The last leg

Wednesday, 14 Jun 2006

Hello everyone,
I am back in the United States and the U.P. I flew into MSP on Thursday, June 8, 2006 at 11 am. I made the drive back up to the U.P. on Sunday. I had CPR training today and have my first day back at work on Thursday night. I didn't get as many hours as I would have liked, but oh well, there isn't much I can do. To fill all of you on the last part of my Peru journey.

After saying goodbye to all of the kids I also had to say goodbye to all of my English students and other people who I had gotten to know during my time in Peru. This was not as difficult as saying good bye to the kids, but it was difficult as well. Megan, Shawn, and I made an "American" dinner for our cook Eugenia and all of the other volunteers, giving her the night off and showing our thanks to her for all of the wonderful food she prepared for us during our stay in Chiclayo. We made a lettuce salad, tuna pasta salad (pasta with tuna, salad dressing, and veggies), and sloppy joes. She was really appreciative of it, she asked for our recipes and as she was leaving, had tears in her eyes. After English lessons, we packed our bags and went out on the town for our final night in Chiclayo. We first went to a bar that had a band playing, but were kicked out when the bar got shut down by election officials for serving alcohol on a night that it was illegal to serve alcohol. In Peru during the election (the weekend before, starting Thursday night until the elections are over, it is illegal to sell or serve alcohol). We then went to El Premio, a dance club where we danced the night away with our Peruvian friends and fellow volunteers. On Friday morning we woke up early and headed to the airport where we got on the plane for Lima. We had a couple of problems at the airport because Megan and I had 40 minutes in Lima to get off the plane, gather our bags, recheck them, and get on a different flight and this was a problem because we were on two different airlines, STAR Peru from Chiclayo to Lima and LAN Peru from Lima to Juliaca. They switched our flights so we were on the same flight as Shawn, which gave us a longer layover in Lima. Our flight went from Lima to Cusco to Juliaca. We landed in Juliaca where we were joined by another NMU student, Becky. When we landed, we didn't have any plans or ideas of what to do except that we were going to Puno that night. I had to go to the bathroom, so I did, and when I came out a man asked me if I spoke spanish, I told him I did and then he asked me if I would like to share a taxi with him. I told him I was not traveling alone, but had 3 other friends with whom I was traveling. He said that was wonderful (cheaper taxi ride). We got in the taxi with the plan of going to the bus station, but our Spanish friend continued to talk with the taxi driver and discovered that the bus tickets were about 30 sol per person, but the taxi driver would take us there for 70 sol total. We opted for this option, but it meant that Shawn and Megan rode on top of each other for the 1 hour ride. By the time we arrived at Don Julio, our hostel, neither of them had much sensation in their legs.

We (our Spanish companion) bartered the cost of the hostel down to 25 soles per person per night, which included breakfast in the morning as long as we let them book our travel to our next destination and our trip to the islands on Lake Titicaca. We were okay with that, and so we had a room. They had initially told us that there was only a room with 3 beds in it, which we said was not a problem, because we would just push the beds together and Megan, Shawn, and I would all sleep in one big bed or two of us would just share one bed...we didn't really mind. They were like, okay. We got up to our room and there was a knock at the door, and there was a man standing there with a bed, not just a mattress, the whole bed, frame and all! Then we tried to tell him that we didn't need bedding because we had sleeping bags, but he would hear nothing of it. That night we went out and wandered around a bit, looking for somewhere to eat. We were accosted by people trying to sell us hats, mittens, and socks on the street. I broke down and bought two hats from one lady because I was freezing! At that altitude, about 3, 860 meters, it gets quite cold during the winter when the sun goes down and I was caught unprepared. Anyway, as I was making my purchases, another lady walked up to us and was like, come eat in my resturant. We were like, sure...free Pisco Sours never hurt anyone. We walked up the stairs to this resturant, and were like wow! It was so cool looking--the walls were covered in reeds and it was heated by a fire...just very cool. We had our Pisco Sours and ordered our food. I ordered an alpaca sandwich and fries. The meat was super tender and had a very good flavor...too bad they waited until everyone elses food was ready to serve it to me...it was on the luke-warm side. We then headed off down the street, not really with a good idea of where we were headed, we were going in the right direction for the hostel, but we were just kind of wandering. We ended up wandering into a wool market where we ended up buying a fair amount of merchandise. I bought a sweater and another hat. It was very nice stuff and very cheap as it was all alpaca. We headed off to our hostel after that and went to bed since we had an early morning the next day. Also being at altitude that none of us were used to and having traveled all day, we were quite tired, so going to bed at 9pm didn't really phase any of us.

The next morning we woke up and went down to breakfast and then waited for the shuttle to come pick us up for our boat ride to Lake Titicaca. One of the people we picked up on the way down to the docks was someone I had gone to high school with! I hadn't seen her in about 4 years, so it was kind of crazy to see her in Puno, on the way to take the same tour of Lake Titicaca, what are the odds?! Lake Titicaca was beautiful! The floating islands of the Uros were really cool. They are islands made of reeds that the people build. Each island lasts about 15 years and then the families build a new one and move. On the islands we visited, there were four families living on one and 9 on the other. The families earn their livings mainly through the tourism that is generated by people wanting to visit Lake Titicaca, the largest, highest fresh water lake in the world (it is far from being the largest lake in the world, but its claim to fame is its altitude). We took a ride on a reed boat from one island to the other, pretty cool experience, and then we got back on our boat and headed to a land island about 3 hours away. We had lunch here and a bit of time to wander around. This is probably the point in our journey where the altitude affected us the most. We had to hike up a lot to get to our destination. I didn't feel it too bad, except for the fact that I was out of breath, but Shawn and Becky felt it much more and were feeling quite poorly. Our lunch was soup, bread with slasa, fried potatoes, rice, and fried rainbow trout. We then took the boat back after walking down some very steep steps.

We woke up early the next morning and were shuttled to the bus station for what we were promised would only be a 6 hour bus ride to Cusco. We needed it to be a 6 hour bus ride (starting at 8 and ending at 2) because we had a city tour of Cusco to catch by 2:30 pm. We were lied to. The bus didn't get to Cusco until 4 pm. We were rather irate about that! Never trust a Peruvian to tell you the truth about time, because most of them operate on Peruvian time where it doesn't really matter what time you get somewhere! So instead of taking a city tour we went to our hotel and checked in to our rooms. We then wandered around the town looking for a bank and internet. We made it back successfully and Yuri, the man who was responsible for picking us up at the bus station was there waiting for us, in a panic because we were not where we were supposed to be...he expected us on a bus at 5:30, and when we were not on it, he began to panic that something had happened to us. We were safe and he was very happy about that! On Monday we woke up at 4:45 and ate breakfast and were shuttled to the train station where we caught a train to Aguas Calientes. The train ride was beautiful! We saw many things...mountains and changing scenery from the train. We were also able to see some Incan ruins from the train. It was really spectacular. We reached Aguas Calientes and then caught a bus up to Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is amazing. I don't know how the Incans moved all of those rocks...they are huge! Many of them are so smooth and fit together perfectly, it was so crazy. They took a long time building it and it isn't done. The Incans had to abandon it when they heard the Spaniards were coming. The men went to Cusco City and the women to the forest and the mountains. It was truly a sight to see!

We then had a bit more time in Cusco after Machu Picchu--for dinner we tried cuy, fried guinea pig. It was interesting and like nothing I have ever seen before, the whole guinea pig shows up on a plate, minus the fur (it was a bit difficult to eat, we laughed the whole time because we were a bit weirded out by it all). We left Cusco on Tuesday at 2 and arrived in Lima at around 6. We went to our hostel and just hung out around there. The next day we left Peru at 11:55pm. On Wednesday we went to the Plaza de Armas and saw the changing of the guard and the president, Alan. We also went to El Mercado de Indios, an amazing place with lots of things to buy, for very cheap.

My experience in Peru was amazing and I am so glad I went. I am glad to be home, but still wish I could work with the kids! I will keep in touch with all of you and will keep you on my e-mail list for my trip to Chile, which begins July 16, 2006 and lasts until December.

Love,
Kathy

Tearful good-byes

Thursday, 1 Jun 2006

Hello all,

Today is my final day in Chiclayo. I am pretty sad. This morning was my last day at school in Culpon. I taught English classes when I first got there and then Paty, the social worker led the class in a song, which she dedicated to me. I started to cry, and then Katty, one of the girls in the class started to cry (she cried for the rest of the class almost). Paty and Johana almost started to cry and I think other students were about to cry as well. They were all really secretive today as well, hiding their books from me as I walked past them. When I opened my bag after leaving school, there were all sorts of letters and pictures they drew for me in my bag. I cried again as I read them and I am crying now because these little kids have touched my life in so many ways and it was really hard and is really hard to leave them.

As I left school today I gave my e-mail address and a shirt to the director of the school and then every kid in my class wanted me to write my e-mail down for him or her, even though they didn´t have e-mail. Diana Carolina walked up to me and grabbed my hand and told me that she didn´t have e-mail now but she was going to make one so she could talk to me. They told me that when I come back to Peru I have to come and see them and visit them again. The director was so excited about his shirt and told me I could come back and teach at his school whenever I wanted to and that what we were doing was making such a huge impact in the lives of the children we work with. Anyway...enough tears from me.

Tomorrow we get on the plane for Lima at 9am. We fly into Cusco and then make our ways to Juliaca and Lake Titicaca. On Sunday we return to Cusco for a city tour and then we get to see Machu Picchu on Monday. We will be in Lima on Tuesday and Wednesday. We fly out of Lima at 11pm Wednesday night and should be back in the US on Thursday morning.

Look forward to updated pictures with Cusco, Lake Titicaca, and Machu Picchu in the near future.

Love,
Kathy

Montezuma's Revenge

Monday, 29 May 2006

Hello,

On Friday we had a going away party for our fellow volunteers, Jodie and Adam. We had our english students and the teachers gathered together to share a dinner of Papa Reiña, mashed potatoes with meat stuffed inside and then fried...it is hard to explain in writing without being able to show you with my hands, next time you see me, ask me if you would like to know how they are made! They were very good. We also had some guacamole made with Peruvian avocados which are like 3 times the size of those you can buy in the states and much, much cheaper. After dinner we had some dancing and then we went out to a discotec called Asia. It was very small, but nicely decorated. We went with intentions of dancing, but there was a live band and it was very difficult music to dance to. We hung out and listened to the music for a bit and then left to got to El Premio, a different discotec, much more dancer friendly! Megan, Shawn, and I stayed until about 2am and then left to go to bed because we had to be up at 5 am to catch a bus to Cajamarca, a mountain town to the east of Chiclayo. I unfortunately woke up at 4 am almost in tears because I was in so much pain, I went to the bathroom, threw up and then had really bad diareha from something I had eaten or a little bit of water that had gotten in my mouth during a shower or something. Anyway, I was in no state to be riding on a bus for 6 hours so I did not get to go to Cajamarca, which makes me very sad. I am still a bit disappointed that I was unable to go! I looked at some pictures that other volunteers had and it is a beautiful place. I was really looking forward to some green instead of the desert that surrounds Chiclayo. Oh well, it happens. And I would not have made it on the bus as there was no toilet and I was pretty close to the toilet all morning, until 2pm on Saturday when the Cipro kicked in. I guess Shawn and Megan got there and Shawn promptly got sick and had to spend the day in bed. Megan did not get sick until that night, but she was also sick all night Saturday. Both of them woke up feeling decent on Sunday and so went and wandered around Cajamarca all day, returning to Chiclayo at 3 am this morning. Instead of heading east and seeing the green, I went west and saw the ocean and more sand in Pimentel. Pimentel has a pier. The pier is very long and very old. Jodie, Adam, and I walked the pier. I was not a fan of it because there were some big gaps in between the wood boards and some of them were a bit decayed and they moved when you stepped on them, I walked very slowly and carefully. Pretty sure every Peruvain that saw me walking laughed at me because they walked on the pier like it was nothing and here is this gringo walking so slowly and carefully. I must have been a sight! I survived though and then walked on the beach, which was much more to my liking! We hung out there for a couple hours and then headed back to Chiclayo. I caught up on my journaling and then did some reading. We then went out to dinner and home to go to bed.

If I ever return to Peru, Cajamarca is on my list of places to go!

I love you and will see you soon,
Kathy

Gifts

Hello everyone,

I am really enjoying my time in Chiclayo and Peru. I have it much better than Megan and Shawn because they are both very blonde and have blue eyes. They are both finding it a little difficult in Peru where the majority of people have brown hair and dark eyes. I fit in a little better because I have darker skin, hair, and eyes and my spanish is better so I am able to communicate better as well. On Sunday Megan, Adam, Jodie, and I went over to one of our English students houses for a BBQ Peruvian style. We walked to the house from ours, which was about a 30 minute walk (there is a lot more walking in Peru than in the USA and most people, unless they are very rich do not own a car). People use public transportation, the combis, moto taxis, or taxis. A ride across Chiclayo in a moto-taxi costs about 2 soles for 3 people (total) which is less than a dollar US. Gas in Peru is much more expensive than in the US, it is about 11 soles per liter which is about 1/4 of a gallon so about $10 per gallon and these people are making 2 soles for about 15 minutes of driving...they are barely breaking even. Life is difficult for many people, the combi drivers have it better because they can fit many more people in their vehicle per hour (up to 27) and they try to fit more than that! 27 people in a combi does not make for a fun ride. At the BBQ we ate chorizo, a pink sausage that looks like bratwurst and another kind of sausage which I found out after I was done eating it, was blood sausage...it didn´t really matter because I thought it quite good. And steaks, potatoes, and corn. The corn in Peru is much different...it is tougher and bigger and not sweet (not my favorite). After eating we had some sangria and danced for hours to Peruvian music. I am learning to salsa and meriengue and samba. I really like dancing. On Monday I was again at school in Culpon. The students are very nice and I really like them...they have a great passion and desire to learn.

On Tuesday I went to market with our cook, Eugenia because she needs help at the Market with the bags and reaching over the stalls as she is a very short woman. The market is a very, very busy place. I enjoyed it because there is so much to see. Eugenia is an amazing woman, making sure she got the best deal and the best quality. She bartered for almost everything she bought. I went back to school at Culpon yesterday (Wednesday) and when I got there was swarmed by my students, screaming my name and coming to give me hugs! I was really excited. I think Adam, who has been here longer and has been working with the students longer was very disappointed that he didn´t get the same reception that I did. It was Johana´s birthday on Wednesday, and Adam brought her flowers, a card, and pictures to put up in the classroom. When the students found out it was her birthday, they started to sing happy birthday to her and come up and give her a kiss on the cheek. She started to cry because she was so happy! After that she went through all of the new school supplies that I had brought from the US for the class. She was pretty excited and so were the students. She gave them rules about the use of the supplies. To receive a new pencil they had to bring their old, short pencil stub to her and then she would give them a new one. Many students clammered for a new pencil and held up almost new pencils, covered by their hands asking for a new one! There is a brother and sister, Flor and Segundo, who are little devils and try to get things and take and take. Segundo left the classroom and went and found a pencil that was little outside and brought it in to try to get a new one. He did the same thing today when he came to class. Then they got their new clothes. They were pretty excited for all of them, but not as excited as I thought they would be...probably because most of the clothes were a bit too big for them, Peruvian children are a bit smaller than the average college student (imagine that!) One girl cried because the shirt she got was way to big for her to wear and when I asked her why she was crying she told me that she wasn´t going to get to keep the shirt, that it would stay in her house (her mom or someone would take it from her and wear it since it was too big for her). I felt really bad and want to give her a shirt that will fit her better, but at the same time I am torn because I have already given them so much and I don´t want them to become accustomed to gringos giving them things and rely on gringos.

Today at class I brought puzzles for one of the students (a little one) to work on...he liked them, I don´t know that he learned too much. I also got to teach the students English this morning. I did numbers, time and colors because they always ask me what time it is and they needed numbers to do that and then after we were done with that they asked me what certain colors were and I told them. After that they wanted to know what my parents names were and so I told them. Their next question was, what are their names in Castiaño...a little more difficult, I told them DeeAnn would be Diana (said Deeana) and Dwayne, well it doesn´t translate! They also asked me how old I was and how many babies I had, I don´t have any babies and I am not married, but I have a boyfriend and his name is Chris (Cristopher in Castiaño). They were shocked that I didn´t have any children and was not married at 21 because almost every girl in their community is married or has a baby by that time.

After class today the students invited us to the river with them. They really wanted us to swim in the river with them, but we had to refuse as we would get sick if we swam in the water, it took a lot of explaining, but I think they finally understood why we would swim. We did however go to the river with them so they could swim. That was an experience...I don´t think I have ever seen so many naked little boys. Many of them just stripped off all of their clothes and jumped in, not seeming to care that there were other people around them, very different from the culture I was raised in. They ran and jumped and swam in the water for about 30 minutes, and then we had to leave, so they all had to get out of the water. The area by the river was so beautiful. I took some pictures, but with my disposable, much to the dismay of the students. They really like having their pictures taken and being able to see it right away afterwards. We walked home and were hailing a moto when one of the girls told Johana that if she went home wet like she was, she would be beaten, but if we went with and explained everything, she would not be beaten. We went with and dropped every student off at home and Johana explained to the parents where they had been and why they were wet and asked that they not be hit for going to the river to "bath."

The English classes I teach are going well, but my students run on Peruvain time, which means they don´t show up until 30-45 minutes of the classtime is gone. It is really quite frustrating because it is hard to teach in so little time, but oh well.

I must get going. You will be receiving another e-mail with a website that has all of my pictures on it, there are a lot of them and I haven´t been able to put captions on all of them yet, but I am working on it!

Love,
Kathy

From Trujillo to Chiclayo

Tuesday, 16 May 2006

Greetings from Chiclayo,

Megan, Shawn, and I arrived in Chiclayo yesterday on the 5 am bus from Trujillo. It was a 3 hour ride up here, but I slept for most of the ride. Before leaving Trujillo we had the opportunity to visit some places around the area. We say Chan Chan ruins of the Chimu people (pre Incan) as well as Huecas del Sol y de la Luna, ruins of the Moche people. They were very interesting and I captured lots of pictures of both of them. At the Huecas you can still see the paint on the stone, the artwork was pretty impressive. After seeing the ruins on both days we headed out to Huanchaco, the beach in the area. On Saturday I ate ceviche for the first time, it is fish that is cooked in citrus juice (it has an interesting flavor). We also just wandered around and took in the amazing views of the ocean. At night we went out salsa dancing at a club called La Barra with some of the English students from the center. We wanted to see as much around Trujillo as we could before coming further north.

It was pretty amazing to get to Chiclayo because it is so different here than it was in Trujillo. There is not nearly the same amount of traffic and the city is less crowded it seems. We did our laundry yesterday, which involved water in a bucket and scrubbing and wringing the clothes out before putting them on the clothesline. It is a lot warmer here as well. The center is bigger, but there are fewer volunteers here. We are working with Adam and Jodie from Australia and Jean-Marie from France. Also at the center lives our cook Eugenia and her son Danielo. The food is amazing. It consists of a lot of rice and potatoes. Today for lunch we had potatoes with chicken, tomatoes, cucumbers. and spinach. It is very good food.

Yesterday afternoon we went to the market, it was huge and there were many sights and smells. I definately did not enjoy walking past the fish vendors. There was so much going on there and people, especially children or mothers with children walked up to us and asked for money, it is really hard to see the kids and not give them money, but you don´t give them money because if you do, you will have a trail of children following you expecting money for them as well.

Last night I taught my first English class! I am teaching beginning and elementary English (the people with the least English experience). It went well I think, there are only two people in the second class and they showed up 30 minutes late, apparently Peruvians like many peoples do not have the same concept of time as Americans and are habitually late. No one from my first class came, but I think there was a misunderstanding because there previous teacher had left and they thought since he left it would not continue, so hopefully they come tonight.

This morning I woke up to bells ringing, not pretty ones...it was a man trying to sell his wares at 6am. We left the center at about quarter after 8 for Labaique (spelling) where there is a school in which we have a class. I went out into the slums with Paty, the social worker looking for more students. It was hard work because everyone we saw was like nope, we all go to school, even though many of them do not. Jodie says it is because they have grown accustomed to seeing gringos there and the parents have told their children to say they go to school, even if they don´t. We did find two girls who wanted to come to school and so hopefully they come to school tomorrow! The children in the school are so beautiful and they were so incredibly excited when we walked in the door to the schoolyard (all of the schools are baracaded by big walls), they came running up to us screaming with excitement. When Jodie took out her camera, she was mauled with children wanting their photo taken, it is very exciting for them because they don´t often get to see themselves in photos. I am not sure if I am going back to Lambiaque tomorrow or if I will be at another school. We bought some grenadines at the market yesterday and I had one to eat at lunch today. It is a very juicy, sweet fruit. It is similar to a pomagranite but you suck the seeds out of the center.

To get to school we rode in motos, motorcycles with carriages attached to the back of them where th passengers sit. They are very prevalent here. My Spanish is getting better I think, I think I am able to understand more, they talk really fast here. Speaking is still a struggle, especially when I am asked to translate some things that I don´t really know how to say.

Everything is going well once again and I think I am adjusted well now, I am not so nervous about everything and the shock of being here is going down, even though it is still there because many things are so different.

Love,
Kathy

Oh the places you will go

Friday, 12 May 2006

Hello everyone,
I am writing to you from an internet cafe Trujillo, Peru. We made it into Peru on time as was indicated on our tickets, but were unable to land because there was a heavy fog covering Lima. Our flight was diverted to Trujillo where we were confined to the plane, but could get off to go into the airport there (it was very small and smelly). We got there around midnight and stayed there until 5:20 am. We then got the okay from Lima to return and land. However, when we got to Lima the fog that had lifted, resettled and we were stuck circling Lima for almost 3 hours. We finally got the okay to land at 8:30 am. From there we met our taxi drivers who took us to the bus station where we bought bus tickets to Trujillo. We had to wait in the station until 1 pm then we got on the bus and had a 9 hour ride up to Trujillo. When we finally arrived, we loaded into taxis and went to the Bruce Peru center. We had a brief tour of our residence and then waited for showers (we were very smelly after not having showered in 2 days and having been traveling for a long time, especially in the warm, humid conditions in Peru). The temperature is very warm here, but it is nice...not too bad. Today I went with a Peruvian teacher to a school a little outside of Trujillo. It was a school close to a dump. The students in that classroom go to school in the morning and then after going to school and having a small meal (a bun with peanut butter) they go to work at the dump where they are looking for something to eat, wear, or sell. These kids are only like 7 years old. All of them were so excited to be in school and to be interacting with each other and with their teacher, Juan. The children are so beautiful and even in the conditions in which they live, they seem very happy. I am so glad that I have some Spanish in my background because I have been able to communicate with people down here. At times it has been very difficult because they do not understand what I am trying to say and then I do not understand them either. I am much better at communicating with only one person or when there is not a lot going on in the background. In the classroom I was challenged because all of the kids were talking at the same time and I could not tell what they were saying or who they were talking to.

The conditions here are so different than in the US. Everything is so much dirtier. People just throw their garbage out into the streets or when they are done with it they drop it on the ground or out the window. The buildings are so much livlier because they are painted in bright colors, making them much more pleasing to look at, however, many of them are in great disrepair. Driving here there were so many different villages, and they each had buildings that seemed to be falling down and they didn´t seem to have roofs, but they may have just been flat. There are flowering trees and flowers lining many of the streets. It is a challenge to walk around outside because the taxis move so quickly and they are absolutely crazy. They don´t use turn signals and they are always trying to pick up people off the street so they heckle you and honk their horns. There is a lot of horn honking. It is pretty much a free for all on the streets. There are so many taxis and mini-buses. There are not a lot of individually owned cars like in the U.S.

Shawn, Megan, and I will be leaving Trujillo on Monday to go to Chiclayo, further north along the coast. Bruce (of Bruce Peru) said that the city is smaller and more modern than Trujillo, but there is also more crime. We were told not to carry or use purses because gangs of street children would take them from you in whatever manner they had to. He also said that while there were not as many children in their centers, there was a great need there for the centers and that many children did not come to their centers that could. I am nervous and excited to have the opportunity to be up there helping. In each of the places there is a Pervian teacher (through Bruce Peru) that works with the students and then the volunteers help to assist the teachers in the classrooms because at times there are 40+ students in a classroom. We will be there to help in any way we can. In the mornings we teach in the schools out in the community and then return to the center for a prepared lunch. After lunch there is some free time before teaching English classes to paying adults who wish to learn the language. On weekends we will have the opportunity to see things in Peru. I am still hoping to see Machu Picchu, but we shall see if it is possible.

I am having a good time so far. I am safe and sound and am learning a lot about a different culture and way of life. Thank you for your prayers and support.

Much love,
Kathy