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

Noche De Hogar

Oh my goodness,  FHE in Peru is the greatest. I thought I would miss having my Rexburg FHE groups and the friends and fun that come with that , but I’m pretty sure my Peru FHE’s have topped a great deal of my college FHE’s.

So we went to a family in the ward’s home. Dirt floors, tin roof, make-shift walls and couch. We had an opening song and prayer and then we all went around and shared our favorite scripture and why. Ever since our little “We don’t need the Book of Mormon” fiasco that happened on Sunday, I’d been studying specifically about the Book of Mormon and shared a verse about that and bore my testimony. I decided that talking about the church in Spanish is a lot easier than trying to talk about anything else in Spanish, so I totally don’t mind doing stuff like this.

After we all shared our thoughts, we had a closing song and then I said the closing prayer. The man of the house called on me to pray, and then it was time for activity.

We played the funnest game of hot potato I have ever been a part of! Ohhhhh goodness. We sat in a circle passing around a little kids toy ball while one person stood with their eyes clothes chanting “Papas secema, papas secama”  and then when they wanted to stop, they say, “papa secemO” and whoever is holding the ball at that point is the loser. If you lose three times, you get a punishment. Alecksi’s punishment was that he had to go outside and yell at the top of his lungs that his pig died. The older man of the house lost too, so his punishment was “Poor Kitty” so he had to get down on his hands and knees and try to make someone laugh by meowing and pawing at their leg. Ohhh it was hilarious to see this old Peruvain man do this.

We also played, Habla Chanco Habla. That’s where one person is blindfolded in the middle and they spin and whoever they landed on had to honk like a pig and the person in the middle has to guess who it is. Holy cow, it is the most hilarious thing in the world to listen to a 60ish year old Peruvian woman who is missing major teeth, snort like a pig.

Oh good times.

Here’s what else is great, even though FHE didn’t get over til like 9:30, it’s Peruvian custom to feed the guests. So after our games, out came the food! We had yummy popcorn and really good buttered bread along with some AMAZING tea that just warmed our souls. It was called herba lousia I believe and we loooved it dearly.

Noche de Hogar with Peruvian families in their homes, totally one of the things I’ll miss most about Peru.

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

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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.

A Day To Remember

I feel like everyday I start each journal entry with the following line:

I LOVE PERU! Today was the best day ever!!!

Because it's true. Everyday is the best day ever. But today, was EXCEPTIONALLY awesome and here's why.

1. We saw the sun. We haven't seen it in days. It's been raining and raining and raining, but we saw it this morning on our run.

2. We went on one of our “hill run”, straight up and enormous hill and then all the way down the long way followed by P 90 Ab Ripper X. 

3. After a delicious breakfast of eggs, tomato, garlic, gouda and avacado we showered and became clean!

4. We had an awesome day with the ninos. We split up into three teams and did relays. I had team Anaranjado and let me tell you, we were bomb. I loooved my team and they did so well at just about everything (except they pretty much stunk at leap frog :).

We decorated our score sheets/banners to promote team spirit

Here's what we played: (I had to make up spanish names for all of them...so they're kind of odd :)

-Piedras y cucharas:  Where you carry a rock on a spoon and run with it.

-Salta como un conejo: Sack race

-Lava Caliente: Where you have to get from start to finish using only two pieces of paper and without touching the ground

-Matematicas Maestria (something like that): See which team could complete the most math flash cards in two minutes. Abby TOTALLY cheated for her team, but it was needed :)

-Rana Rapido: Leap Frog

The kids loved it and totally got into it. And my team came in second place overall! I was so proud :)

After all the points were tallied up, we gave out the trophies. By this time it was only about 2pm, so we still had another hour with the kids, but we were worn out! So we sat and let the girls braid our hair while we read stories. 

Tender Mercy: It didn't rain one single drop during our whole time outside. Seriously this is remarkable and we were so grateful. However, the moment our festivities ended today, the rain came, and it poured and poured and poured! Coincidence? I think not.

5. We went to a bake-sale-ish type fundraiser. We didn't know what was going on really and ended up sitting around for two and a half hours (when in reality, we could have been in and out in 10 minutes) Oh well! We got these yummy fried things called Picadoras? Something like that. They were delicious!

6. While we were sitting and waiting during the aforementioned bake sale, we met three new friends. Jorge, Robert y Charlie. Robert and Charlie were both R.M's studying in Cajamarca. Kayla Starbuck, if you're reading this, tell your brother that I met a boy who served with him! Jorge! 

We found out that they are going to the same YSA convention later this month as us, and we decided that we wanted to make friends with them, and so we did! It was so fun talking to them, and then it was time to go. So they left and then we left maybe 30 seconds later.

This is where the story gets good.

7. While we were walking out, we noticed that it was a little after six, which is about the time places to eat start opening in Banos, so we decided we wanted to treat ourselves to Pizza! Brittany says, "Lets invite our new friends!" who at this point were several hundred feet in front of us. Without much thought, Brittany runs down the road to stop our friends and invite them to pizza. As she was leaving she yelled to us, "Is it, 'Nosotros Pizza Comer?' " Before we could tell her that, no, that is not how you properly invite someone to eat pizza, she was off and running.

Me and Abby started busting up laughing. Then we noticed that we were right in the middle of a bus stop with people all around us. And guess what? They were all cracking up too! There was a tall, white, blonde girl blabbing off some random Spanish words and running down the side walk after three Peruvian guys. EVERYONE was laughing. I was dying. 

8. Well, a minute or two later, Brittany returned! With our new Peruvian friends! They had miraculously been able to decipher her message and off we went to get pizza. The pizza cost us about ten bucks, and it was probably half as good as a $5 Little Caesars Hot and Ready. Peru and pizza? Not the best combination, but it was so much fun! 

And here's what else, we're counting it as a date. Now, don't get too excited, because 1. We Planned it 2. We were Paired off (well not really, but there were three girls and three boys) and 3. We Paid for it. 

So the three P's of a date were there....but we were the boys in the situation. But we justified it because we're south of the equator, things are all sorts of scrambled up down here :)

Over all, it was a way fun day! We loved every minute of it!

Also, Happy Birthday Trav! We have a present for you, but didn't have time to ship it off to you today!
-Elia

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!

"Today I Don't Feel Like Doing Anything"

Don’t judge us for the following events that transpired.

Wednesday morning we woke up and decided that it was time for us to explore the natural hot springs in Banos and take our first hot shower. But we were feeling kind of lazy, so we power walked instead of doing our usual run. We showered a most amazing shower (it reminded me so much of the showers that you go to when you’re camping. Dirty stall, but the warm water is so amazing!). We then took the bus back up and it was downhill from there.

We didn’t feel like doing anything! We had some stuff planned for the kids that day, but didn’t do a single thing we planned. Instead we just let them color and do puzzles and pretty much whatever they wanted. But it was so nice and relaxing! 

After the kids left, I had serious plans to do some studying, cleaning, laundering etc. Here’s what we did instead.

We watched a whole movie. Letters to Juliet.

Then, we started another movie. 10 Things I Hate About You.

It was dirty, so we turned it off and started… yes ANOTHER MOVIE. Enchanted.    

                 

As we were watching it, there was a knock on our door and it was Pedro. He had brought us Torta and Chocolates! So we went down stairs and ATE and hung out with him for a couple hours.

Then we went back upstairs and watched Enchanted for the rest of the night.

We literally did nothing productive that day. Don’t worry, it gets worse. Check out what we ate.

Breakfast: Sweet Bread.

Lunch: Fried Speghetti and Rice

Snack: Tea and Popcorn with Cinnamon Sugar

Snack: Chocolate Cake with lots of frosting         

Snack: Sweet Bread and Milk. Normal Bread and cheese

Snack: Graham Crackers

Dinner: Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Cake with lots of frosting (and lots of it)

Snack: Half an avocado

Shoot We Should have Eaten Something of Substance Today: Leftover Chicken Quinoa Soup

Lets Just Try One Piece of Chocolate: 15 pieces of fancy chocolate

I Need to Get This Chocolate Taste Out Of My Mouth: More Sweet Bread

Are you judging us right now? You probably should be. But we don’t regret it one bit. It was a GLORIOUS DAY! Every girls dream come true. Filled with warm showers, chick flicks, chocolate, cake and a slumber party. 

Although, last night for scripture study, we read Mosiah 4:30 and decided that starting the next morning, we were going to exercise some serious self control.  Our new phrase (that we stole from that verse) is: Oh Man, Remember!

Meaning, when we’re craving some of that cake that’s tempting us (one in the fridge, one in the freezer) we say to each other, “Oh Man, Remember!” Remember how sick we felt going to bed that night? Remember how chubby and sluggish we felt waking up the next morning? Remember how nothing tastes as good as being healthy feels???

Oh yeah. We remember. And we’re determined to be better.

So determined, that we woke up the next morning (at 7:30) and went on a super steep uphill run, followed by a nice run down the mountain and did P90 Ab Ripper X. We were then sweaty and nasty and ready to submit ourselves to an ice cold shower when just as I was about to hop in the shower, I discovered that our water had been turned off. Just our luck. So we stink, but we are well on our way to being sugar free and fit for life!

One Week Celebration!

Last night we celebrated our one week anniversary in Peru. We partied hard, get this:

We treated ourselves to one funsized candybar each… BEFORE dinner! Best Reeses cup I have ever tasted in my entire life.  Then we made tuna veggie patties for dinner along with fresh avocado and pineapple. We also broke into our milk (which is chalked full of sugar!) After that we popped us some popcorn over the gas burner and covered it in cinnamon sugar. 

We took it upstairs and the three of us plopped down onto Abigail and Mine’s bed and cuddled up in our blankets and ate popcorn as we watched 2 full episodes of Full House. It was bliss. 

By around nine o clock (we have a strict 10 pm bedtime) we turned off the laptop and laid in bed and swapped more boy stories. The cute ones, the embarrassing ones and I shared my “Worst Date Ever” story. I felt like I did pretty much most the talking last night, (Abigail has been going to town with boy stories the last couple days ago, and we still need to get more out of Brit) but it was so fun to remember some of my stories and share them. I have some pretty good ones.

And then I believe we were all asleep by 10:30. Which is pretty impressive seeing as Abigail and I have stayed up talking til about 11:30-12:00 the last several nights. It was a great way to celebrate our one-week-iversasry. Don’t worry, we have even bigger plans for our one month anniversary. We might even plan our weddings that night….oooooo!

#28 Try Inca Cola

Check! 

We had our first sip of the infamous Inca Cola at Zara’s house in Lima. I kind of figured I wouldn’t like it, so I asked for just a little bit, but they’d have none of that and filled me up a whole glassful. It’s a very yellow soda pop that really does taste like bubble gum!