We Made It!

January 14, 2012

Can you say CULTURE SHOCK? I can… but only in English.

We got to the Cajamarca bus stop at about 8:20 am. A wonderful Peruvian woman named Lady who teaches English in a school helped us to  collect all our bags. We were supposed to be greeted there by a man named Herman Sandro, but he was nowhere to be found. There were tons of Peruvian men wanting to give us a Taxi ride and I think they were frustrated that we wouldn’t go with them. They were probably thinking, “Stupid Americans.” But we were told to wait for Hermano Sandro, so we did.

Pretty soon we were the only ones left in the bus station. Three American white girls with 12 huge pieces of luggage. We had no idea what to do so we said a prayer and sure enough within 3 or 4 minutes of our prayer Hermano Sandro showed up and helped us take our luggage out to the street where we waited for a bus or a taxi to take us to our new home.

Also, keep in mind that at this point, we three white girls are the ONLY English speakers in our town. Ever since Lady left us at the bus stop, we’ve done nothing but communicate with others in Spanish. Hermano Sandro tried to explain how things worked to us the best he could, but he only knows a handful of English words.

We caught a taxi, loaded it up with our belongings and squished in the back seat and began our 10-15 minute ride from Cajamarca to Puyallcana. The taxi dropped us off at what looked like a run down shack made of cardboard and old tin. Hermano Sandro pointed to it and said, “El Bichito”, meaning  that that run down shack would be our home for the next three months. I was seriously shocked. It was not what I was expecting AT ALL.  To be honest, from the moment we left America there has been NOTHING even close to what I was expecting. My mind is consistently blown.

Hermano Sandro showed us around the center and then we caught a bus into Banos del Inca to get money and groceries. He showed where we go to church and he showed us the hot springs that we could bathe in. Will we remember where any of that is when we try to go by ourselves? Not a chance :) We bought a palta (avocado), mango, a few nectarines, bananas and some Clorox.  We also bought a big thing of bottled water, some Clorox wipes, soap and toilet paper.

We came back to the center and met Feliciana and  Merchola. They are the two ladies who come to the center at 10 am and begin preparing a meal for the children who eat at 1. Neither of them speak a lick of English…naturally. I asked her what I could do to help with the meal, so she put me to work on pealing potatoes…with a knife. As soon as she handed me the knife, the lights completely went out. There is contruction going on around our house and apparently they have to turn our electricity off quite often. (it was off until about 10pm).

So Feliciana and I sat there and pealed potatoes in the dark. In silence. Just kidding! I can’t stand awkward silences, so I went to town with this woman and chatted up a storm. I became really confident in my Spanish speaking abilities and we were able to communicate just fine! In a little bit Brittany and Abigail came down and joined us with some flash lights. We each pealed 2-3 potatoes in the time that Feliciana pealed oh…. 30 or so. We were so slow! Next came rice sorting.  There is just a big pile of rice on the table and it has insects, grass and rocks mixed in with it. So we sit there and pick out what we don’t want to eat in our rice. All five of us were doing this and at one point one of us Gringas said something and Feliciana and Merchola just busted up laughing. So of course we started laughing and we all spent a good minute laughing sooo hard. At what? We have no idea.