Awkward+Awesome: War Zone

So today was the big Carnaval parade in Cajamarca. Since it would take forever to give you all the details, allow me to direct you for Abigail’s full-length amazing coverage here.

But for just a few bits of excitement, continue onward. Also, forgive me for having  no pictures of the amazing things that I’m going to try and describe to you, because bringing a camera to this event would have been suicidal.

Awesome: The world’s most extreme water fight in the entire world. Water balloons, guns, buckets EVERYWHERE.

Awkward: Being in a group of 5 gringos in the midst of THOUSANDS of Peruvians who love nothing more than to see a white girl cry.

Awesome: Bringing a bit of our own ammo to throw right back at them and learning how to properly tie and fill a water balloon. Seriously, it’s an art here. I thought I was pretty good at filling balloons until I met these kids. You fill them and then push all the water down so that it’s a really tight balloon and will explode on contact, and then you tie it a special way.

Awkward: This awesome way of tying balloons makes them hurt SO much when they hit you! 

Awesome: Being SO popular. Everywhere we go, “Gringas! Gringas! Hello! Good Morning!”

Awkward: When they say, GET THE GRINGAS and announce to everyone who can hear that unarmed Gringas are rapidly approaching. At one point  I yelled, “No! Soy Peruana!” (I’m sure they got a kick out of that one).

And confession: After my face had taken a beating, I got scared and would sprint through the scary parts, making myself a gringa alone and unarmed. The people loved this and would get ready to throw, but I’d yell, “Wait, there are lots more gringas coming! Save your balloons!!! Haha it didn’t really work…but it was worth a shot!

Awesome: Getting shot at with water guns. Seriously, this was a welcome attack because it meant that we weren’t being pelted at with fierce, hard, hurtful balloons.

Awkward: Being hit from balloons come from the top of five story buildings. You can’t see it coming and the force is EXTREME.

Awkward: Being two heads taller than the average person walking down the street. My face will never be the same. It took hit after hit after hit. And when they get the back of your neck….OUUUUUCH!

Awesome: Sitting down and watching other people get hit. It still made me cringe to watch people get hit because I know what kind of pain they’re going through…but oh baby it was funny to watch them get hit out of nowhere and look around in confusion.

Awesome: Watching a man come kiss a woman hello, and the moment they kiss, both of their faces are pelted with one big fatty water balloon. Oh, I died.

Awkward: Having nowhere to watch the actual parade because no body wants to sit by a group of gringo water magnets

Awesome: Having a group of drunk Peruvians invite us to go stand on top of their rickety, about to fall over pick-up truck.

Awesome: Actually taking up their offer and watching the parade in quite possibly the most dangerous way possible. 5 super tall white people standing on a truck with drunk Peruvians… pretty much we were wearing a “Hey, in case we’re not wet enough, please hit us again…and again and again!” and hit we were.

Awesome: I seriously had so much fun. It was fun sprinting down the street trying (and failing) to make it by the big crowds without being hit. It was fun trying to catch the balloons that were thrown at us. It was fun being with our friends, it was fun seeing awesome floats and it was just fun being in Peru.

Awkward: Trying to get home and passing at least 10 men who were relieving themselves in all sorts of public places and then realizing that we’re walking in that the whole way home. I guess that’s what you get when you mix a bunch of beer and no public restrooms.

Awkward: The pain. I know I’ve gone over how bad we got hurt. But take how bad you think it hurt…then multiply it by 84.

Awesome: The fact that we have the best friends family in Peru ever. Liz and Miguel and Aleksi have been incredible to us and cease to amaze us with their kindness. Before and After the parade Miguel’s mom, Momita fed us SO much and it was SO good! Also, since we were soaked and freezing cold, Liz, Miguel and Aleksi all brought out practically every dry article of clothing they owned and let us change into them. Seriously, some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. We are so blessed!

Well, I can say that I’ve survived Carnaval in Cajamarca (except for the fact that the parties continue to go on all month…so there will be more to survive), I can’t say that I’d want to do it again anytime soon, but don’t regret going one single bit!

Sporting Liz, Miguel and Aleksi's clothing!!

When I get home I can teach you the Peruvian art form of water balloon tying, and you’re life will never be the same again J

Valentine's Day in Peru

Valentine’s Day in Peru is probably up there in my top three all times Valentine’s days…possibly top 2 (Ok, so I can’t remember any SUPER great Valentine’s days, but I like to think that I’ve had good experiences with this lovely holiday).

Here’s how it happened:

The morning started beautifully. I got mucho amounts of laundry done and hung out, I did Ab Ripper X and I took a cold shower. So Far so Good!

Also, we got two sets of flowers :) Perfect!

Almost no kids showed up today.. maybe like 40 total, which is a lot less than usual. We made them each Valentine’s with really yummy suckers. Brit took the boys to go play futbol and a lot of the girls ended up going with them. Abby and I were left with just one little girl.

I was pretty tired, so I came upstairs, did some blogging and sacked out for a good 20 or so minutes. When I woke up, it was time to go to into Cajamarca. We had with us Alecksi and Ricardo and were going to meet up with Robert, Jorge and Daniel at the movie  theater in the Mall.

We watched a movie called Los Illusianauts. It was Peruvian made and only in Spanish (no subtitles). Even though I didn’t catch all of the dialogue, I know for a fact that it is a movie I will never have the desire to see again. Pretty much it was a cartoon about a boy with deadly flatulence and his friends. Super gross.

Our Movie theater snacks: We go into the Peruvian store and come out with all things American...lame

After the movies we walked over to Capilla Aueropuerto and met some of Ricardo’s family. We waited there until it was time to walk over to the Capilla Pueblo Libre for our first Peruvain YSA dance.

While waiting for the dance we delivered our Valentines to our friends (we gave them homemade chocolate chip cookies!) We also told them all about American Dancing customs….like how you dance in a big circle to the fast songs as opposed to with one partner and you know…just the other basic American customs: Dancing while combing our hair with forks, dancing on our knees at REALLY elegant dances,(girls wear knee length dresses to these dances, and boys cut off their tux pants at the knees) and the really cool kids dance without shoes. We are so bad.

And the dance began! With an opening prayer, spiritual thought and a hymn.

Latin music, Reggatone, Brasilian Music, Columbian Music and a bit of unedited “I Want to Be a Billionaire..” American music.

It was SO much fun! We pretty much got paired up with one partner for most of the night and they taught us the ways of latin dancing..Salsa, Merengue etc.  I asked my partmer where he learned and he said that pretty much everyone is born just knowing, “It’s in my latin blood”. And that’s when I got jealous because this girl has not an ounce of latin blood and even less rhythm so dancing does not come easily for me!

But our friends were more than willing to teach us and help us learn. The last hour of the dance is called “Hora Loca” and it started with confetti being thrown in our faces, balloons and streamers being thrown and an hour of upbeat music where you aren’t allowed to sit down!

While we dance, people come around offering you small treats on silver platters and if you sit down, you are lazy. Towards the end of the dance, the DJ started playing a slew of popular American music. We of course were rocking out to these songs and singing them at the top of our lungs. The DJ thought it was super hilarious to blast the music and then turn the volume off so that it was just us singing. He did that multiple times. While we were dancing to this English stuff I looked around and found that we were the ONLY ones on the dance floor. Everyone else was sitting and just watching us…laughing of course J But we’re used to that and continued with our interpretive/crazy dancing.

Oh it was sooo fun! We took lots of videos, but alas, they would take forever to upload here, so if you’re curious, find me when I get home and I will show you Stake Dances, Peruvian style.

Also, there is a really formal YSA dance next week…it’s a big deal, and translated into English it’s called Prom!!! And it just so happens that I got asked to it during this dance! At first I didn’t really realize what was going on, but it looks like I’ve got myself a date to the fancy dance!

We came home that night exhausted but happy. It’s how we’ve been ending most of our days recently. I think it means that they day was a grand success!

Hope yours was too!

-Elia

Noche De Hogar

Oh my goodness,  FHE in Peru is the greatest. I thought I would miss having my Rexburg FHE groups and the friends and fun that come with that , but I’m pretty sure my Peru FHE’s have topped a great deal of my college FHE’s.

So we went to a family in the ward’s home. Dirt floors, tin roof, make-shift walls and couch. We had an opening song and prayer and then we all went around and shared our favorite scripture and why. Ever since our little “We don’t need the Book of Mormon” fiasco that happened on Sunday, I’d been studying specifically about the Book of Mormon and shared a verse about that and bore my testimony. I decided that talking about the church in Spanish is a lot easier than trying to talk about anything else in Spanish, so I totally don’t mind doing stuff like this.

After we all shared our thoughts, we had a closing song and then I said the closing prayer. The man of the house called on me to pray, and then it was time for activity.

We played the funnest game of hot potato I have ever been a part of! Ohhhhh goodness. We sat in a circle passing around a little kids toy ball while one person stood with their eyes clothes chanting “Papas secema, papas secama”  and then when they wanted to stop, they say, “papa secemO” and whoever is holding the ball at that point is the loser. If you lose three times, you get a punishment. Alecksi’s punishment was that he had to go outside and yell at the top of his lungs that his pig died. The older man of the house lost too, so his punishment was “Poor Kitty” so he had to get down on his hands and knees and try to make someone laugh by meowing and pawing at their leg. Ohhh it was hilarious to see this old Peruvain man do this.

We also played, Habla Chanco Habla. That’s where one person is blindfolded in the middle and they spin and whoever they landed on had to honk like a pig and the person in the middle has to guess who it is. Holy cow, it is the most hilarious thing in the world to listen to a 60ish year old Peruvian woman who is missing major teeth, snort like a pig.

Oh good times.

Here’s what else is great, even though FHE didn’t get over til like 9:30, it’s Peruvian custom to feed the guests. So after our games, out came the food! We had yummy popcorn and really good buttered bread along with some AMAZING tea that just warmed our souls. It was called herba lousia I believe and we loooved it dearly.

Noche de Hogar with Peruvian families in their homes, totally one of the things I’ll miss most about Peru.

Foot in the Mouth

Totally had a horrible “whoops!” moment last night!

We were at one of the chapels and like three sets of missionaries come in. They made the rounds, said hello and shook each of our hands.

Sidenote: For some reason, the white elders won’t talk to us! I mean they say “Hola” and shake our hands, but that’s it. They never want to talk about where we/they are from or anything in English. Is that normal? Brothers, were you like that around white girls? It doesn’t offend us or anything, it just caught us off guard.

So there is this one ethnic Elder named Elder Nicaragua. I said hello and asked him where he was from, of course….he said, Nicaragua, and then he turned away from us and began a discussion with another Elder. 

I turned to Brittany and Abigail and said (in English) “I think he’s lying to us…”

Without hesitation, Elder Nicaragua turns around and says (in English): “No, I’m not lying!”

Me: “You Speak ENGLISH?!?!”

Him: Yes :D

Oh boy did I feel silly. 

Lesson learned: Just because you’re in Peru don’t assume that every non-white person here doesn’t speak English.

Just Another One Of The Locals

You know that feeling when you think you’ve had the greatest day ever….and then the next day is just as good if not better? Well, here’s the thing. That has pretty much happened every day here in Peru. It just gets better and better and better. Remember how awesome our Friday was? Well Saturday may have topped it.

Here’s why:

We started our morning off with a run into Cajamarca. We’ve come to love the stretch of land from Banos to Cajamarca and were set with our tunes and our tennis’ to take it on on this sunny, Saturday morning. We didn’t have much planned for the day, so we thought we’d stroll through Cajamarca to see what we could find. We found sweet after treat after sweet. Cajamarca is dusted with dozens of quaint little bakeries and panaderias. Each filled to the brim with fresh bread, empanadas, and sweet treats I couldn’t pronounce or prepare if I tried all day. We decided to do a cake walk of our own and stop at every single panaderia that we passed to buy one treat to split. It was so much fun and we tried all sorts of yummy new treats! None of which were very close to the treats we’d find in American bakeries.

After that, we got a nasty bite from the shopping bug and went up to Santa Appolonia to do some shopping in the little shops filled with cool Peruvian things. At this point we were on a time crunch because Liz and Miguel and Alecksi had invited us over for a homemade Peruvain lunch! (Wahoo!) Well, right as we were walking out of our last little shop, guess who we saw!? Our friend Robert (who we had gone out for Pizza with the previous Wednessday). We couldn’t believe that we actually ran into somebody that we knew in Cajamarca!! Awesome. For sure. After chatting with him for a bit, he invited us to come back into Cajamarca that night so that he and Jorge could treat us to one of their favorite Peruvian meals at a really good restaurant. Of course we were down for that, so we rushed off to the Quinde to do some rapid shopping (we needed ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies, and a chicken ) and then bused home.

The second we got home, Brit hopped in the cold shower while Abby and I gathered our things to take a hot shower in Banos (a Saturday tradition, anddd since we were going out that night, we needed to smell about 100 percent better than we smelled at the moment).

On our way down to Liz’s for lunch, a white guy on a bike passed us and said, “Hey, hows it going? You look lost.” I think that would have offended me if I hadn’t been so shocked that a white man in Puylucana was speaking ENGLISH to us. After chatting with him for a bit, we learned that he and his wife are from New Hampshire and that he works in the mines. His wife needs white friends, so stay updated on our new friends Danielle and Charlie.

Meanwhile, lunch at Liz and Miguel’s was incredible!! We had Lomos Saltaba (sp?) and I just about died and went to heaven. So delicious!  Have I mentioned lately how great Liz and her family are? Because we truly love them. Liz then went through and helped us plan our wild adventure into the Amazon jungle and into Cuzco. Let’s just say that we are a little bit more than SO EXCITED for that little adventure of a lifetime!

Since we were supposed to meet up with Robert and Jorje in Cajamarca at 5, we split up to get work done from here. Abby and I went to go shower while Brit went to buy water. We met up with perfect timing and we were Cajamarca bound in no time.

At this point, (and for the past 4 hours) the rain had not stopped pouring on us. So we were wet and quite the sight to see. But Jorge and Robert easily spotted the wet, gringas with brightly colored umbrellas, so we didn’t even have to wait long for them in the giant park.

We took a Taxi down to San Martin and were pleasantly surprised and treated to a wonderful meal at a comparatively fancy restaurant. We had Papas Fritas, ensalada y Pollo a la brazza (sp?) and we loved every bite of it. 

We had an awesome conversation with our Peruvian friends and it is helping our Spanish improve leaps and bounds. Since we can only communicate with them in Spanish, and awkward silences are not my thing, this forces me to work extra hard on speaking and understanding what they’re saying. By the end of the night I truly felt like we were speaking the same language and that it came so easily. At one point, I completely just asked them a question in English because I had forgotten that they spoke something different from my native tongue. It wasn’t hard or difficult any  more, it was almost (ALMOST) like speaking English to my American friends.

Our lovely new gentleman friends helped us get a bus (and paid for it) and accompanied us all the way to our front door (even though it’s 30+ minutes away from their homes, what gentleman!) We were talking outside for quite some time and we accidently made them miss the bus to take them back to Cajamarca….actually we made them miss it three times!!! By this point, it was too late and no more buses were coming, so we bid our friends adieu as we watched them walk home on a cold, dark night. We felt kind of bad about that J

We came home, made some popcorn and continued planning and preparing our amazing Amazon adventure, and I got to talk to my Pops and Beebs on the phone, always a pleasure.

SO it was a fabulous, fantastic, awesome day! We have big plans for this week too, with our kids, ourselves and our new friends! P.S. It’s Carnaval this week too, pray that we don’t die!

-Elia

A Lesson In Photography

I’ve taken my fair share of pictures while here. Thousands. Of the people. Of places. Of everything. It’s expected right? I am in Peru after all.

Here’s what’s not expected:

People here LOVE taking pictures of us! One day we were walking home from the store when a van full of men pulled over. We thought they were offering us a ride, so we waved them along their way, but they all pulled out their camera phones and were taking pictures of us! So, we followed our immediate instincts and posed for them.

Another day, we were walking home from an art studio when we passed a group of teenagers. One girl ran out with her camera phone and took a picture of us, and then asked to take a picture with us! We felt like celebrities.

This is not an uncommon occurrence. Well today, while I was eating my lunch on top of Santa Apolonia overlooking the beautiful Cajamarca, four of my little ninas ran up to me waving a camera phone in my face, saying that they needed a picture of me. It turns out that a Peruvian boy, also on the mountain had seen me and wanted a picture, so he had given his phone to my ninas with the orders to go get a picture of me. Now this might have been flattering if this were the first time something like this had happened, but I’m starting to get smarter. So I did, what my dear friend Liz taught me and I told my ninas to tell the boy that sure he can have a picture, but it’d cost him one Sol.

Not bad eh? He agreed, but I felt bad taking his money, so he got his picture of the sunburnt, dirty, blonde gringa.

 Update: The night after I typed up this blog, we went out to eat with our new friends and sure enough, before we left the restaurant the waitress and the cook had asked our friends if it was ok for them to get a picture with them. Of course we said yes and made two more new friends. We’re ALL about making friends.

We’ve also been teaching Peruvians the art of picture taking. No, not the rule of thirds or the lighting/composition/contrast etc. We’re teaching them that 1^st you take a nice cute picture and then you MUST take un foto loco! They get really confused and then we demonstrate how to take a silly/goofy/crazy picture. Sometimes they will imitate exactly what we do, while other times they will just stand there looking confused.

My Peruvian Nightmare

For some reason in Peru, I have and remember my dreams every night.

It's practically the same dream every night with slight variations as to the setting, characters and time frame.

Setting:

I am all of a sudden home from my Peruvian ventures. (Home is a term I use loosely to describe practically anywhere in the USA.)

I'm with friends/family/old acquaintances answering questions about my time in Peru.

It all of a sudden hits me that I didn't do anything in Peru! I didn't make a difference in anybody's lives, I didn't teach anybody anything, I still can't speak Spanish, I didn't see the sites I wanted to see. Heck, I didn't even bring home one single Peruvian anything! It's almost as if I never even went.

At this point I am frantic. What was I thinking? Why did I waste so much time and money? Why didn't I just stay in America and get married? Etc. Etc.

Enter [stage left] all the people (you know who you are :) who discouraged me (seriously or in jest)  from coming to Peru in one way or another. Those who said I wouldn't last two weeks. Those who said I'd never learn the language. Those who said "Wait... does this even have anything to do with your major?" Those who said I'd come back too old and too career driven to find a husband. Yada, yada, yada the list goes on. These people are all there, rubbing these facts/opinions in my face, smothered with 1000 "I told you so's".

Are you getting depressed yet? Because I sure do each time (every night) I dream about this. 

The upside to this nightmare is that I wake up. 

I wake up SO relieved to find myself in my little Peruvian bed under my Peruvian mold with my Peruvian bug bites and 100x more motivated to make the most of my time here. 

I count everyday that I wake up here a blessing because it means that I have yet another opportunity to make a difference.

 Whether it be by sitting with 13-year-old Luis during lunch and asking him about his hopes and dreams, his fears and his concerns. Or maybe it's by letting 3-year-old Antony chase me all around the room, laughing hysterically the whole time until he finally catches up with me and throws his arms around my neck and plants a kiss on my cheek. 

   Iknow they're just little things. But in my heart of hearts, I know that I'm making a difference here, and will continue to do so, little by little and with big things as well. Speaking of which, we've planned our first field trip with the kids. Stay tuned for more on that.

To top it off, can I just say that I am SO happy? I love my little ninos so much more than I ever thought possible. The shy ones, the outgoing ones. The chubby ones, the loud ones, the smart ones, the ones who write me sweet notes or make me cute bracelets, the ones who teach me bad words and bad hand gestures, the ones who have nothing, the ones without families, the ones who smell like they haven't seen water in months, the ones who kiss me hello and goodbye every time they see me. Ahhhhh yes. I am indeed  SO happy.

-Elia

P.S. Have I mentioned lately how awesome my parents are for 150% supporting me on my adventures from day one? Because they have and they are. For which I am eternally grateful.

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!

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. 

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.