The aftermath...

My friend Katie put it very eloquently stating, " I have managed to feel more feelings and emotions in one week then I probably have in my entire life" as she was talking about her arrival home from Peru. What I feel is partly nausea from the parasite and mostly utter confusion about what comes next. I spent 3 months thinking about what I wanted to do next and got to pretty much where I am now: sitting at my parents house, bored and confused.
Winter break was always amazing during college. You got to come home, spend Christmas with the fam, hang out with old friends, and just when everything started getting a little boring at home, you went back to school. Well, it's not winter break anymore, its just winter. It's real life or well this horrible transition period where you have absolutely no idea what to do next. Some use this time trying to find their dream job because they know exactly what they want to do. Some use it procrastinating in a mindless job because they have no idea what they want to do or they just can't get that perfect dream job. Some travel.. :-) Some sit in their parents basements and play video games until they are kicked out at the age of 30. It's just a very confusing and hard time. The traveling one seems like the best option right?? That one might even be the hardest. You need money, independence, and the ability to be away from your family and friends for weeks or months on end. It's hard. You come back and find out that SURPRISE! Life went on without you. Friends move, get married, get pregnant, nephews grow up, grandparents get sick, and friends go off to war without being able to say goodbye. It's hard to miss things, but its great to experience different things because you are in a new culture. You get to really figure out who you are outside of the environment that you grew up in, that you are comfortable in. You have to just live in the present because only thinking about all the things that you are missing is never going to get you anywhere.

I guess right now I'm at the place where I want to keep experiencing those wonderful new things about other cultures because I've plateaued here in middle America. I have no doubt that staying here would be just as much of an adventure if I really tried hard to make it work, but taking off again seems like the easier root. I have no idea where I am going to be in 6 months and the unknown definitely scares me. I never knew how much I needed a plan until now. I've always had a plan. When I want something, I get it done.. or well at least try. I just can't seem to figure out what I want right now so.. here I sit..
Maybe I should just become wonder woman.. I could save people's lives and "bring the Amazon ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality to 'a world torn by the hatred of men," according to wikipeda. That could be a fun career path.

Nerd Stories... definitely make Machu Picchu more memorable.

Well, these weren't the gorgeous, blonde haired, muscular surfers that I was kind of expecting all Australians to be, but they definitely met the reputation of being ridiculously fun. After pretty much telling these guys that they were going to adopt me into their little group for the week we we joined at the hip. I feel like I got to know them way too much even. I had recognized them on my plane because of Jake, the youngest of the group who was very accident prone. He was bandaged pretty much from head to toe because of an incident in Cancun with a motobike. Stitches in his skull and all. He was kind of hard to miss. The 4 of them definitely fit together well, each of them playing their parts. For some reason, during the week.. I tried my best to compete with Jake for being horribly accident prone. Yes, more nerd stories will ensue.

Wednesday morning I got up fairly early in order to check out of the hostel and make my way down to the plaza to get some money out of the ATM for the trip up to Machu Picchu.. Not even three steps down this monumental hill that led up to our hostel I tripped down the stairs slightly twisting and bruising my ankle... The security guard and his friend rushed over to me to help but all I could do was laugh.. Seriously.. just my luck to twist my ankle the day before I am supposed to conquer Machu Picchu. The after making sure I could bend my ankle, I look up to see my Australian friends walking up the hill..just in time to see a lot of my pride being taken away. I got up and hopped back into the hostel reception to examine the damage. Nothing serious.. but I definitely got a lot of sympathy from everyone.. It was kind of nice. The sympathy turned in to mockery after awhile though..especially after the second instance.

We took a combie from Cusco to Ollantaytambo to check out the ruins and to kill some time before our train to Aguas Calientes. While walking to the train station to buy our tickets Bob and I were just talking about life, which apparently was so captivating that I forgot to pay attention to my surroundings.. I fell straight into the drainage ditch that ran across the road. I just happened to step in the only spot that was missing a bar tearing my shin apart. So here I am,.. down in pride and up in pain from the ankle incident from just a few hours earlier, bleeding in a drainage ditch in front of a bunch of Australian guys. My life is ridiculously comical.. I'm just glad someone was there to enjoy the hilarity. Something good should come from the fact that I am really accident prone. It would feel like a waste if I fell and no one was around to see me trip and fall... Especially in the snow or ice.. come on who doesn't think Bambi on ice isn't funny. :-)

At this point most of the pain was localized to my shin and away from my ankle, which was good because there was going to be a tremendous amount of walking in the next two days. After lunch at some swanky restaurant right on the river the 7 of us trekked up the ruins in Ollantaytambo. Let me explain what most of the Inca ruins that we saw were.. STAIRS, lots and lots of stairs!! Uneven, steep, and extremely narrow. Not good for a unbalanced and large footed girl with multiple injuries to those extremities that are used to climb stairs. Oo.. did I mention that I had left my inhaler at the hostel??

Somehow though all of these issues I just managed to have an amazing time. I was translating for the guys who knew basically zero Espanol and were quite happy to find someone to help them get around. I can't imagine going to a country and not trying to learn enough of the language to get around, but that's me. I don't want to be the ignorant American that a lot of the world gives us the reputation to be. It's hard being "the American" when you are traveling sometimes. There are so many negative stereotypes against us. I get a lot of "ohhhhh" in a disapproving or even disinterested tones when I tell people that I am from the US. Saying this in Spanish however helps, a lot.. Actually I got a lot more approval from the market vendors who loved talking to foreigners. They really liked hearing about Pacasmayo and about teaching English. I found it was a lot easier to barter after having a conversation with the vendors. It worked in their favor as well though, because I usually wanted to buy something from them if they had patiently had a conversation with me. I got some cheap Spanish lessons that way.

SO about Machu Picchu.. well we woke up at 4am in Aguas Calientes in order to get our entrance tickets as well as the bus tickets up to Machu Picchu.. yeah we were lazy and took the bus.. but two of us were gimps. We got up so early in order to get tickets to Wayna Picchu, which is the bigger of the two mountains in all of the postcard pictures of Machu Picchu. They only allow 400 people up on the mountain everyday so we needed to get onto one of the first buses. Did I mention it was raining when we got up?? The rain eventually passed but the fog stayed for a couple more hours. I guess going up to Machu Picchu in the rainy season is more of a risk than I thought. The traditional fog up in the city in the clouds became rather pretty after awhile. We started walking around in the beginning of the day completely unaware of what was under the fog and little by little things the ruins were uncovered. It was actually pretty amazing. This might be my "positive thinking" kicking in though.

Wayna Picchu was next on our list. We got into the 10 oclock group in hope that most of the fog would clear by then but we only got moments of gorgeous skies. The clouds would come back to blanket the entire city.
Some stats on Wayna Picchu :
Wayna or Huayna Picchu: Young Peak
Altitude: 8,900 ft above sea level
Importance: Apparently the high priest lived up there with a bunch of virgins and it was used for ceremonies. I think the stairs were built to punish the Inca workers. WHY WHY WHY would anyone was to build anything at that altitude!!!???? Wayna Picchu and I had our battle, but eventually I won. Very slowly and carefully I conquered Wayna Picchu!!! After reminding myself that it is stupid to compete with men and that I have asthmatic tendencies, I just took my sweet time climbing to the summit and told the guys I would just meet them at the top. A French or Italian couple who apparently knew I was with the Aussi's told them that I was on the verge of passing out (which was completely untrue) and Bob came to my rescue. It was kind of cute even though I didn't need the rescuing. It was kind of fun having all those guys dote on me all week :-). I guess it was payment for being their translator. I still can't get over the fact that I was the translator.

Machu Picchu was undoubtedly breathtaking because of its beauty and size, but more importantly because it had been preserved and untouched by Spanish invaders who looted and destroyed most of the other Inca ruins. The fog, the rain, the horrible trek up to Wayna Picchu and especially the nerd stories will definitely make Machu Picchu go down in history for me.

The EU in Peru??

The Loki Hostel, while extremely entertaining, providing of hot showers and comfy beds, is one of the strangest hostels I have ever been to. It has the feel of a European ski lodge chucked in the middle of Peru. The only Spanish that can be heard is from the maids, groundskeepers, and the office staff. The office staff also knows brilliant English as well. (My UK English is coming back from being around all of the brits and Aussis all week...) It seems like a lot of the guests here only move from the bar to their beds. Some of my roommates are still in bed at 4 in the afternoon.. To be fair they had just gotten back from their Inca trek yesterday, but it's also from the party at the bar last night.
After getting in to Cusco, all of us exhausted travelers showed up at the loki hostel. I got dropped off with 6 Australian lads, a French/English lad, and a 40 something from Brazil and we shortly found out that we couldn't check into our rooms yet. Lunch seemed like a fantastic idea although it started the trend of eating pizza for the rest of the week. Apparently all of these tourist towns have capitalized on the fact that they know gringos like pizza. There are pizzerias everywhere!! I'm kind of sick of pizza. My friend and I did find an amazing Italian wood burning pizzeria though. It almost had the taste of Imos without the provolone, thin crunch crust and all. Sad to say it but it might have been better than Imos.. sacrilegious I know.

Four of the Aussi lads and I definitely hit it off and were attached at the hip for the rest of the week. I also ended up meeting a Canadian girl who knew someone that I knew from Truman. The world is so small. A big group of us set off on Tuesday to try and explore Cusco and hike up to Saqsaywaman or "Sexy Woman" as the gringos call it. Saqsaywaman, an Incan fort (captured by the Spaniards of course) consisted of HUGE black blocks that were carefully carved and formed into a wall. The funniest part of this trip was the 4 or 5 men standing along the path up to the ruins trying to sell us horse rides around some of the countryside around Cusco. They tried really hard, but none of us were giving in. We got back to the hostel after a local menu (starter, soup, main dish and a drink for 8 soles) and started planning our adventure to Machu Picchu. Somehow I became to tour guide. I had the Lonely Planet Peru Guide and spoke a little bit of Spanish. Apparently I fit the bill. It was definitely an adventure.

Bus rides are a great way to practice your Spanish

So Leaving Pacasmayo on Friday I hopped on the bus to Trujillo and ended up sitting next to a math teacher who thought I was just really interesting and listened to me butcher Spanish for an hour and a half. It definitely made the bus ride go a lot faster though. He was taking a group of students to Chiclayo and Trujillo for on a fieldtrip. They all thought it was really funny when he wanted to take a picture with me. This kind of attention I definitely understand, its the whole you are from another country and therefore I really want to be friends with you because you are interesting. The other kind of attention, the kind that makes me feel like a common prostitute, I don't appreciate. I've had a lot more of the second down here, which has been really hard. My guide book says its just a learned behavior in their culture. I just think they are ignorant!! I guess I can't get mad at people for being ignorant.

Trujillo with Katie and the rest of her crew of interns was once again really comfortable. On Friday, I went to Katie's art class for the kids at her church so we could make Christmas ornaments and put on a movie night consisting of ELF in Spanish. Its really funny to hear Will Farrell dubbed over, but it definitely put me in the Christmas mood. (I listened to Christmas songs for a good two hours on my busride to Lima.) I have completely adopted all of them as my friends and saying goodbye to them was really sad.

The view from Katie's apartment in Trujillo

Talk about comfortable, these brownies were the thickest things I have ever eaten. Props to Katie and the missionary wives, who had the recipe.. I should point out though, that the missionary wives all looked like Barbie and probably never ate any of them.

My second leg of my trip was from Trujillo to Lima for 8 hours on the night bus. Night buses are apparently more dangerous because of the bus hijacks and whatnot, but I felt completely safe. After cramming my bag under my seat in between my legs and clutching on to my purse like a pillow I attempted to fall asleep. I woman next to me passed out within 10 minutes. I think Peruvians just have an amazing ability to sleep anywhere. Nothing phases them, not even really loud music from the discotheques or even being crammed into combis or collectivos( cars, vans or small buses that take as many people that will fit into the vehicle). I wish I had this trait, although I am more conscious of my bags which is probably why it was so hard for me to sleep on the bus. I show up to Lima, immediately accosted by a Peruano "rapper" who rapped a couple verses for me and then tried to get my number. No tengo, I quickly said and made my way to get my luggage. Somehow on an extreme lack of sleep I still managed to barter for a taxi to the airport and had a really long convo with the taxi driver.. in Spanish might i add :-)

The flight to cusco was amazing!! only an hour and I slept for the majority of it. Waiting in the airport for 3 hours was a little different though. Somehow I managed to memorize most of the people on my flight and have seen them either at my hostel here in Cusco or actually at Machu Picchu... speaking of Machu Picchu.. That is going to be a long post so it will be for another time. Pero mi espanol es mucho mejor ahora. Estoy muy emocionado!!!

All Latino men know how to dance!

I don't know what it is about Latin America, but all of the men know how to dance and most of them actually enjoy it unlike most of the American men that I know. I found this out a long time ago, but I just keep going to more parties where the men keep reaffirming this theory. Salsa, Merengue, Cumbia!!! Me gusta Cumbia. It is like the national dance of Peru well Peruvian Cumbia; each country down here has their own i guess. Very folky latino music. I love it! Oo I just looked up some info, props to Wikipedia for quick and usually helpful information. It was used as a slave courtship ritual dance. The men and women would dance until they found a suitable partner.

Anyways, I was at my friend Egla's birthday party on Wednesday night (that's right I finally found a friend that is a girl in Pacasmayo..too bad I just left yesterday ) and of course just like every get together in Latin America there was dancing. Lots and lots of dancing. After a few drinks of Pisco and sprite that Edgar, her father made, after the ceremonial Peruvian happy birthday song, and after Egla took the first bite of cake directly from the cake there was dancing. It felt like I was at Skateport plaza listening to early 90's music again. Mostly Latino, but the songs that were popular back then. The Macarena!!! I forgot how repetitive that song was.. Good workout though. We also did some other very repetitive Latino line dancing that should be used for a workout video. I'm still kind of hesitant to dance down here because I feel like that really tall awkward white girl with all of the Peruvians when I dance, but I end up having a blast once I get over that initial intimidation.
Taking a break from the festivities or as I thought I sat down next to Edgar, Mark's host father who's family informed me that Edgar was indeed a great dancer and quite a stud back in the days. I told him that I had to see him dance before the night was over.. which came back to bite me in the ass later on. He made me come dance with him and his wife Betty. There is video.. I just need to get it from Mark at somepoint. I'm sure it is hilarious. He was indeed a fabulous dancer much like every other guy that I have seen down here. Its very strange. I would stay that its just a Latin American thing, but a lot of the women look really awkward when they dance here so its got to be a Latin American man thing. Edgar asked me if I was a dancer and when I learned how to dance. He said it looked like I had learned down in Peru because I seemed to know what I was doing. Such a great compliment :-) He was probably just sucking up to me, but I kept up to I don't think I'm as bad as some.

I definitely need to take salsa lessons, or just find people to go dancing with when I get back home. Me gusta mucho!! Maybe I will just find a Latino man to dance with for the rest of my life. That sounds like a great plan :-) Guess I need to start lookin. No dice yet on that account, but hey I'm very open to the idea. I think I just need to get out of the country of tiny mountain people that don't grow taller than 5'4".

On to something new?? I guess I will have to figure that one out.

Well, I am leaving Pacasmayo tomorrow. Many things have happened that I have wanted to blog about, but our internet has been down for the past month making it near impossible to spend sufficient time caring for this blog. I just never felt comfortable writing sitting in a hard plastic chair or at a tiny childsized desk. So enough of my justification for the lack of blogging, this has been an experience. It hasn't been a great experience and it definitely hasn't been a horrible experience but I am extremely happy that made the decision to come down here and it has been a very memorable experience. Bipolar is a word that can definitely describe my time down here. There were a lot of really amazing times and a few not so great times, but i guess you always have to take the good with the bad. I think I am more confused about life but I think i have definitely learned a lot about myself.

I am still completely lost about what to do when I finish my time in Peru. I guess I shouldn’t have thought that I would figure out the next big plan for my life while I was down here. You would have thought that the isolation down here would have been a great time to think, to read, to make decisions. While a little of all three have been completed it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting, which is really frustrating because I was trying to come down here without any expectations. I definitely didn’t get as involved in the lives of the orphans as much as I thought and sometimes feel like I haven’t really done much. It’s really hard stepping back and actually acknowledging the things that you have done. Hopefully I have been a good representation of a gringa if I haven’t done anything else down here.

My friend Mark was telling me about a guy in the Peacecorps who worked in a really small mountain town and felt like he didn’t get anything accomplished there. However years later they found out that this small town had something different that all of the others surrounding it. The people in this town had great dental hygiene. Apparently this peacecorps worker would brush his teeth everyday in the center of town at the well and I guess his example caught. I don’t think that I would have made that kind of difference, but hey you never know.. That’s the whole point of this, isn’t it? To make a difference?

Avis, the founder of the Go-Ye Ministries has really influenced me down here. Every time I talk to her I just feel re-energized about life. She built this amazing ministry from the ground up. Seriously, she was just one woman with her Bible that has made physical and especially emotional differences in this community. A week or so ago some developers put up a sign on the building next to our school that explained the future plans for a library. There is no way that 10 years ago they would have even thought about putting a library in La Palmera. Avis started developing this unwanted land that was also home to the dumpyard for Pacasmayo and now it is finally seeing a promise for the future. Her church is a temple, her orphanage is a sanctuary, and her school is a catalyst for brighter futures and better things to come. The thing I love about Avis is that she doesn’t stop at those three facets. Her mission and her heart wants to go out to the entire community, the country, and the world if she could. Her visions for the future of her missionary and for the community are beautiful and even appear to be feasible based on her past record of success.

Here is the video that I created for Avis and her ministry. The place I have been for the past 3 months. I hope you enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDXzVH-zXik&feature=channel

Living in the Present

It is so hard to live in the present sometimes. We are always thinking about the exciting things that are to come or we let the horrible things of the past take over our thoughts. The important thing with traveling is living in the present or else you start to miss out on the good things that are in the here and now. I think that is what I love the most about traveling, I appreciate the random volleyball games in a the middle of the city, the million parades, traditional dances, traditional foods, or even just the fact that I can order breakfast in Spanish... of course I said juego(game) the first time instead of jugo (juice).. A pineapple game doesn't sound as appetizing as pineapple juice. I have actually successfully ordered meals without making mistakes though. I have learned that I can get around on the basic phrases that I know and I surprise myself sometimes with the Spanish that I do know. I definitely want to continue learning and feel frustrated that I haven't gotten a better grasp of the language thus far.

I finally got the courage to travel by myself down here last weekend. I went to Cajamarca. Vaguely translated as the box market as my students and I were joking about. Cajamarca is a mountain town with the most unbelievable skies that I have ever seen and a lot of history. It's claim to fame is the final battle between the Incas and the Spaniards and all of the ancient historical landmarks and ruins that accompany the two cultures. My favorite was probably the silla de Inca (the seat of the Inca King). It was supposed to have been the throne of the Inca King as he watched over his people and troops when they were in battle. It just looked like a flat rock jutting out of the mountain side. Never the less, the view from this "landmark" was absolutely breathtaking. I could see the entire city of Cajamarca and all of the countryside surrounding it. I walked up an intense, Rocky like, staircase filled with artisans and markets with Peruvian souvenirs that led to a small beautifully restored blue and white church. After reaching the top, completely covered in sweat and realizing that I am way out of shape to work out in high altitude I took in the view of what I thought was the top. Like always some little Peruvian man began to talk to me so I wasn't alone for very long. This guy was in school for business and tourism so I guess he was out practicing his tour guide skills. He tried to describe the history of Cajamarca and show me around, but I'm pretty sure I only understood about half of what he was saying. To me half is actually an accomplishment. Although half can be really bad when you are making plans with people of trying to get information out of them. I also went to see the Ventanillas de Otuzco, the burial grounds of the Incas, i guess. The tombs were carved into the wall of this huge rock wall making it look like it had windows (ventanillas). The sky here was also strangely breathtaking. On one side it was so vividly blue and then across the valley the grey skies of a storm were forming over the mountains. The rest of my weekend was spent exploring the city, which is probably less touristy for some, but it felt really nice just being in a bigish city. Talk about being in the right place at the right time, I was walking up to the plaza de armas with my german friend that I had met in my hostel and saw this gringa staring at me from the corner of a shop. After paying more attention to her I began to think that she actually looked familiar. Somehow it just clicked and I said, "Katie?" and we ran up to each other like we were best friends who hadn't seen each other in years. Katie is Maria's roommate from college and has been living in Trujillo for the past 4 months. We had been in contact on FB but had never actually met until this exact moment in Cajamarca. Crazy how things work out. I had been planning to come to cajamarca the weekend before and Katie's trip was also a little last minute so it was definitely fate that we met that weekend. The girls and I sat in the Plaza de Armas for a few hours talking and snacking on wine and Cajamarca Cheese. It was all very European. I'm sure we were a big spectacle being a big group of gringas having a blast in the middle of the Plaza. It was just so nice to finally hang out with girls my own age and get to talk about our shared experiences with living and working down in Peru. A view of the countryside

In the campo hanging out with the cows.. Yes I really was that close to them. My lunch on Saturday.. Somehow I enjoyed this after pulling away all of the skin and trying really hard not to look at the eyes. The potatoes were really good though.

Why wait until tomorrow when you can do it today.

Why wait until tomorrow when you can do it today: just one of the many lessons that I learned from Loly, the second of my installments of roommates down here. Loly, the hermana de Ecuador(sister from Ecuador), as they kept calling her was visiting Pacasmayo on her way through some of the coastal cities to minister about God and give testimony about her life. I really felt bad for her at first. She was basically dumped into our already cramped apartment (Ginny and Shar were still here) without much of an introduction. She came out to dinner with all of us and the guys from bible study the first night and no one really talked to her. I guess no one knew she spoke English at that point. Loly had just finished her first class in English and with my broken Spanish and her fairly decent English we managed to touch one another's lives. On a very basic level, I taught her how to use the microwave and helped her send some emails to her sister back in Ecuador. I’m sure it was also pretty cool to be dropped in the middle of “Camp America” to practice her English. A goal of hers is to come to the United States in order to share her testimony. Everyone has a story, Loly’s just happened to be pretty miraculous. She told me all about her walk to God, which began 8 years ago when she was called to the front of a church. Loly had been battling leukemia and had been called down to the alter to be healed. She told me that at the moment she gave her life to God, she felt the sickness lifted. Sounds completely unbelievable, but there she was standing in front of me, completely healed. She showed me the video of her healing and it was definitely the woman standing in front of me, but completely emaciated and bald under her hat. I don’t really know how I feel about the evangelicalist healings, but this was definitely a God thing. She kept calling me her sister (I think that’s a missionary thing) and invited me to come up to Ecuador insisting that I stay with her when I do. Apparently Ecuador is amazingly beautiful and I can’t miss out on that. Fun fact, Ecuador uses American money. Who knew?? They even have their own Ecuadorian coins that are the same sizes as American coins as well as using the American coins.