes until midnight or later with dinner and maybe a nap in there somewhere.

I think my spanish is getting better. Do I say that every week? Bueno burrito me gusta!

James is going to be home in 2 weeks! I can't even believe it. It seems like he has been gone forever. I feel like a little girl.

Who reads this? Am I writing to myself? What is the meaning of existence? If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear it? I mean.. does it make a sound?

And now, a tribute to the late Michael Jackson.

Long live the beat.

Hungry.

I want a navajo taco.

We've been....

We've been to pre-Incan ancient ruins.


We've been clubbing.


We've been bowling.


We've been eating delish food.


We've been everywhere man, we've been everywhere.



Blake, the first intern who had been here for five months, left on Wednesday. We'll miss him.

As far as office work goes, we work every Monday through Friday, nine to six, with a... shall we say... "flexible" lunch/siesta. Sometimes we work right through lunch, sometimes we work late into the nights, sometimes we work weekends. We've all been really busy preparing for our upcoming gala (an event put on every year to raise funds) and it's easy to work over-time when you work and eat and sleep in the same place. It's a strange feeling, as well as living and working and doing almost everything with the same four people. We do what we can to get out and find a change in scenery.
Lately I've been designing new business cards for the Peru office, designing a big poster to advertise the gala, preparing lessons and homework and teaching English classes with Diana in Huaycan, and trying to write a paper... Lots to do! It's good to be busy and I love it.

Some other cool news is that we [the four interns] just bought tickets to go to Cuzco after the gala at the end of July, we're stoked!

TO VIEW MORE PICTURES OF THE RUINS CLICK HERE!

Addictions

I am addicted to some things.

Peanut butter.
Clementine oranges.
Flushing toilets.
Travel photography (stalker=me, I don't even know these people).
Iron & Wine.
My family.
My friends.
Showers that drain.
The sun.
White Oleander.
Electricity.
Carpet (I'm having withdrawls).
The internet.
Doodling.
Procrastination.

And many more things.

Excercise

Although we're not eating that much, we do seem to be eating more than the usual amount of deep-fried foods and pastries. And what else can we do? The food is just so delicious (even though we take a risk every time we eat) and there is a panaderia around every corner? Yeah, I'm thinking we're more likely to die of high cholesterol than a car crash.
So no worries mom! hehe

Therefore, and furthermore; Diana and I have decided to exercise at least 5 times a week- schedule permitting. Our first night was tonight, and we both are exhausted and at the same time feel really great :)

Saturday cathedral, Sunday cleaning.

This weekend Blake's sister was visiting for her senior trip, so we took a Saturday excursion to El Centro de Lima, where there are some really old, really big, really cool cathedrals.

We got to visit the catacombs under one; it was my first time in catacombs, they were eerie. The story is that people would "pay" the catholic church money to be buried down there, but we came up with plenty of ideas why the church might want to get rid of some pesky problem.. so as to have a better time of course!

The insides as well as the outsides of these cathedrals are incredible, and just mind-boggling to me! They're gigantic! This one was my favorite ceiling. I want my living room to have these colors.

Saturday evening, we had dinner with a family in our neighborhood. It was SO delicious. We're good friends with their kids, so we sat around and talked for a bit. In Spanglish.

Then that night I found my favorite places in Lima, the flower market and El Parque de Aguas. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera, so next time I go there, I will take pics, and explain more. But at least I know that for 4 Soles and a taxi ride, I can be in a little piece of heaven.

Sunday was productive. I deep-cleaned the kitchen, while Diana deep-cleaned our bathroom. Now I am not afraid to touch the knobs on the oven! Woot!

Then I made some rolls from scratch, thanks to my mom sending me some recipes when I complained about the bread.. hehe. Thanks mommy! The rolls weren't like she makes them, but hey, she's my MOM.
Diana made rice and lentils for dinner with a side of patacones (if you didn't know, patacones are deep-fried plantains.. omg, best thing in the world). I helped! Then we fed Blake and Becca before they left on their superlong bus ride to Cuzco, after that, the rest of us, Taylor, Rob, Diana and I sat down to have a good family meal. It was MUY RICO! Thanks Diana!

Diana and I are both so happy that our tummies are feeling better. We made lunch together at home today, and got some ice cream bars for desert! *knock on wood*

*shoutout to my fam- I love you guys!*

FOR MORE PICS OF MY SECOND WEEK IN PERU, CLICK HERE

The beginning of English classes- and some other goodies.

Diana and I are now lovely English teachers of grades pre-school to 6th grade! That's ages 3 to 12!!!


I love it so much. I love the kids, they're all so excited and interested in us. Even when their excitement gets the best of them, I love them. And even though Diana has a phobia of germs, she loves them.

The first week was a little rough, due to our angry tummies and our fear of unfamiliar bathrooms, but now that our stomachs have become more accustomed to the cuisine here, this week should be much better. Also, we have a better idea of what we need to be teaching, and how to keep the students' attention.



This is Erasmo's trusty car which takes us up to the school in Huaycan every Tuesday and Thursday. It's a 1976 VW bug, bright red. It has no horn. Which is kinda scary, since everyone here uses their horn very frequently, just as a normal driving tool. "hey, I'm here, so don't hit me." Also, his car will not go into reverse. It won't go above about 40mph either, but that part is alright, because I get enough of going 100kph every time we take a taxi- it's like being in a race with a hundred other cars! So really, I don't mind much that it takes us an hour to get to the school, it's a nice time to think.

After our first day, Erasmo took us around some other areas of Huaycan to show us another project that ASCEND has worked on called "Wawa Wasi". It means "baby house" in Quechua. These little day-care like houses are places where young children can stay while both of their parents are down in the town or city working. We stopped at three of them (to the great disagreement of my bowels). At the first one, we met the most adorable little boy, Sebastian. He is going to be a soccer star, I'm sure.


Apart from the school, I've been working on the floor-plan/seating-arrangements for ASCEND's Gala in Lima on July 23rd. And I must say, I'm pleased with it. I'm not so familiar with Microsoft Publisher, but I made due since I have no access to Photoshop or Illustrator (oh, how pampered we are at the U).
Today I finished the second floor layout and pasted together the plans for both floors on the wall so we can start marking how many seats we've sold, and who will be sitting where.

Lima is growing on me a little. I love that we can just go down the block to the little bodegas and get an ice cream for less than 75 cents. I love that if our clothes come back from the washing place dirty, we have five more to choose from.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE PICTURES OF HUAYCAN AND THE SCHOOL.

Adventures in Peru- Week UNO

Wow, what a whirlwind of South America!

Everything has just been so crazy, I haven't taken time to sit down and blog thus far- but oh are there stories to tell already... yes.

It all started when...

I got on the plane. I like my flights just how I like my milkshakes- cool and smooth, and I had good luck with all three of the flights. I met a nice guy from El Salvador on the ride from SLC to LAX, listened to music (Iron & Wine) the whole time from LAX to Mexico City, and met two really nice back-packer girls on the flight from Mexico City to Lima.

I spent my last night in the US in Los Angeles in a nice little hotel room that my parents put me up in because they didn't want me to spend the night in the LA airport :P It was super nice to be able to sleep in a nice comfy bed for the last time in three months though. Sooo nice.

The 5 hour layover in Mexico City wasn't too bad. I spent a lot of time wandering around the mostly-deserted airport and sleeping in the chair/benches. Oh, and they also had XXL seats for certain people....

The flight in to Lima was about 6 hours (I'm not sure if there was a time change involved with that length of time, but I'm too lazy to figure it out right now) on which I watched Marley and Me- not mi favorito- read the first half of the Notebook- also not mi favorito- and got to know Denise and Kristie (I know for sure that that's not her actual name and I can't remember it..) who were just going to backpack through Peru and Bolivia with a couple hundred dollars and even less Spanish than me.

(Now here is where I apologize, because I had this blog saved as a draft, and I spent two hours writing about my first week in Peru, then the internet randomly stopped working, and everything past this point was erased.)

(I also must apologize for my poor spelling and grammar from here on out, because I know for sure that my English is getting worse- ha but not so sure that my Spanish is getting better, so now I just can't communicate at all.- So please bear (bare??) with me.)

I live in ASCEND's apartment slash office in Mayorazco, Ate, Lima, Peru. Mayorazco is similar to a neighborhood, Ate is like a district. Lima, the city- also capitol of Peru, is the 27th most populous city in the WORLD, and the 5th most populous city in Latin America. According to Wikipedia, (a source which I may or may not put too much faith in) Lima and it's surrounding metropolitan area contain one third of all of the population of Peru. That's almost 8.5 million people.

Alright, so take Utah's ENTIRE population, multiply that by three- and you almost have as many people that live in Lima, yes, all squished into one 'lil city.

So you can imagine the traffic right? And the pollution? Well, to add to the dirty hustle and bustle of the usual South American City; Lima is also a "humid desert". What this means is: no rain, just a lot of dust- and it all sticks to condensed humidity on buildings, so everything gets even dirtier. Get it? Everything is grey here The sky, buildings, and streets. At least now, in the winter, because the fog from the ocean that comes over the city never burns off. (however, today was blue in a little corner of the sky, and it made me SO happy!)

However, and more importantly, the people here are absolutely amazing. You'd think people in a big city would be cold and uncaring, but the people of Lima are the exact opposite, and I've already come to love their spirit and charisma.

Awesome baby Jesus shrine in our neighborhood.

We ride mini-non-bus-van things all over town.

Freaky for boys (huh Gabi?).

My first time in Huaycan- a poor town in which we work.

Self-explanitory. Myself and Diana.

Behind the Hospital, we started clearing a space for a soccer field.

Diana found a surprise! Can you guess what it is??

There is this town called Chancay; in it, there is a "castle". A crazy lady built it for herself when her husband died....

This was in the back of a motorcycle taxi.

Very convinient.

My new friend. I am making lots of new friends here. Many of whom sell chikle in the streets.

You can find more pictures here :D

Okay guys, or whoever is reading this, even if it's just my mom (love ya mom)- I'm really sorry for not writing anything sooner. From now on out I promise to write at least twice a week! There is SO much going on! And although I am busy, I owe it to all the people who are rooting me on to let them know what's happ'nin'.

peace and love.