A Day To Remember

I feel like everyday I start each journal entry with the following line:

I LOVE PERU! Today was the best day ever!!!

Because it's true. Everyday is the best day ever. But today, was EXCEPTIONALLY awesome and here's why.

1. We saw the sun. We haven't seen it in days. It's been raining and raining and raining, but we saw it this morning on our run.

2. We went on one of our “hill run”, straight up and enormous hill and then all the way down the long way followed by P 90 Ab Ripper X. 

3. After a delicious breakfast of eggs, tomato, garlic, gouda and avacado we showered and became clean!

4. We had an awesome day with the ninos. We split up into three teams and did relays. I had team Anaranjado and let me tell you, we were bomb. I loooved my team and they did so well at just about everything (except they pretty much stunk at leap frog :).

We decorated our score sheets/banners to promote team spirit

Here's what we played: (I had to make up spanish names for all of them...so they're kind of odd :)

-Piedras y cucharas:  Where you carry a rock on a spoon and run with it.

-Salta como un conejo: Sack race

-Lava Caliente: Where you have to get from start to finish using only two pieces of paper and without touching the ground

-Matematicas Maestria (something like that): See which team could complete the most math flash cards in two minutes. Abby TOTALLY cheated for her team, but it was needed :)

-Rana Rapido: Leap Frog

The kids loved it and totally got into it. And my team came in second place overall! I was so proud :)

After all the points were tallied up, we gave out the trophies. By this time it was only about 2pm, so we still had another hour with the kids, but we were worn out! So we sat and let the girls braid our hair while we read stories. 

Tender Mercy: It didn't rain one single drop during our whole time outside. Seriously this is remarkable and we were so grateful. However, the moment our festivities ended today, the rain came, and it poured and poured and poured! Coincidence? I think not.

5. We went to a bake-sale-ish type fundraiser. We didn't know what was going on really and ended up sitting around for two and a half hours (when in reality, we could have been in and out in 10 minutes) Oh well! We got these yummy fried things called Picadoras? Something like that. They were delicious!

6. While we were sitting and waiting during the aforementioned bake sale, we met three new friends. Jorge, Robert y Charlie. Robert and Charlie were both R.M's studying in Cajamarca. Kayla Starbuck, if you're reading this, tell your brother that I met a boy who served with him! Jorge! 

We found out that they are going to the same YSA convention later this month as us, and we decided that we wanted to make friends with them, and so we did! It was so fun talking to them, and then it was time to go. So they left and then we left maybe 30 seconds later.

This is where the story gets good.

7. While we were walking out, we noticed that it was a little after six, which is about the time places to eat start opening in Banos, so we decided we wanted to treat ourselves to Pizza! Brittany says, "Lets invite our new friends!" who at this point were several hundred feet in front of us. Without much thought, Brittany runs down the road to stop our friends and invite them to pizza. As she was leaving she yelled to us, "Is it, 'Nosotros Pizza Comer?' " Before we could tell her that, no, that is not how you properly invite someone to eat pizza, she was off and running.

Me and Abby started busting up laughing. Then we noticed that we were right in the middle of a bus stop with people all around us. And guess what? They were all cracking up too! There was a tall, white, blonde girl blabbing off some random Spanish words and running down the side walk after three Peruvian guys. EVERYONE was laughing. I was dying. 

8. Well, a minute or two later, Brittany returned! With our new Peruvian friends! They had miraculously been able to decipher her message and off we went to get pizza. The pizza cost us about ten bucks, and it was probably half as good as a $5 Little Caesars Hot and Ready. Peru and pizza? Not the best combination, but it was so much fun! 

And here's what else, we're counting it as a date. Now, don't get too excited, because 1. We Planned it 2. We were Paired off (well not really, but there were three girls and three boys) and 3. We Paid for it. 

So the three P's of a date were there....but we were the boys in the situation. But we justified it because we're south of the equator, things are all sorts of scrambled up down here :)

Over all, it was a way fun day! We loved every minute of it!

Also, Happy Birthday Trav! We have a present for you, but didn't have time to ship it off to you today!
-Elia