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. 

Death By Way of Confession

If I happen to die during my time here, I blame it purely on our night of confessions.

I know I’ve mentioned this hundreds of times. But our house is covered in mold. Mainly our ceilings. Black mold, green mold, grey mold, fuzzy mold, And to be honest, it scares me to death! I’ve been reading up/studying it and have found that when you breathe in mold it begins to colonize in your lungs and grow there!  And then I’m sure, shortly after… you die. I also read that you are a bit safer if you don’t disrupt the mold by trying to scrape/scrub it off. Brittany however is just itching to get to work on the ceiling and take off that mold in any way that she can. So I have had to sit her down and make her PINKY PROMISE not to disturb the mold. And she has obliged, because she knows how much I would really love to not die!

This picture does not do it justice. It was taken on our first day here. Since then, it has multiplied 100 fold. No joke.

Anyways, last night was a night to remember (and it will be, because we got it all on video). We were whipping egg whites (by hand) to try and make them into some sort of dessert, but we were not having very much success. So I whipped out my video camera and asked the other girls questions and what not about our time here. While we were talking, Abby let a confession slip. 

We were telling our video diary about the mold, and Brittany was telling it about how I would not let her touch the mold. Then Abby says, “We’ll blame it on Feliciana!” I didn’t really catch on to what was going on until the confession totally slipped out.

Here’s what it is: That morning, Abigail had run upstairs (where our bedrooms are) to grab something and found Feliciana, with a broom in hand, scraping mold off of the ceiling!!! AKA: Horribly disrupting the mold and sending it into the air where it could oh so easily find it’s way right into my lungs!!!!

Abigail was shocked when she saw this and needed to tell somebody, so she told Brittany and made her promise not to tell me. How sweet is that? She knew that I would be totally freaked out if I knew that Feliciana was taking a broom to the moldy ceiling every day! So she didn’t tell me, until it slipped out last night.  Brittany topped it off with her line of the night, “Yeah Noelle, you were going to be saved by ignorance, but now that you know… you’re going to die”

And it was downhill from there. As soon as Abigail’s confession slipped out, Brittany says, “Wait I have one! Yesterday, when I took the chicken out of our fridge for dinner… it dropped all over the floor! But we still ate it!”

Then Abigail replied, “Remember when Pedro gave us those chocolates? Well… I dropped those all over the floor!” And then went on and on from there (most confessions of which cannot be posted here J )

So we’re a bit worse off than I thought we were…but alas, we’re still up and kicking and having a great time!

Also, have I mentioned lately how great Abigail and Brittany are? Cause they are purely amazing. We are 3 COMPLETELY different people. The more we get to know each other and see each other in different situations the more we realize how opposite we are. But the compilation of the three of us is something beautiful. We truly complement each other so nicely.  And I love them!

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.