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

A Little Taste Of Home,

I can pass up pie, cut back on cake and even  back out of brownies….but when it comes to a homemade cookie…. Move over, I’m done for. I crave cookies like none other, and when I’m eating them I feel as if I shall never be sad again. OH how I love them.

Well guess what. Peru does not have cookies. Not the cookies you’re thinking of at least. They call crackers cookies. CRACKERS! Tell me I’m not the only one who sees a vast difference between a crunchy, salty, stale-like piece of bread and an ooey-gooey, melt in your mouth cookie?

We decided that for Valentine’s day we wanted to make all of our friends good ol’ American chocolate chip cookies. After searching high and low for a recipe that wouldn’t end disastrous at  our 9000+ ft altitude, we got to work on satisfying my sweet tooth.

We did however have to improvise as brown sugar is nonexistent in Peru  (the sugar is brown here…but not because it’s “brown sugar”) and we could not find baking soda to save our lives!  Chocolate Chips…also a problem easily fixed by chopping up a chocolate bar.

But lo and behold, twas a success worth documenting! We made some tonight to try out our recipe, and tomorrow will be full of baking as well so that we can share our treats with all our new friends who have been OH so good to us. Stay tuned for pictures

///

And since we’re on the topic of things that a girl should never go three months without…. Today we were walking home from church when a sister in our ward (Hermana Rubi) stopped us and asked us if we’d like a piece of her homemade Tres Leches cake. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you have never lived if you have never had a taste of homemade, tres leches cake…Peruvian style. I could have died right then, completely satisfied with life. SO, SO good!!!! And to make sure that I never have to go my whole life with out that little necessity, Hermana Rubi has promised to teach us to make it!

So come find me in Utah when I get back be prepared to have your mind blown.

Home Sweet Home

Saturday January 14, 2012

Today was such good day!

By The Way, this is our humble home :)

We went and explored town a bit. There isn’t much in the actual town that we’re in, but there is a bigger town just a five minute drive from here. We decided to walk instead of drive. We were passed by at least a hundred (not exaggerating) taxis, combis and buses that tried to give us a ride. They couldn’t seem to understand why three rich Americans were walking to town. Especially when it started pouring rain on us. But we kept walking and eventually the sun came out and shone brightly on us. 

In town we looked everywhere for a bakery for fresh bread, but couldn’t find any! We did get more groceries and familiarized ourselves around town. We also saw the Sister Missionaries, but they weren’t really that excited to find out that we were Mormon and excited to come to church tomorrow. Oh well, the church is still true :)

We came back and tried organizing all the supplies we have for the kids. THERE ARE SO MANY! We also cooked a real dinner tonight of stirfry and quinoa and avocado. It was so good! While cooking, I explored the kitchen a bit and had a bit of a shock as I discovered that WE HAVE AN OVEN!

 

It was hiding under a cardboard box with junk on the top of the box. We had no idea and were SO estatic when we saw it. Ohhhh I’ve never been so excited to see an appliance in my life. Seriously… close to tears excited. 

After dinner we decided that since tomorrow is Sunday, we really ought to try and shower and wash our hair. I’m not going to tell you how long it’s been since we’d done that…. But assume the worse :) The weird thing is that we couldn’t really even smell each other or ourselves. So we were doing pretty good. 

One option for cleansing ourselves

Keep in mind that we have absolutely no hot water. Ice cold showers! So to help with this, we decided to get our blood pumping with some P90x. We set up a laptop in the kitchen and went to town on Kempo kickboxing. As we’d “Jab, jab, upper cut, across” we’d chant phrases like “Cuantos. Anos. Tienes!” and “Que. Te. Gusta. Hacer!” to help Brittany learn more phrases and words to use with the kids. I then started teaching Abigail and Brittany the pledge in Spanish as we kickboxed. I’m sure we looked ridiculous, but it did the trick!

We ended up washing our hair in the sink and then running really fast into the shower to shower off

Also, we saw our first mouse today. It scurried past the bathroom as we were getting ready for bed…. :( But over all, such a great day, we're beginning to feel more at home.