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

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

Happy One-Month-In-Peru-iversary: Our First Field Trip

I can’t believe it’s already been a month and that we only have two left. It’s really, really bittersweet! Well to celebrate, we went ALL out. We took the kiddos on a field trip! We are about a 30 minute bus ride from the grand town of Cajamarca. I have come to absolutely love this town and it’s history. Read all about how the Spaniards came and tried to share the gospel, but the Incan King threw the Bible on the ground and didn’t accept it, so the Spaniards took him captive and did all sorts of sad things. Anyways, read more about it, it’s cool.

So today, we took the ninos to Cajamarca and took them to all the historical sites. We hired a tour guide and everything! Here’s how it went down:

We told all the ninos to meet us at 8:00 am on the dot because that’s when we were leaving. We were all ready, the tour guide was here, and we had about 15 ninos ready to go by 8:10, however none of the other adults who were supposed to come with us were there (Feliciana and Melchora). So we waited and waited and finally by 8:45 am, the ladies had come and we were on our way! 

When I say “On our way” I mean that myself and 7 other adults along with 19 small children, piled into a Micro Bus. A bus that should only legally hold…maybe 20 people. There were already a few people on it, and we squished on there with them. I shared a seat with my ninos Fernando and Sonia, with Milagros on my lap. They jibber-jabbered to me the whole time as we were leaving Puylucana and heading into Cajamarca. It was cool though because they were showing me all the places where their relatives lived and worked, so I got to know more about them. The whole time I was making eyes at Brittany and Abigail. We all seemed to be communicating the same thing, “OH MY GOSH, are we crazy?!?! What are we doing on a bus with 20 ninos?!”

We got off at our normal bus stop on a street called Dos de Mayos. From there we walked to a Cathedral. I should know which Cathedral it was, but I could only catch a few things that the tour guide was saying (keep in mind that I spoke and heard no English during this entire 7 hour long field trip).  From there we walked to the Cuarto de Rescate (where the Incan King was held). Next camee other places that I’m not sure what they’re called. Something of Belen, a museum and an old hospital. All of which were really cool! We then hiked up to what is called Santa Apollonia. Lot’s of cool history there too, but to the kids (and a bit to us Gringas) it was just a giant stair case to climb up. The view from the top was breath taking! Definitely worth it and the one sol per person it costs to be up there.

This is where we bid our guide goodbye and he was off to help his wife at the hospital who was going into labor with their first BOY! Baby Boy Barbosa!

We had the ninos bring lunches, so we made camp all about this beautiful mountain top. I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting it, but the lunches the kids brought totally surprised me! Each kid brought a giant Tupperware stuffed full of rice. Some had rice and noodles, some had rice and egg, most had rice and some form of potato. I’m not sure what I was expecting them to bring.

 Lunchables? Fruit snacks? Granola bars? (None of which I have seen in the country, in the slightest).  We probably looked silly with our cute little ham sandwiches, bananas and cookies.  To me, their lunches were super cool!

I was sitting with Aurora who had a big ol Tupperware of rice and potatoes that she shared with her cousin and I asked her if her mom or her sister had made the food for her. But nope, she cooked it all by herself, and I’m willing to bet it wasn’t with a rice cooker or oven. My kids are so cool!

This is Aurora and she is amazing

After lunch we let the kids  go play at a play ground while us adults (weird… I’m the adult on a field trip!) rested up and I snapped some pictures. And finally it was time to go home. At this point our child count had increased to 24 kids (so glad our count went up rather than down!)  and it was back onto the Micro. The Micro we happened to hop on was already pretty stuffed, so I had to stand the whole time, but the kids were safe and we were on our way home, I couldn’t have been happier!

We tuckered these ninos right out!

When we arrived back in Puylucana, I paid the bus and the kisses began. I’m pretty sure that every single one of my ninos (boys and girls) came up and kissed my cheek and gave me a hug and told me they’d see me on Monday. Lots of them did so twice. I think that they really did have fun, and that they learned quite a bit. I know several of them had never had the chance to really see or learn about the city that they grew up so close too, so it was really neat for them to see what they’d been hearing about in school.

Ohh how I love my ninos. And how I love Feliciana and Melchora. And how grateful I am for Abigail and Brittany. The combination of these three loves makes for one way happy girl. 

In the Near Future

February is going to be an exciting month for us! We’ve got quite a bit planned. Mira:

February 8: Gran Picadora- We’re not exactly sure what this is, but we do know that if we bring one sol to the church on Wednesday, we get some of the most amazing homemade Peruvian food ever. I think it’s a fundraiser for the JAS Convention (keep reading for more info on that) coming up, so we just might bring some extra soles and some Tupperware J To support the cause and to satisfy our home cooked food cravings for a  couple days.

February 10: We’re taking the kids on a field trip to Cajamarca (giant city about 30 minutes away). Cajamarca is a really cool city with an awesome history and lots of cool, historical things/buildings to see. So we’ve hired a tour guide, who happens to also be our Bishop AND Stake President (and this guy’s wife is about to have a baby any day now, seriously, if you think you’re busy, THINK AGAIN!)  We’re excited because a lot of the ninos haven’t been able to go to some of these sites and they’re going to learn a lot about where they live. We’re hoping we have time/money to treat them all to ice cream afterwards too!

These women are awesome!

February 14: Valentines Day! We’re not sure how much the people here in Puylucana get into Valentine’s day, but you can bet your bottom dollar that we’ll be celebrating it here! I want to get Feliciana and Melchora flowers/chocolates (tacky in the states..yes, but in Peru.. we’re hitting the jackpot with this one). I want to write love notes for all of my ninas and think of something nice to do for my ninos.  Also, we have lots of friends in the ward and we’ve made friends with several of the tienda owners in the stores that we shop at frequently, so we want to make cookies and write notes and deliver those to all of our friends in Banos. Twill be a great day!

February 20: Hoodie Hoo day. It's a national holiday...in America. But I must celebrate it here. It's tradition

February 11-23: We’re pretty much not allowed to leave our house during these several days. Why? Because Peruvians celebrate Carnival (Think Mardi Gras, but crazier) all month long and it simply isn’t safe for three white girls to go out. People travel from all over to celebrate Carnival here in Cajamarca. The price of hotel rooms/transportation etc skyrockets and hundreds of people end up sleeping in the Plaza de Armas (Kind of like a big park in the center of town). Miguel said that some people even die because they spend all day getting wet and then sleep outside and die of hypothermia! Crazy, no? If you’re ever bored, look up Carnaval in Cajamarca. It’s supposed to be pretty intense. So since we’ll be locked inside for several days, we’re more than open for ideas of crazy things to do on our own to celebrate carnival!

Aurora dancing with Keiko

February 23-26: JAS Convention- JAS stands for Jovenes Adultos Solteros (Young Single Adults). This is a giant youth conference type thing for ALL the Young Single adults in Cajamarca as well as in Chiclayo. We’ll spend three straight days in Cajamarca, doing all sorts of fun things! There are two dances scheduled. One called “Baile de Gala” which google directly translates to “PROM!” haha we died when we saw that. Especially since the dressiest shoes we have are our Chacos. Looks like a shopping trip is in order… and maybe some Peruvian dance lessons. 

Something tells me this isn’t going to be like a typical Stake Dance. Either way, we are SO EXCITED for the convention. We’ll get to meet hundreds of Peruvian youth our age!

February 29: LEAP DAY! How does one celebrate leap day? I haven’t a clue. But I’m going to Celebrate and it is going to be fabulous.

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!

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.

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!

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.