Peruvian Family Reunion

Today, a family reunion was held in our home… we really had no idea what was going on, we just knew that Feliciana and Melchora were cooking up a storm with all sorts of fancy food and that our kids were not being allowed to come eat or play with us.

Well at around 1:30 a family of 10 or so Peruanos (Old and Young) came and sat themselves at our finely set table (we brought out the good stuff, nice plates and lacey table cloths!). After figuring out that we were allowed to eat with them, we were treated to the Peruvian meal of a life time! I wish I could tell you the names of all the dishes, but I have no idea… I do know that it had 7 courses, 4 of which contained potatoes, all cooked differently, and one course that was fried guinea pig and another that was pig intestines!

Egg and potato soup. So good!

Rice, Potatoes and Guinea Pig. Also Delicious

Potatoes with pig intestines and onion, chili pepper salsa. My personal favorite.

Dessert!

Giant corn

We ate like queens today as we crashed this Peruvian Reunion. At first I kind of felt bad because we didn’t help out a whole lot with the cooking or the cleaning, and we didn’t even know these people, but we justified it by the fact that we were the entertainment for the afternoon. They had a great time laughing and things that we said, or rather tried to say. They also loved watching us try the guinea pig and took pictures of us while we ate it! We made some awesome friends and loved talking to them! They were visiting from Lima and we just loved them!

Side note, we asked Melchora if we could help her with anything. She promptly told us to go upstairs and not come down until we looked pretty. Apparently she doesn’t dig our make-up free, pony tail look. Oh well!

Once My Pet, Now On My Plate

Have I ever mentioned that Hannah (My little sister) got two sweet little guinea pigs for Christmas? They have names. They have personalities. I loved them before I left them to come to Peru.

Have I also ever mentioned that Peruvians are famous for eating these little rodents?

 Confession: I ate a guinea pig today! Even Bigger Confession: I liked it!

 That’s right. I ate Cuy Frito or Fried Guinea Pig. There wasn’t a whole lot of meat on there and it wasn’t amazing, but it was just fun to experience something crazy. Their little feet and claws were still perfectly in tact and some still had the heads on. I’m not sure if we were supposed to eat the skin or not… so at first I did… and I ate quite a bit of it. Then I realized that none of the natives around me had eaten theirs and then I felt silly. Whoops!

Peruvian Nights

I am about at that point where I have been in Peru long enough to see and do crazy things and not even think twice about them. Things that SHOCKED me the first time I experienced them. So I’m going to try and recount those and post them here before I become desensitized to it all.

So I just put on two pairs of pants (leggings and sweatpants), two pairs of socks (long wool ones and short normal ones), one shirt, one USA sweater, and a knitted headband to keep my ears warm. Where am I going so bundled up? Out to face a Rexburg Winter? No.  Just to bed. Yes, this is what I wear every night to bed for two very important reasons.

    1.We freeze at night. Our house is made of cement walls, floors and ceiling with absolutely NO insulation and no carpet. Also, the window panes are a bit too small for the windows, so there is a constant cold breeze coming through our window cracks.

2.       2.We live with all manner of things that we shouldn’t. Namely: Mold, fleas, spiders, mosquitos, bed bugs, mice and other creatures we have yet to discover. The layers not only keep us warm, but they keep our skin (most of it) safe from unwanted friends crawling into bed and biting us. Alas, we still wake up each morning with at least 3 or 4 new strange bug bites…. But it could be worse.

Also, it still takes me just as long to get ready for bed as it does in the states, but it’s a whole different routine. I shall walk you through it.
 

1.   1.  PJ’s on. This in itself takes some time to find all of the elements of aforementioned nighttime attire.

2.       2. Contacts out (same as in states)

3.       3. Face washed (the next step in the states is to remove my makeup, but this is entirely unnecessary here, simply because we only wear make up on Sundays. So, I wash my face, not to remove my makeup, but to remove dirt and germs that have been caked on throughout the day. This is where I also realize that I’m not as tan as I thought I was…it’s just dirt)

Ready for bed!

4. No acne cream (Our faces have been surprisingly clear here, so acne is not even a bother at all. Perhaps it’s the lack of makeup or perhaps it’s just Peru’s awesomeness)

5.       5. Teeth brushed. This is only different in the fact that we have to brush our teeth with bottled water. Super hard to get used to at first.

6.       6. Hair brushed…frowned at, then put back in a bun. My hair is atrocious. Mainly because we can only afford to wash it twice a week and because it hasn’t come in contact with a straightener, blow dryer or curling iron this whole trip. So it’s healthy! But it’s not very pretty :)

7.       7. Feet soaked in water. Our feet get atrocious and super dirty. This is necessary.

8.        8. Back in the bedroom to shake out the sheets. Sheets and blankets must be shaken out every night before bed to remove any unwanted guests.

9.       9 Roommate Prayer, get into bed and try and make pictures out of the thousands of mold spores that cover our ceiling. (Today, while I was skyping with my family, a large chunk of moldy ceiling dispatched itself from my ceiling and straight onto my pillow! I died laughing.)

10.   10. Shiver until you fall asleep. It hasn’t actually been too bad lately, because Brittany has ditched her bed and crawls into bed with me and Abigail every night. 3 girls in two beds equals a lot warmer than usual.

11.   Wake up at like 2 in the morning to Brittany’s elbow in your face. Say, (while you’re half awake, half asleep)  “Que es esto!?”(What is this) as Brittany replies “Lo siento”(I’m sorry)

12.   I think that last story (#11) was hard to follow, but essentially, we woke up in the middle of the night for half a second and communicated solely in Spanish. How cool is that??

13.   Wake up at 7:30, Pray and head out on our morning run.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love being here? Because I do. So. So. Much.

Ring, Ring Part 2!

Guess what I did last night?

I shall tell you. We arrived home from a Stake Talent Show in Cajamarca at around 10 pm. (It was the latest we’ve ever been out and it’s a big no, no, but we figured it was for a church function and we were good J And our dear friend Pedro was kind enough to accompany us the whole way home.) As we were trying to find our keys for our house, we could hear the phone ringing inside. We got the door open just as the ringing stopped. Luckily, a few moments later it started ringing again.  I ran downstairs anxious to answer it, because I had just had a great day and was hoping so badly that it was my poppo’s voice that I’d hear on the other end. But it wasn’t. It was Hermano Sandro, our Spanish Speaking area coordinator. 

And here’s what I did. I had a whole conversation on the phone with him! I only had to ask him to slow down once and to repeat himself one other time. I hung up feeling very accomplished! Granted, he did speak slow and he did use basic words  and I only caught half of what he said… but still! 

Reason to celebrate!

You Can Run, But You Can't Hide

One very comical part of this trip thus far can not be written in full on this blog. However, I can say this: We can run, but we can't hide.

We thought that we'd left boys/dating/anything of that sort back home in the states. But they have found us is some of the funniest most bizarre ways. Let's just say that the Peruvian way is hilarious.

Don't worry, we're on a strict no dating while in South America policy, but it's quite flattering to be pursued even when we are looking at our absolute worst and unable to communicate with 99.9% of the population.

And that is all I have to say about that.

"Today I Don't Feel Like Doing Anything"

Don’t judge us for the following events that transpired.

Wednesday morning we woke up and decided that it was time for us to explore the natural hot springs in Banos and take our first hot shower. But we were feeling kind of lazy, so we power walked instead of doing our usual run. We showered a most amazing shower (it reminded me so much of the showers that you go to when you’re camping. Dirty stall, but the warm water is so amazing!). We then took the bus back up and it was downhill from there.

We didn’t feel like doing anything! We had some stuff planned for the kids that day, but didn’t do a single thing we planned. Instead we just let them color and do puzzles and pretty much whatever they wanted. But it was so nice and relaxing! 

After the kids left, I had serious plans to do some studying, cleaning, laundering etc. Here’s what we did instead.

We watched a whole movie. Letters to Juliet.

Then, we started another movie. 10 Things I Hate About You.

It was dirty, so we turned it off and started… yes ANOTHER MOVIE. Enchanted.    

                 

As we were watching it, there was a knock on our door and it was Pedro. He had brought us Torta and Chocolates! So we went down stairs and ATE and hung out with him for a couple hours.

Then we went back upstairs and watched Enchanted for the rest of the night.

We literally did nothing productive that day. Don’t worry, it gets worse. Check out what we ate.

Breakfast: Sweet Bread.

Lunch: Fried Speghetti and Rice

Snack: Tea and Popcorn with Cinnamon Sugar

Snack: Chocolate Cake with lots of frosting         

Snack: Sweet Bread and Milk. Normal Bread and cheese

Snack: Graham Crackers

Dinner: Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Cake with lots of frosting (and lots of it)

Snack: Half an avocado

Shoot We Should have Eaten Something of Substance Today: Leftover Chicken Quinoa Soup

Lets Just Try One Piece of Chocolate: 15 pieces of fancy chocolate

I Need to Get This Chocolate Taste Out Of My Mouth: More Sweet Bread

Are you judging us right now? You probably should be. But we don’t regret it one bit. It was a GLORIOUS DAY! Every girls dream come true. Filled with warm showers, chick flicks, chocolate, cake and a slumber party. 

Although, last night for scripture study, we read Mosiah 4:30 and decided that starting the next morning, we were going to exercise some serious self control.  Our new phrase (that we stole from that verse) is: Oh Man, Remember!

Meaning, when we’re craving some of that cake that’s tempting us (one in the fridge, one in the freezer) we say to each other, “Oh Man, Remember!” Remember how sick we felt going to bed that night? Remember how chubby and sluggish we felt waking up the next morning? Remember how nothing tastes as good as being healthy feels???

Oh yeah. We remember. And we’re determined to be better.

So determined, that we woke up the next morning (at 7:30) and went on a super steep uphill run, followed by a nice run down the mountain and did P90 Ab Ripper X. We were then sweaty and nasty and ready to submit ourselves to an ice cold shower when just as I was about to hop in the shower, I discovered that our water had been turned off. Just our luck. So we stink, but we are well on our way to being sugar free and fit for life!

Who Says You Can't Have It All

I do.

Here's Why:

Yesterday (Monday) we had the most perfect day in the whole world….almost. At around 3 o clock, I was ready to pack my bags and leave Peru for good. I was done.

Here’s what happened. It was the perfect morning where we went on our run without being viciously terrorized by one single dog (see previous post). We got all our shopping done for the week and we sat outside and basked in the beautiful sun while we prepared the day’s lesson.  

Today’s lunch menu consisted of lentils AND a fried egg. My favorite lunch by far. Melchora even let me get two helpings of lentils! My favorite little boy Antony (who only comes on occasion) was there that morning, happy as ever.

 Life was so good!

Until one punk kid came and ruined everything. 

He was maybe 15 or 16 (it’s hard to tell ages cause lots of people are short). He had a leather jacket and a mohawk with stairsteps shaved on either side of his head. All he needed was gages and a tongue piercing. Anyways, some of my little boys were playing outside and before I knew it, that punk was chucking rocks and throwing punches at my ninos. Now, my little ninos were at fault as well I’m sure, they were spitting and trying to fight back. But I was so stinking mad at this punk kid (I think his name is Jose) and one of my older boys (Luis) who were just being big, fat bullies. I was super disappointed in Luis, because I really like him and he has potential.  Long story short after much loud talking at them and trying to hold back my kids and lock them in the center, I finally got the boys to leave. I was exhausted though. I had crying boys, I had yelling  boys, I had angry boys trying to get past me and find a way back outside. Keep in mind that all of this was going on in a different language.

Finally 3 o clock came and the kids left. I went upstairs and laid on my bed, so exhausted. We had plans to go see a waterfall with our friends at 3:30 and I just did not want to go. 

Well after about 15 minutes of wallowing and napping, I hopped out of bed and we headed down into Banos to meet up with our friends. We ended up going to Cajamarca and had an amazing time! We had our first red meat in a long, long time and ate some amazing hamburgers. Later that night (like at 8ish, our friends (Liz, Miguel, Pedro and Alecksi) came over for FHE or Hogar Noche.. (I think). It was so much fun, we did it half in English and half in Spanish. We played Nertz, ate popcorn, had an awesome discussion on the scriptures and Liz and Miguel brought us some awesome sweet bread that was SO good!
 

Cajamarca

Three of our AMAZING new friends

Cajamarca is an interesting city

We died and went to heaven whilst eating this burgers!

FHE!

After our friends left we just basked in how great that day had been. The three of us stayed up and told embarrassing stories and laughed all night long. Finally we popped in a chick flick and hit the hay.

It was a nearly perfect day. It had a fantastic beginning, an amazing ending and just a minor bump in the road somewhere down the middle.

Miracles: Just Call Me Daniel

I believe in miracles hands down. First I must record one that I forgot to do so earlier. Remember how sick I was last Friday? Like hit by a truck, never want to leave my bed ever again, sick? Well the next day was a big day for us. It was our first day in Cajamarca and our first day at the Aldea. Being sick while doing so would have been a disaster. Well I woke up the next morning feeling as good as I possibly could and had a great day sick free! Miracle.

Now this next miracle gets me every time I think about it (which is oft).

Remember how when we go running each morning, at least 30 dogs a day come chasing us down, baring their teeth, barking visciously and trying to bite us, making me want to cry? If you don’t, that story  can be found under the Saftey First post. 

Ok so yesterday morning we get up and did the same routine we do every morning.
Alarm goes off. Apartment prayer is said. Clothes are put on. Ponytails up. Money hidden in secret spots. Out the door and on our run down the same hill at the same time passing the same dogs.

Get this: NOT ONE SINGLE DOG barked at us. NOT ONE SINGLE DOG chased us. NOT ONE SINGLE DOG bared it’s teeth at us. NOT ONE SINGLE DOG even got up from their guard post to even question our presence. 

Coincidence? I think not. Miracle? Yes! I felt like Daniel in the lion's den as we ran by those dogs who didn’t even seem to know that we were there! It was one of the coolest things I’d ever experienced. Thanks for the prayers! They’re working!

Ring, Ring

So, I’ll admit, whenever our phone rings at El Bichito, my nervous system seizes up on me. I freeze and feel like everything I’ve ever known falls straight out of my head. I run down stairs to answer it, trying to calm myself down and praying that I hear English on the other end. Usually it’s not. I’ve answered a few calls that had straight up, super fast Spanish on the other end. Don’t think awfully of me, but usually I let myself assume that it’s a telemarketer (do they even have those here?) and say no thank you, good bye!

Well it gets worse. One time, we had to make a call to Hermano Sandro. He only speaks Spanish, and I can usually communicate alright with him, but the idea of talking to him on a phone intimidated me so much because it meant that I wouldn’t be able to watch his body language, his hands or his lips. Ooof! I figured there was no way I’d be able to understand him and was super stressed out at the thought. Well, when I finally found the courage to call, we found out that we don’t even know how to use the Peruvian phones. Everytime I tried to dial the number, a voice on the other line started talking to me before I was even done dialing! Who knows what she was saying. So I never even got to make the call. 

I was actually kind of bummed! I’m 100% positive I’ll have another opportunity soon. Ooof.

High Fives All Around

Yesterday we did something that we thought would be impossible. 

We went into and out of Cajamarca ALL BY OURSELVES! 

We caught the bus in, found our stop, found our way through the city and found the spot to get back on the bus and head home. After that, I felt like I could do anything. Here’s a few snippits of what we did yesterday:

First we went to the Aldea (orphanage) and played with the children for about 2 hours. I’ve never been to an orphanage before and it was a lot like playing with our kids here at El Bichito, but just knowing that these were orphans with no family and no home of their own… wow, it completely breaks my heart. But I fell in love with them just as quickly as I fell in love with my Bichito ninos.  I sat and played (and lost) four games of chess with a 16 year old boy named Jose Luis and all the while, the younger kids (whom I haven’t even met) would come and crawl up in my lap and just want to be held and loved. They all called me “Senorita” but that made me feel old, so I tried to get them to call me Elia.  Also, while we were there, we got burnt to a crisp. I remember being warned that Cajamarca is super close to the sun or something so you get a lot of sun really fast, but we didn’t have time to put on sunscreen before we left and I have never been this red in my life! Luckily mine is already starting to turn into a nice tan.

After that we took ourselves around the city and tried to get a feel for it. We spent a good 30+ minutes searching for a certain pizza parlor that we’d been told about and when we finally found it, we discovered that it didn’t open until six, which is too late for us to be in Cajamarca alone. Here are some other things we learned/saw/heard:

A boy our age, who was Mormon, from the States AND spoke English. Meet Elder Parker Seitz from Vernal, Utah. MADE OUR DAY!

Don't mind how tired, dirty and au natural we look, but do notice the cute coats we fell in love with whilst shopping at the mall!

 We walked by a man on a cell phone, after he passed us we heard him tell the person on the other line that he saw a bunch of gringas.

I am much more apt to ask directions or help from a Peruvain man with glasses. They just seem nicer and more approachable.

Pelt the gringas with water balloons as hard as you can is a popular game all throughout the city. Next time, we’ll fight back. 

There was an adorable man our age on the bus who gave us his seat. He was clean and therefore, so cute!

We saw a cage of dead guinea pigs on our way home.

When you order fried chicken…it’s not like KFC. It’s more like normal chicken that has just sat in a pool of oil for an allotted amount of time. 

Old ladies with no teeth follow us around and beg us to by their weird candies.

We made it in and out and around all by ourselves. We are alive! Over all it was tons of fun!

Safety First

Remember when the only safety rules we had to remember were “look both ways before you cross the street” and “stop, drop and roll”? 

Child’s play I tell you. Childs play.

Today we visited with our first (and only friends, thus far) in Peru. Liz and Miguel. We love them! We walked home from  church with them and then they invited us over for lunch. We brought the chicken, veggies and bread and they cooked up some good ol’ American pasta with ketchup! Anyways we stayed and chatted with them for a couple hours and asked them all sorts of questions that we had (Liz is from Utah and interned here at El Bichito a year ago, met Miguel and got married to him about a month ago).  

Here's what we've learned:

To be afraid, be very afraid.. Just kidding!... kind of.

Thievery: They told us that Peruvians are notorious for being robbers. They are good at it and they are fast! They taught us all sorts of warning signs that we’re about to be robbed and precautions to take so that we are not. It was very helpful but kind of scary to think about. Let’s just say we won’t be carrying around backpacks or purses anymore!

Dogs: We go running every morning, and every morning our dislike for dogs increases 10 fold. Not a day goes by where I don’t see at least 80 dogs. They. Are. Every. Where. Apparently when we moved into El Bichito, we gained custody of two dogs ourselves (Andy and another one whose name I can’t pronounce). Anyways as soon as dogs see us come running, they bark SO viciously and bare their teeth and come at us full force. I’ve heard missionaries tell dog stories like this, but holy cow, when it’s you, it’s the scariest thing in the whole world. I’ve never sprinted so fast out of sheer terror in my entire life (mainly because I know those dogs carry all sorts of diseases and they WILL bite you.)

However, we have learned a new trick that I tried several times on our walk back up the mountain today. You simply yell NO at them and bend over and reach for the ground. They instantly think that you are reaching for a rock to throw at them and will run and hide, yet continue with their obnoxious barking. I have to remind myself everyday that I like dogs, because I’m pretty sure after spending 3 months in Peru… I will never, ever come close to a dog again.

Waterballoons: Yes, we have to even take security precautions against waterballons. We went into Cajamarca yesterday where I swear there was a huge announcement that said, “Hit the Gringa’s as hard as you can!” They were literally pelted at us full force. Abigail took one to the arm and my entire backside was soaked by the time we left. They thought it was soooo fun to chuck them at us and watch us try to scramble for cover. It was actually kind of scary because they really did throw them as hard as they could and from not very far away. How we’re going to avoid those? I know not.

Bad Boys: Miguel loves to use the term “bad boys”. He told us that if we are out after dark, the “bad boys” will come find us and take us away. Or sometimes they stalk women and follow them home, so we need to be wary of that too. He also said that if they say hello to us or whistle that we should not even acknowledge them at all cause that means we’re interested (usually we say Buenos dias or hola… whoops!) Also, side note that I forgot to blog about, probably cause I was still in culture shock, but on our first day here, Hermano Sandro was showing us around the city and while we were waiting for the bus a man came up and asked Hermano Sandro if he could purchase us! The nerve. Bad, bad boys.

Either way, we know the key is to be smart.  We try to be extra cautious and aware of our surroundings when we’re out and about and we’re trying to make friends with the Mormon boys so that they can take us around the city.

Speaking of which…. We’ve decided that there is nothing better than a clean, Peruvian, priesthood holder in a white shirt and tie. 

And that's all I'm going to say... for now :) 

......

 Well and this..

His name is Herman David…  I know, I know, in America, that’s a weird name, but when said by a native, it’s the most beautiful name we’ve ever heard!
Shhh don't tell my dad :)

Sunday's are so fantastic here! We are happy, healthy and having so much fun!

I Eat Donkey

So tonight after dinner, Feliciana and Jhony were over at the house for who knows what. They are lovely people and we really like them. We asked them for help with the telephone, but it turns out you need a card to use it. Anyways they stayed and chatted for quite a bit. I’m not sure what we talked about or how we got to the topic of donkeys, but someone said, “Un Burrito”.

So to make conversation, I said, “En Estados Unidos, comemos “burritos”. (in the U.S., we eat burritos). In Peru, a burrito is a small donkey. So Feliciana and her husband started cracking up. I said, “No, no! Son tortillas con queso, frejoles y carne!” (No! They’re tortillas with cheese, beans and meat!)

Feliciana: Carne de BURRO?!?!  BAHAHAhAHAH  

We were all laughing sooo hard. And then I just said “tengo hipos” (I have hiccups) see this post for why that would send Feliciana busting up laughing.  And then she brought up the name I accidentally called Abbi as well as other various language mishaps I have made thus far. 

Sickness Strikes

So as we were contemplating the fact that we had spent one whole week in Peru, we were so amazed that none of us had gotten even the slightest bit sick yet! They told us that within 2 or 3 days our systems would freak out and get us down, but we were all feeling strong… until we said that.

We’ve had a contest going on to see who could go the longest with out getting sick. I must regretfully inform you that I was the first to go.

Last night as we were story swapping I began to notice that my throat was really sore and my nose was stuffed up. I woke up the next morning feeling like I had been hit by a truck, but decided to try and shake it off. We went on our usual morning run down into Banos and that was quite the mistake. I was ready to collapse/throw up/ cough up a lung/have my head explode/shiver to death/die… you name it, I was feeling it. But, not wanting to be the weak link, I kept trying to shake it off and suggested that instead of taking the bus up the very incredibly steep hill home, we should climb up it. What were you thinking Elia?!? 

One foot in front of the other. Just keep moving. You’re almost there.

 And finally, we did make it back to El Bichito. I staggered up the stairs and made it half way onto my bed before I collapsed and slept for who knows how long. I woke up to find that the kids were here and lunch was almost ready. Not wanting to miss a day with the kids (especially since it’s Friday and I won’t get to see them til MONDAY!!!) I decided that I was feeling well enough to go down and play with them. Mistake number three. It was soooo good to see them and have them tease me and hug me and beg me to read to them, but the chaos and moving around did me in. I ate my lunch of rice, arvejas and a deep fried egg and then headed back up to bed. 

How could I not want to spend the day with these kids??

They even do my hair for me!

 I’m feeling pretty good now, except for the fact that I have zippo energy.  Abbi and Brit are in Banos getting some groceries and I miss them already! I haven’t done hardly anything productive today, although I did make my bed and I uploaded a lot of new posts and pictures to facebook. Enjoy!

One Week Celebration!

Last night we celebrated our one week anniversary in Peru. We partied hard, get this:

We treated ourselves to one funsized candybar each… BEFORE dinner! Best Reeses cup I have ever tasted in my entire life.  Then we made tuna veggie patties for dinner along with fresh avocado and pineapple. We also broke into our milk (which is chalked full of sugar!) After that we popped us some popcorn over the gas burner and covered it in cinnamon sugar. 

We took it upstairs and the three of us plopped down onto Abigail and Mine’s bed and cuddled up in our blankets and ate popcorn as we watched 2 full episodes of Full House. It was bliss. 

By around nine o clock (we have a strict 10 pm bedtime) we turned off the laptop and laid in bed and swapped more boy stories. The cute ones, the embarrassing ones and I shared my “Worst Date Ever” story. I felt like I did pretty much most the talking last night, (Abigail has been going to town with boy stories the last couple days ago, and we still need to get more out of Brit) but it was so fun to remember some of my stories and share them. I have some pretty good ones.

And then I believe we were all asleep by 10:30. Which is pretty impressive seeing as Abigail and I have stayed up talking til about 11:30-12:00 the last several nights. It was a great way to celebrate our one-week-iversasry. Don’t worry, we have even bigger plans for our one month anniversary. We might even plan our weddings that night….oooooo!

Dirt and Germs

Los ninos Peruanos are just like American kids in the fact that they crawl ALL over you. We have the kids for about 3 hours every day (although they’re beginning to come early and leave late) and during those hours, there isn’t five minutes that go by without a nino or nina running up and clinging  to me, hopping into my lap, wrapping their arms around my neck, patting my cheeks with their hands, pleating my hair into braids or fishtails, holding my hand, stroking my neck and arms, or just cuddling into my side.

And usually  3 or 4 of these things are happening at the same time with 3 or 4 different kids.  I love it, they are so sweet and so gentle. But, (and I say this in the most loving way possible), I have never seen  such consistently dirty children! They are covered in dirt and often can be found with their hands in places  that make me cringe. Then I watch in horror as they run up to me and pat my face and say “Te Amo Elia, Nunca Vayas por favor” or “I love you Elia, never leave!” And then all the germs and all the dirt that I know will be covering my body by the end of the day don’t matter one bit anymore.  I guess that’s good practice for being a mom.

Also, on a side note. These children don’t wear underwear. I don’t know if it’s a culture thing, or if they just can’t afford it. Or maybe they’re just like American children who sometimes go through a phase where they don’t like wearing  underwear……. (you know who you are ;)

Today for a craft we made fortune catchers and then we played pictionary and got out the puzzles. The children loved it all! We also played futbol and volley. Also big hits!

Peruvian Truck Driver Causes American Woes

Soooo, you haven’t heard from any of us for quite some time because of one reason.

It seems that it is quite impossible for our home to have water, electricity and the phone lines all working at the same time.

On Wednesday, while we were reading outside with some children, a giant truck came up the road and knocked down our phone line. From thence on, we’ve been without phone or internet or anyway to contact the outside world or google the difference between haber and tener.  Google is our best friend and being without it has caused us serious angst. I’ve compiled a whole list of questions that we have that only google can anwer for us. Like the nutrition value of garlic or lentils, or how far we run every morning… things of great importance like such. We’ve kept great journals during the time that the internet was down and we haven’t been able to blog, so expect a plethora of blog posts to follow hereafter!

English Names

Today we each picked a subject to teach and let the kids go to which ever teacher/subject they wanted to learn about. I taught English outside. We worked on saying “Hello, How are you?” Oh my goodness, they sound adorable when they try to speak English! They didn’t really get the “How are you”, but they now have the basic colors down pat!

Some of the kids came and found me later and asked me what their names are in English. I told Katherin that hers was Katherine, it was really hard for her to pronounce the “th”.
Ana Maria was next, I told her that I knew people in America named Ana and Maria, but she wasn’t satisfied with that, so I told her that her name would be MaryAnn. She liked that better. The rest of the kids, I had no idea… so I made them up as close as I could and came up with:

Alessandro: Alexander

Luz Elena: Eloise… haha I know, I know

AlBieri: Albert

We're A Lot Smarter Than We Sound

Ripped Off on the Bus!

We went on our morning run down the hill into Banos to get some groceries and save money on the bus. Our lungs haven’t quite acclimatized well enough to be able to run back up the hill, and we had groceries, so we took a bus back up. We’ve ridden the bus enough times to know exactly how much it costs (1.5 soles for the three of us) but we only had two soles, so we gave it to him and expected our change. The money taker took our soles and then resumed his position on the bus. I said, “oh no you di’int!” (under my breath and in English). 

There is no way that I was going to let that boy think that he could rip off we three white girls that easily. So Abigail and I marched up to him on our way off the bus and Abigail said, “We need our change please.” 

The boy then said: No it’s two soles for three. (which doesn’t make sense at all!)

I said, “No, it’s 50 centimoles per person, 50 plus 50 plus 50 is 1.50. We need 50 centimoles back. Please.”

He sighed deeply and rolled his eyes, but gave us our 50 centimoles! P.S. all of this dialogue was of course in Castellano.
I high fived Abby when we got off, because I was very proud of us!

Love Notes

It is inevitable. I am in love with small Peruvian children. And from the looks of it,  they kind of like me too! 

Today I got five different love notes from my lovely little friends. 

If I had to choose a favorite child for today, it'd by Luz Elena. She is amazing!

From my mischievous little Aurora

This is from 16-year-old Marco, such a sweetheart!

From little Erlita, it came in a cute homemade envelope

They all pretty much say the same thing, things like, “ I love you so much, you are my best friend, you are happy, beautiful and nice. You are like a Princess” (Thank you google translator for telling me what the children are saying to me!) It was also nice to see that they wrote my name "E-l-i-a" I wasn't really sure how to spell it, cause I keep thinking it's "Ellia". Ohhh they make me so happy! 

I seriously fall more and more in love with them every single day, although they seem to have forgotten that we don’t speak very much Spanish. On the first day they were really good about only using small words and not talking very quickly, but maybe it’s just because they were shy. 

Nowadays they are totally comfortable with us and talking at a million miles an hour. 

This sounds weird, but I love to study their faces. They are all so unique and so beautiful in such a natural way! Their skin is gorgeous and their hair is the thickest stuff I’ve ever felt in my life.

These are my boys! I eat my lunch with them and they tease me like crazy. Today they told me that my boyfriend was in love with another woman. When I began to cry they all hugged me and told me I was pretty :)

These dolls are SO good to us. They are so patient with us and help us speak correctly.

This is Ana Maria showing off the bracelet we taught her to make!

 They love to give hugs run up and tickle me when they think I’m not looking. They can be such pills at times and be getting into things they aren’t supposed to, but I can’t even get mad at them (I don’t really know the right words to do so and by the time I find some suitable words, I’m already over it because they’ve melted me with their sweet, little, mischievous smile.)

At night time we can hear them banging on our doors and shouting our names, begging for us to come out and play with them. It's adorable! 

Ahhh I just can't say it enough. Coming to Peru has got to be one of the best decisions I've ever made. I'm learning and changing so much everyday. The things that once meant the world to me are just details that have completely faded away. I've become so grateful for the little things like running water and  electricity (ours are both shut off every day with out notice, but we've learned to do without). 

I can't believe it's not even been a week since we've been here. For sure the hardest week of my life, as drastic as that sounds, but I wouldn't trade it for the world!

Sheer Exhaustion and Our Very First FHE

We had our first FHE this past Monday. It was an exhausting day to say the least. We sorted through lentils for hours ran around with the kids and then had to go into Cajamarca (a huge city) and try and figure out what the man who took us was saying. When we talk to any adults, like Hermano Sandro, they usually direct their words to me, so I am in charge of trying to figure out what they say and then try to figure out an appropriate response.

After about an hour of that, I feel like I have just sat in the testing center for 3 hours taking a test that I knew nothing about, yet I needed to try super hard because my life and two other lives depended on it. It is the most mentally exhausting and draining thing I have ever done. 

 As soon as we got off the bus from Cajamarca I found a chair and just sat. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think, and when I went to offer a prayer on our dinner I couldn’t even find the correct English words to begin the prayer. I felt as if my brain had literally turned to mush.

After a lovely dinner of dry fish, celery, bean sprouts and mushrooms  we went upstairs to our bedroom for FHE. We wanted to sing our opening song in Castellano so we went to LDS.org and just picked a random one. It happened to be “Lead Kindly Light” Appropriate song for our situation? I think so! “The night is dark and I am far from home, lead thou me on.” We then read out of the second half of 2^nd Nephi 4 and applied what we read to ourselves and found ways that we could use it to improve our time here. For our closing song we sang, “I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go Dear Lord” I’ve come to LOVE the words in all three verses.

For activity we accidentally stayed up all night to tell each other about our past and current love life situations. Without giving too much away, lets just say that I have never laughed harder in my entire life. Turns out we've all been in the same boat in multiple ways and we're a lot more alike than we thought. Perfect way to end an exhausting day.

Sometimes When We Don’t Know a Word… We Try and Act it Out

And let me tell you, it is quite the show.

Three Prong Adaptor

We went into town to buy a three-prong adaptor thingy for Abigail’s laptop and for our BRAND NEW fridge. We had no idea what it’s called in Spanish (or English really for that matter) so we put on quite the show as we tried to act out what it was:

 We held up three fingers on one hand, two fingers on the other and the smerged them together with a “CHHHH” sound that was supposed to be electricity. Sheesh, who wouldn’t get what we were talking about from that great description? 

 We went to several different tiendas to try and find it, but to no avail. They all directed us to a store down the road. So we went there and knocked… and waited. And knocked and waited…. Nothing. We went home empty handed. It turns out that the place where we knocked and waited for so long was actually a Polloria, a restaurant that I guess sells mostly chicken. We saw the sign and knew what it said, but for some reason we believed that we could get our adapter there… I’m really glad they didn’t answer cause they would have had a hayday watching us act out a three-prong adapter at a restaurant.

Honey

Today we went to Cajamarca with Hermano Sandro (we think that’s his name… but we might be off). He took us to the Metro (a big supermarket that looks a lot more like America than anything else we’ve seen thus far). We wanted to buy some honey for our bread, but had no idea how to say honey. So we started “BZZZZZZ”ing and flapping our wings around the grocery store in hopes that he would get the idea. He said, “Oh Si, SI!” (I think that was just to get us to stop buzzing and embarrassing him.) And then told me that he knew where the bug spray was. 

I said, “No, no, para comer!”(No, to eat!)

He gave me a disgusted/confused look and said, “Quieres comer insectos?”  (You want to eat insects?)

At that point, I had no idea what to do, our BZZZing clearly hadn’t worked. Then I said, “No, es dulce!”

It finally clicked for Hermano Sandro and he laughed at our little charade.

To Grow

Today we were sorting out bugs, rocks and grass from our lunch of lentils today. Brittany wanted to know where the lentils were grown. (Brittany always has great questions, but they sure are difficult to put into words sometimes.) So we said, Los Lentejos, donde fueron….. (The Lentils, where were they….?) We didn’t know how to say grown or planted or anything of that sort so we did the following:

 (luckily Abby was close by and snapped a picture of us struggling to communicate)

After realizing what we were asking, Feliciana said: “El Suelo” or The ground.
And she thought she was hilarious.
Mornings sorting bugs out of our food are our favorite because Feliciana and Melchora just laugh and laugh and laugh at us! It's so funny, mainly because we have no idea what we did wrong. But oh how we love it here!

“Look at us”

Every once in a while (ohh probably like 4 or 5 times a week) one of us will burst out laughing hysterically for no apparent reason. As soon as the laughing chica catches her breath she simply says, “Just look at us!"

Our eyes instantly drop to see our mismatched clothing that has been haphazardly thrown on in hopes to keep us warm  and then at each other’s dirt smeared, make-up free faces and oily, scraggly hair. We instantly join in with the hysterical laughter. We really need to learn to say “Look at us!” in Spanish, cause we use that often. We are QUITE the sight to see. 

But can I just say that it is so nice! Our electricity and power were off today, so even if we had a decent mirror, we wouldn’t have the light to see ourselves in it. We really do forget what we look like and forget to care. This is so awesome! It takes no time at all to throw on some clean..ish clothes in the morning and get right to work on the important things instead of having to waste time fussing with hair, make-up or ourselves in general.

Please Don't Judge us :)

On that note, we do still brush our teeth, don’t worry. But we do so with bottled water. Grandpa Skousen told us to never let the tap water pass our lips and we’ve been working really hard on following that with exactness. However, it’s just so natural to go in the bathroom and turn on the sink to brush your teeth. We’ve each had at least one mishap with that, but I’m sure we’ll be alright J

Fake It 'Til You Make It

"Tonight, Tonight" by Hot Chelle Rae has become our theme song!

"We’re going at it tonight tonight
There’s a party on the rooftop top of the world (because there are often parties on our rooftop with people that probably aren't supposed to be there)
Tonight tonight and were dancing on the edge of the Cajamarca sign
I don’t know if I’ll make it but watch how good I’ll fake it
Its all right, all right, tonight, tonight

I woke up with a strange bug bite
Not sure how I got it, only soles in my pocket.

La la la, whatever, la la la, it doesn’t matter, la la la, oh well, la la la"

 I sing the two bold lines often because... they are so true. We've been faking it quite a bit here. There has been lots of the following:

Native Speaker: a;ldfjdal;jdl a;lfjdk;ajfdk ;;afjfjkad Entonces, k;jfadl jasdklfj; (at a million miles an hour)
Me: Ahhh, si si! Esta bien!
Native Speaker: No...a;dkfjad;lfj a;kdfja;d Entonces a;fjkadfjad;f
Me: Ahhh, no no?
Native Speaker: ....

Alexandro

Ok so maybe we're not faking it very well. But it doesn't matter because we're here and we're learning and we're loving it!

Some things that I've said that have sent the natives rolling in laughter:

1. "Manana tendre' hipos" Which means tomorrow I will have hiccups" I was just practicing my future tense conjugation (because I never got that far in Spanish class) and so I said that, and HOLY COW they were dying with laughter!"

2. We call Abigail "Abbi" and it sounded like they said that it was a type of bird, so I turned to Abbi and said "Tu eres un pajaro!" (You are a bird!) Again... the old ladies practically had tears streaming out of their eyes. Why? I don't really know.

3. I was telling the story of the Pata Fea (Ugly Duckling), but I kept saying Plata Fea (The Ugly Dish), the ninas haven't let me forget that one.

There are other words that I say thinking that they are correct, but the kids just laugh at me. One that I can't figure out is proxima. I thought it meant next, and I looked it up in the dictionary... sure enough it says next, but apparently the kids don't think so.

#55 Bear My Testimony in Spanish

I was sooo not planning on having this one come up for quite sometime, but alas it did, on my very first Sunday here. Here’s what happened.

We woke up late and had to rush to get ready to catch the bus. Banana for breakfast!

In Relief Society, we didn’t really have a lesson (if we did, than us Gringas totally missed it) It just sounded like they did announcements and Visiting Teaching assignments the entire time and then we had a closing prayer! It was like  15-20 minutes before church was supposed to be out so we were really confused. So all the ladies left the room and went downstairs and then came back up like five minutes later. Apparently the priesthood leaders told them that they had to stay in class for “diez mas minutos” Ten more minutes.

So then, back in the classroom, the ladies took turns standing in front of the class and saying stuff. From what I could gather, they were introducing themselves and then … bearing their testimonies maybe? That’s what I assumed at least, so when it came to be my turn I stood up and said that my name was Elia and that I was from the United States. I said that I knew the church was true and that I knew that the Book of Mormon was the Word of God (In Sunday School we learned about the tree of life and I picked out the phrase “la palabra de Dios” from the verse talking about the Iron Rod in 1 Nefi 8. I’m glad I remembered it from Sunday school so I could throw it in with my testimony! I think I tried saying that I love the Book of Mormon, but it’s kind of a blur. And then I closed in the name of Jesus Christ and sat down. Success!

#14 Obtain a Spanish Nickname

This one came sooner than I was expecting. I introduced myself to Feliciana as Noelle. She said, “Ahhh Noellia!” So I went with it and became Noellia. When the kids came on that very first day, I introduced myself to them as Noellia. They quickly shortened that to “Elia”( El- lee-ah). I absolutely love it! I’ve always wanted a nickname and now I have a super cute one! 

There is a group of boys that have taken a liking to teasing me, but they call me Belia. One of the boys told me that it was because I was “Bella” or beautiful and my name was Elia, so they combined it.

That same group of boys also called me “Pared” for about an hour. 

This is the ring leader of my squad of attackers. We think his name is Diego.. but we're not sure :)

My boys!

 Here’s how they justified it:

Pared means wall, the walls in the center are the color yellow. They know their colors in English and the way they pronounce yellow kind of sounds like Yell-oh-ah. And that kind of sort of sounded like Elia (me) to them. Thus they called me pared, but only for a bit. I’m back to Elia or Belia, or Elia Belia. Either way, I have been given a Castellano nickname and I love it!