A Picture's Worth 10,000 Spores

 Ok so here’s the full scoop (kind of) on the mold story.  Here’s the reason we’ve evacuated our second story (where we live) and are being threatened to leave our lovely town to go to a strange new Peruvian city several hours away (ahhhh even just typing it breaks my heart!)

So when we first moved in, we noticed that our ceilings are covered in mold…lots of it. Looking back, we now realize that we were all just in culture shock with absolutely everything that was going on around us, so we thought that ceilings carpeted in mold was just a normal thing in Peru, thus we didn’t think too much about it.

Welcome to our bedroom :)

This is normal right???

 Well last week, we had Peruvians come and see the mold. I was shocked at how shocked they were! “THIS IS NOT NORMAL!” they all said and couldn’t believe that we’d been living there for a month.

When Abigail found THIS, we knew we had to do something

We informed headquarters about our living conditions and they were appalled as well. They told us to get out of there at once and that they'd get to work on taking care of it. 

So on the day of the water fight and of the accident, we packed up all of our stuff and moved it downstairs. We went through every article of clothing and everything we owned to check it for mold. I didn’t have too many things go moldy, but Brit and Abigail both had some doozies.  

We invested in cheap masks!

We moved everything into our new bedroom/storage/dining room/living room etc

From much studying and researching on mold, I have found that it is best not to disturb that nasty stuff, because once it gets airborne, you're in for a treat (lungs made of mold). Well it's a good thing I don't know how to communicate that to angry Peruvian men!

Feliciana's husband came in one night while we were sleeping downstairs and was like, "what the...? why are all the gringitas and their junk downstairs?"

So the next morning he comes in and was like, "Uh why is all your stuff downstairs?"
I told him that a man was coming to look at the mold and he kind of flipped out.

Pretty much he said that we didn't even have money for supplies to finish the third floor (which is true) and we surely didn't have money to pay a man to come paint over the mold that is just going to come back with the third floor unfinished (also true). He then proceeds to say that we can take care of the mold ourselves (FALSE!)

Here's where it gets bad. He's saying all this to me while Brit is in Banos and Abby is in the shower. So I'm alone with this angry Peruvian who then takes a BROOM (remember what happened with Feliciana and the broom? Like husband like wife) and starts sweeping the mold off the ceiling and straight into my lungs. Ohhh how I tried not to breathe it in, but it was inevitable because he was going to town.

Shoot, shoot, shoot!! What do I do?

I say, Ok! Yeah thanks! We'll do that later! Tomorrow morning! Al the while I'm praying that I don't die and that he'd just stop and leave.

Eeeek as soon as he left I ran and found my mask and stuck it on and went outside to get fresh air while people looked at me funny.

Anyway, since it's Carnaval and since it's the rainy season, and we're broke, the mold problem probably won't be fixed for quite some time. Eagle-Condor doesn't want us here, because it's super dangerous....so they want to send us to an orphanage all the way down in Trujillo. Which would be super cool if it weren't for the fact that I have made AMAZING friends in Cajamarca, I am madly in love with my kids, I love Puylucana, Banos and Cajamarca so much and the thought of leaving it all so early is seriously heartbreaking.

 I'm pretty sure I'm refusing to go.
Actually i know for a fact I won't go.
I'll find a friend in the ward to stay with or something.
It's going to take a lot more than a house covered in black mold to get me to leave this little bit of heaven I call home.

-Elia

Hurrah For Israel

Have you ever wondered what you’re first instinct/reaction would be if you were to witness an accident? Are you a fighter or a flighter? Would you run to find help or respond to the scene yourself as fast as you could? I’ve often wondered this. I pass out at the sight of blood and even talking about accidents makes me queasy. I am not tough when it comes to this sort of thing. So I’ve often wondered what I’d do if I were to witness an accident of some sort.

Well, on Friday, I found out.

We had just had an awesome water fight to celebrate Carnaval with our kiddos. (If you haven’t yet, read about it here first, it might make this post make a bit more sense)

Well at three o clock, after much chasing, chucking, and ducking for cover, I was cold, wet, tired and ready to end this fiesta.  Of course the kids weren’t. I retreated upstairs and watched the kids continue to battle it out from the window on my second floor. Feliciana and Melchora were also watching from a window in a different room. 

Israel is an adorable kiddo with a big smile, a big heart and a little bit of mischief mixed in there. He was on Ricardo’s team for the water fight, determined to not leave a single dry square inch on my body.

This is my Fierce Israel

Israel (the lion in the middle) with his Camo brother Lazaro and his spiderman neighbor Reuban

I painted all of Israel's siblings faces. This is four of the 8 in their family

He had taken his shirt off and was standing on the ledge of our side walk, laughing in triumph at my retreat.  Ninos were cheering in agreement, and I watched in horror as Israel lost his balance on the ledge and fell backwards off of it and onto who knows what. I knew that there was a 6 or 7 foot drop off, but I wasn’t sure what was on the other side.  I just knew that he had gone straight back off of it.

So here we are. I just witnessed a crisis. My little boy was down. From what I could tell, there were no other adults around.  And…Here’s what I did.

I screamed! Just one, kind of short, scream.

Then I ran.

I sprinted down the hallway, literally flew down the stairs, taking 3 or 4 at a time, flung the door open, sprinted across the road and found a path down to where Israel had fallen, not knowing what I was going to find. It didn’t really pass through my mind that he could be unconscious or dead, I just knew I had to get down there and do something.

I found Israel on the ground, his body contorted, conscious and crying hysterically (THANK GOODNESS!). His legs were underneath him and he was holding his left arm in pain. I looked up to the group of people standing up on the ledge looking down on us.  All my ninos had gathered round and I found Melchora’s face in the crowd. Desperate for help, I yelled out, “What do I do?”. Of course, no one answered me (I spoke in English) and at that point Aleksi had rushed down and was by my side with Israel.

I knew that you weren’t supposed to move bodies when there was a chance of broken bones until there was a trained professional there, so I was hesitant. And then it hit me, “Hello Noelle. You are in the tiniest little city in Peru, and the closest hospital is 30+ minutes away, and even if we could get someone to help him, Israel comes from a family of 8 children. They are as poor as poor can be and could not afford the medical bills, doctor visit, let alone the bus ride up there. How on earth is this going to work out?”

Aleksi and I carefully lifted Israel out of the trench and carried him up the hill and back up to the sidewalk. Ricardo (who had been off with his devious team, plotting an extreme attack against me….) showed up right then and took Israel from us and brought him inside to lay him on the table.

At that point, Israel was still crying, the kids were following us in a little train and my mind was racing. Ok we have to check his entire body and see what’s hurt the worst, we have to get him warm and dry, we have to make him comfortable, we have to calm him down. I think at this point I got a little bossy (forgive me!) “Abby, can you get a towel and a shirt or jacket?” “Aleksi, Ice and a pillow!”  And then my American’s were gone and I was left in a room full of Peruvians, and a hurt Israel.

And then I witnessed a miracle. 

Ricardo (who speaks English and Spanish, wahoo!!!) was awesome! I knew what had to be done, but I haven’t gotten to the chapter in my Spanish book that talks about accidents or injuries so I had no idea how to express to Israel what I needed him to do or tell me. 

Luckily Ricardo was on the same page and knew exactly how to handle it. We went through Israel’s body, head to every last pinky toe and made sure that he could move it in every plausible direction and that it didn’t hurt.

 I cringed when we got to his legs, expecting the worst. He was scared too and hesitant to move them.  It took some coaxing to let him allow us to bend his knees, rotate his feet and twist his hips. His right hip was really sore and giving him lots of grief, I figure that must’ve hit the ground first. 

His knees: clear. His ankles: clear. His feet: clear. His toes: clear, each and every last little toe.

His tummy: fine His arms: a bit scratched up, but I cleaned those right up with my first aid kit (wahooo Nurse Noelle!). His shoulders: Good as gold. Elbows: working great. His one wrist was in a lot of pain, but from what we could tell, it wasn’t broken. Wahooooo!!!!

Next came the big test, can he walk? Again, he was hesitant to put his weight on his legs and walk by himself, but we were pretty adamant and guess what? He walked like a champ. Yes, it was slow and shaky, but one foot in front of the other, he propelled himself forward.

Oh my goodness, I couldn’t believe it. How was this little boy walking away with only a sore hip, wrist and a scratched up arm? I’ve replayed watching him fall from the window over and over again. From that very instant he fell, I knew that major damage was going to be done.

I tried to count the number of silent and verbal prayers I offered from the moment he fell to the moment Ricardo and I dropped him and his siblings off at his home, but it was impossible. There were prayers offered out of urgency, from confusion, from the need for enlightenment. Countless, “Please let him be ok, please let him be ok.”.  Prayers asking Israel’s pain to subside. Prayers asking for him to be calm and at peace. And finally prayer after prayer of gratitude.

Israel and his brother Lazaro

Thank you so much for the prayers said on my behalf and that of my ninos. As I sat next to Israel while we were checking him for injury, my job was to mainly keep him calm and comfortable. I held him close while he sat up and stroked his head while he laid down. In that moment, I realized that I love these kids so much. I wished so badly that I could trade places with him. I knew that if I had broken an arm or leg, sure it’d stink big time, but I’d manage. I couldn’t stand the thought of one of my kids being seriously hurt. So thank you for keeping them in your prayers because I’d be a mess without them.

Oh I am so grateful that he is ok. Like I said before, these kids are poor, in a way that I don’t think you or I can fully comprehend (at least I know I can’t). I was so scared that he was going to need medical treatment that he simply would never have the opportunity to get.

But he’s safe, he’s well, he’s a little sore, but he’ll be alright. And for that word’s cannot express my joy and gratitude.

Hurrah for Israel, Hurrah for Israel.

P.S. Keep in mind that this was also the day of our Extreme Mold Crisis (blog post coming soon) where we were told we had to pack up and leave THIS instant. Talk about stress!

Attack of the Ninas

This week and next, all of Peru, and who know’s where else, is celebrating Carnval. Cajamarca happens to be the capital of Carnaval and it’s dangerous, so we decided to avoid the crowds and just have a mini celebration with our ninos.

IT WAS A BLAST!!!

We had an awesome lunch of….you guessed it, lentils and rice! (oh and we made some pink lemonade to share with the kids, they LOVED that and couldn’t figure out why it tasted like lemon, but it was pink ;)

We started off with face painting. For those of you who don’t know, you can take water color colored pencils, dip them in water and voila, they become instant face painting brushes. It’s beautiful.

It was so fun to paint their faces. I’m not artistic to say the least, but take a gander of some of our creations J

Spiderman was a popular request, I did the bottom one

Me pretending to know what the red power ranger looks like...I love being the adult!

I painted these three, spiderman a lion and camoflauge

Blue Power Ranger!

My little flower face

Next came the water fight. It was a surprise attack! I had spent the morning filling up water balloons and had them stashed away upstairs ready to whip out at the right moment.  I had rallied up all the ninas, loaded them all up with water balloons and gave strict instructions to get out there and attack the boys with…no mercy! Oh it was soooo fun!!! I loved every minute of it! Most of the little boys were absolutely intent on taking me down, but my girls were amazing and kept me as safe as they could (granted I still got soaked through and through).

Some of the stinker boys (you avid blog followers know exactly who I’m talking about J ) ran home and armed themselves with their heavy duty water guns and came back ready for war. When our balloons ran out, we armed ourselves with buckets and cups and anything that could hold water. 

Doesn't Allesandro look fierce with half his makeup washed off?

At one point, I could see that we were being over powered by the sheer number and ravenousness of the boys (compared to the sweet gentleness of all most of my girls). So I used my awesome war tactics and made a public announcement:

Hey boys! Who want’s to be on the winning team? Who wants to be on…MY TEAM!?!?

And then I began chanting, “No more Ricardo, Team Elia is going to win!” (haha sorry Ricardo!)

And partly to my surprise, and entirely to my enjoyment, a giant pack of little boys ran down the hill chanting along with me, ready to fight on my team! Oh it was awesome. They ditched their shirts and their smeared face paint looked like dramatic war paint. I had myself a little band of fierce Lamanites! 

Feliciana and Melchora even got in on the fun. One minute I was sittin pretty observing the water fight and the next thing I know, I'm being soaked and sprayed by water. I look up to find Feliciana and Melchora up on our roof with a hose laughing hysterically. They thought they were SO funny...but really, they were!

It was SO much fun and I know the kids loved it just as much as I did. We had awesome weather too! Tons of sunshine! 

Well I wish I could say the day ended on that good note, but I'm afraid THE SCARIEST part of my ENTIRE TIME IN PERU came just seconds after our amazing afternoon. 

Keep your eyes peeled for the next blog post about my dear friend Israel.

Ciao Ciao!

-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. 

Crafty Children

Hello friends!

 First of all, thanks for all the love you’ve been showing the blog! I love your comments/emails/tips/words of encouragement. Thanks so much!!!

This post is to announce a new project we’re working on here at El Bichito. Read carefully, because YOU are a big part of this.

We’ve recently taught the dearest ninas how to crochet! 

Right now they are learning to make these cute headbands that have been the only reason I have been able to stay warm here. They’re awesome because:

1.       They keep your ears and head snug and warm

2.       They are cute!

3.       They hide any greasy bangs you might have

4.       They’ve been handmade in PERU

Aurora was the first one to complete hers. How cute is she??

Awesome, no?

Here’s where you come in! We want to set up an Etsy shop and sell these (as well as other crafty things we teach the girls to make), to our dear friends in the states. They would be made of authentic yarn handmade here in Puylucana. Cool huh? We would help the girls make them (thus they’d be learning a new skill) and the proceeds would go to the children.

Abigail sporting hers

It’s just an idea we have right now, but let me know if you have any suggestions/comments/orders J

Have a great day, I know we will!

-Elia

Bearing Burdens

Today I held a little boy in my arms and rocked him while he sobbed and sobbed.

I was painting Katerin's nails when I heard a little boy at the end of the table burst into tears. There were two boys next to him, both of which are known for being little stinkers, but I didn't see what happened to make him cry. I asked the boys and they looked guilty, but didn't say anything.

I couldn't do much because I couldn't figure out what had happened. So I scooped up little, sobbing Wilson in my arms and sat on a bench and rocked him until he could control his tears. He was shaking and having such a hard time. I asked if he was hurt and he said no. So here's what I figured had happened.

Wilson was coloring a Dora the Explorer coloring page. He wasn't very good at coloring and the picture was kind of girly. It sounded like the older boys had made fun of him or his picture and it just really hurt his feelings.

But as he sat in my arms and sobbed, I could tell that that was not all that he was crying about. It seemed like he had just had enough, of everything and needed a good cry.

When he had stopped sobbing, I asked him a bit about himself. I had never really seen him before and didn't know much. I thought he was maybe 4 or 5, but he told me he was 7! He was so small and so frail. It broke my heart.

Hectors parents have nine children (one of which died in an accident not too long ago). His parents work on a farm two hours away and rarely come home. This leaves his big sister Alida (16) to care for the family all by herself.

The four youngest ones come to El Bichito for lunch, and they all just love to be loved. They are also the skinniest of the kids we have. They wear the same thing everyday, and they don't talk much, but they are sweet.

Finally, it was time to go and his sister Aurora (9) came and got him from me. I gave him a little Mamba candy and told him I was excited to see him tomorrow. I hope he comes!

Anyways, from this experience I learned that you don't need words to bear another's burden. In this case, I simply wasn't capable of speaking to him. It reminded me of times when I've held crying children who couldn't talk yet. All I could do was hold him and every once in a while tell him that it was ok and that he's an awesome boy. And that seemed to be enough.

P.S. If he's here today, I'll take a picture of him and post it here!

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

#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!

First Day of Work

January 14, 2012

The kids arrived at about 12:15pm yesterday. Keep in mind that we had only gotten 2-3 hours of sleep that night and were running purely on adrenaline. I guess we didn’t really comprehend that we’d actually working that day. But we did.

When the kids came, it seemed like every single ounce of Spanish drained right out of my brain and flowed right into my heart. It started to pound as I searched my brain for something logical to say and found nothing. I knew that we couldn’t spend the next three hours in silence. So I just started talking. I started with asking their names and how old they were and then it just went up from there. I’m sure that 85% of what I said that day wasn’t grammatically correct in the least, but I truly did speak with my heart and I listened with it too. I was able to remember words that I had studying 5-6 years ago in my Spanish class. With that combination, I was able to communicate with the kids just fine. It was so much fun! 

The kids were so good about helping us too. We played Simon Says, Red Light Green light, a name game, an animal guessing game, did puzzles, colored, and more! I was in absolute heaven the first… 2.5 hours. And then exhaustion set in. OH MY GOODNESS, my body was completely zapped of every ounce of energy.

This is Antony. He has adorable!!!

 There were a group of 4-5 boys who were constantly yelling “Bellia” (That’s what they call me), wanting me to come play with them or wanting me to talk with them. Whenever I’d ignore them, they’d all run over to me and just start tickling me. Oh goodness it was awful. I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to figure out how to say anything along the lines of “Stop! Get off! Leave me alone” Every once in a while I’d summon up an exasperated, “Por favor ninos!”. It was so fun but by the time 2:30 rolled around, I couldn’t even do that! The kids finally left (after much kicking them out) We sat outside with Feliciana for a little bit and chatted until we went back upstairs to get our belongings situated.

We put the three beds into one room so that we could all sleep in the same room. Abigail and I put on some sheets and that’s about as far as we got before we conked out. We woke up about an hour later FREEZING! It had gotten so cold!

It was about 7:00 pm and the electricity was still down. It was kind of scary alone in that center on our first night with no electricity! We went downstairs to explore our kitchen and found oh… maybe 600,003 health code violations. It seriously would blow your mind (ok well maybe not those of you who’ve served in South America before). But our minds were blown and we immediately got to work on thinking of ways to … pretty much not die of strange diseases during our time here. Pictures to come. Speaking of which, when I lay down to sleep at night the last thing I see before I sleep  is a ceiling covered with constellations of black mold spores. It’s fantastic :) But you know what, I’m just super glad I even have a ceiling, because I’d surely freeze without that moldy celling!

Life is good ... and dirty, but good :)

We Made It!

January 14, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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