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

Dear Future Husband,

Hello darling. I must tell you that if we're poor and can't afford a washer and dryer when we're first married, don't worry about it one bit! Esta bien!  I've improved loads (pun not intended) when it comes to my clothes-washing-by-hand capabilities. However, there are a few setbacks that I must make you aware of before we seal the deal.

1. You have to be ok with the idea of "permastench". Some clothes (ok, most of my clothes) have taken on an odor that I just can't seem to rid them of no matter how hard I try! I scrub and I soak and I suds them all up, then rinse and wring and wait for them to dry, but I'm afraid it is to no avail.

Once they are dry, I scoop them up, take a whiff and cry at how awfully they still smell. So when people don't want to sit by you on the bus ride home, don't take offense, just remember that you have a wife at home who loves you dearly despite that awful permastench, and she is indeed trying her best.

2. We must live in a place that does NOT rain every single day. I mean, if we happen to invest in a dryer, bring on Seattle. However, if not, I must insist that we find ourselves a nice dry desert so that our clothes might have some hope of drying all the way through before you have to put them on again. Also, the humidity and wetness is not helping our "Try to smell decent" cause one bit.

Just a few things I thought I'd let you know.

Con Mucho Amor,
Elia

A Bible, A Bible, We Have Got a Bible and We Need No More Bible

Church. In Peru. Always an adventure... even more so today than most Sundays.

In Sunday school we studied 1 Nephi 19-21 and were talking about how Nephi was commanded to make the two sets of plates to keep the record on and what not. Miguel is our awesome teacher who knows his stuff and does a great job teaching the lessons.

I was following along with the lesson pretty well until… the arguments broke out. (when Peruvians, and most other people I suppose, get riled up, they speak much quicker making it hard to follow). The high councilman (our 24ish year old single friend) and our Relief Society President started going at it! I couldn’t tell what they were arguing about, but other members were piping in their two cents as well. By this point, Miguel had kind of given up. He seemed to be in shock and a bit disgusted with his class.

Turns out that they were arguing over the importance of the Book Of Mormon!! Our Relief Society President straight up said that she has the bible and that’s all she reads because it’s all she needs. She says the Book of Mormon is a nice book, but she doesn’t read it. And guess what? A lot of the members were right there with her! Our high councilman beautifully explained what was taught by Tad R. Callister last General Conference with the dots on the chalk board. He explained that with just the bible there are endless amounts of interpretations, but when paired side by side with the Book Of Mormon, there is only one possible straight line of truth. I also heard the 8^th article of faith thrown out there and a couple of good scriptures that supported our cause.

But Ooof. Talk about crazy!

Afterwards in Relief Society, the RS President (Hermana Sephora) got up and said somethings that I didn’t quite understand. But then an AMAZING young sister in our ward (26ish years old, R.M. and Single… seriously boys, why have you not snatched this woman up??) got up and bore sweet witness of the Book Of Mormon. She is one of the fastest speakers in the ward, but her words spoke right to my heart and I knew that what she was saying was true.

So it seems that our ward is struggling a bit. Not to mention that we don’t really have a Bishop, because over a year ago he was called to be the Stake President and nobody has accepted the calling to be the bishop since then… and this man had a baby two days ago….

We've Got Work to Do!

So pray for our little Banos ward…there Is work to be done!

On a brighter note, the sister missionaries have asked us to come teach investigators with them! How cool is that? They just want one of us at a time, so on Thurxday I will be a mini- missionary and I’m rather excited to see how that all works out here!

I also have a new friend (27 year old, single, non-member Esthel) who we met on a bus ride home. I have a really good feeling about her and if I ever see her again (which I intend on making happen) I will invite her to church and ask her if she’d like to take the discussions in my home. That’s my plan, how cool would that be?!?

Ahhh…. In other news, I love Peru and I love life!

-Elia

Peruvian Nights

I am about at that point where I have been in Peru long enough to see and do crazy things and not even think twice about them. Things that SHOCKED me the first time I experienced them. So I’m going to try and recount those and post them here before I become desensitized to it all.

So I just put on two pairs of pants (leggings and sweatpants), two pairs of socks (long wool ones and short normal ones), one shirt, one USA sweater, and a knitted headband to keep my ears warm. Where am I going so bundled up? Out to face a Rexburg Winter? No.  Just to bed. Yes, this is what I wear every night to bed for two very important reasons.

    1.We freeze at night. Our house is made of cement walls, floors and ceiling with absolutely NO insulation and no carpet. Also, the window panes are a bit too small for the windows, so there is a constant cold breeze coming through our window cracks.

2.       2.We live with all manner of things that we shouldn’t. Namely: Mold, fleas, spiders, mosquitos, bed bugs, mice and other creatures we have yet to discover. The layers not only keep us warm, but they keep our skin (most of it) safe from unwanted friends crawling into bed and biting us. Alas, we still wake up each morning with at least 3 or 4 new strange bug bites…. But it could be worse.

Also, it still takes me just as long to get ready for bed as it does in the states, but it’s a whole different routine. I shall walk you through it.
 

1.   1.  PJ’s on. This in itself takes some time to find all of the elements of aforementioned nighttime attire.

2.       2. Contacts out (same as in states)

3.       3. Face washed (the next step in the states is to remove my makeup, but this is entirely unnecessary here, simply because we only wear make up on Sundays. So, I wash my face, not to remove my makeup, but to remove dirt and germs that have been caked on throughout the day. This is where I also realize that I’m not as tan as I thought I was…it’s just dirt)

Ready for bed!

4. No acne cream (Our faces have been surprisingly clear here, so acne is not even a bother at all. Perhaps it’s the lack of makeup or perhaps it’s just Peru’s awesomeness)

5.       5. Teeth brushed. This is only different in the fact that we have to brush our teeth with bottled water. Super hard to get used to at first.

6.       6. Hair brushed…frowned at, then put back in a bun. My hair is atrocious. Mainly because we can only afford to wash it twice a week and because it hasn’t come in contact with a straightener, blow dryer or curling iron this whole trip. So it’s healthy! But it’s not very pretty :)

7.       7. Feet soaked in water. Our feet get atrocious and super dirty. This is necessary.

8.        8. Back in the bedroom to shake out the sheets. Sheets and blankets must be shaken out every night before bed to remove any unwanted guests.

9.       9 Roommate Prayer, get into bed and try and make pictures out of the thousands of mold spores that cover our ceiling. (Today, while I was skyping with my family, a large chunk of moldy ceiling dispatched itself from my ceiling and straight onto my pillow! I died laughing.)

10.   10. Shiver until you fall asleep. It hasn’t actually been too bad lately, because Brittany has ditched her bed and crawls into bed with me and Abigail every night. 3 girls in two beds equals a lot warmer than usual.

11.   Wake up at like 2 in the morning to Brittany’s elbow in your face. Say, (while you’re half awake, half asleep)  “Que es esto!?”(What is this) as Brittany replies “Lo siento”(I’m sorry)

12.   I think that last story (#11) was hard to follow, but essentially, we woke up in the middle of the night for half a second and communicated solely in Spanish. How cool is that??

13.   Wake up at 7:30, Pray and head out on our morning run.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love being here? Because I do. So. So. Much.

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!

“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

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.

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.