Wednesday, June 1, 2011

This is going to be a short blog. After our classes at El Sol today, we taught English at FAP again and played sports with the kids afterward. I had really cute shoes on so I didn’t play sports and instead just chatted with some of the girls and practiced my Spanish. My favorite part about going to FAP is the conversations I get to have with the students. I’m incredibly impressed by their knowledge of English and their desire to practice. Often times I find them asking me questions in English and I would respond in Spanish. My favorite is Kimberly Vivas. She reminds me of myself. She is a beautiful, fiercely independent young woman and a brilliant conversationalist. How much trouble would I get in for smuggling a 17 year old Peruana home to Boston in my suitcase?

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Today after school we toured Pachacamac, ancient ruins about 30km from Lima. On our way, we picked up some of the students from FAP! (They are so adorable. I miss high school. Also, they are in love with Yianni and I though it was hilarious. To be young again!) We started out with a tour of their archeological museum. My favorite part of the museum wasn’t even an artifact! It was a step-by-step photo tour of how textiles are salvaged and reconstructed after being discovered. They use this liquid to relax the fabric and then try to piece it back together very carefully. That must be a super cool job. I wonder what I would have had to major in….

Next we toured the actual ruins of Pachacamac. It was a brief tour but the ruins were beautiful. We climbed up to the tallest pyramid and saw a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean and these remote islands. Once the civilization was taken over by the Incas, they built an even higher temple, closer to the sun to exert dominance and superiority. I was super bummed today, though, because I forgot my camera!

Monday, May 30, 2011

After school at El Sol today, we went to FAP for another session of teaching English. Since we again had a different classroom, we used our same lesson on foods and holidays. It was a bit difficult to teach as I felt Kris somewhat monopolized the classroom. But she warned us before that this might happen so I was quick to interrupt and throw my two senses in. She explained to the class about how controversial Thanksgiving is because of how the Native Americans were slaughtered. She told them many people in America don’t celebrate Thanksgiving because of this. I felt this was a bit off topic and quite incorrect. I don’t know a single person who doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. I let it slide, though. After teaching, we had a history lecture about the emancipation and independence of Peru. Jose de San Martin proclaimed Peru’s independence in 1821, but after a rough encounter with Simon Bolivar, fled the country. Bolivar’s presence made sure Peru gained independence in 1824. After breaking from Spain, there were several different transitional governments, regimes and presidents. My favorite part of the lecture was sitting with a group of students that were whispering me the answers and forcibly raising my hand. I really do love the students at FAP.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Today, we woke up at 6:30am to head to Caral, the oldest known civilization in the Americas. We rode about two hours down a highway and then turned down a dirt road, which, after 45 minutes, lead us to Caral. We then walked about twenty minutes to the actual archeological site that seemed to appear out of nowhere. First stop was the bathrooms. These were probably the nicest bathrooms I have used thus farin Peru. I seriously didn’t want to leave them! Beautiful bathrooms in the middle of nowhere; who knew!? Our guide explained that Caral was discovered very recently, within the past 20 years. When Caral was first discovered, it was basically ignored because archeologists hadn’t found any ceramics. It is thought to have existed among the same time as Mesopotamia. It is located in the Supe valley, which allowed for irrigation and a wealth of agriculture. An enormous mudslide had caused the demise of the city and made the valley appear to be full of hills. Underneath these hills were the ancient ruins of Caral. There was almost no evidence of human remains, and it was believed that Caral was mainly used for religious purposes and festivals. I really enjoyed this tour. I felt so privileged to be touring the oldest civilization in the Americas – and before today I didn’t even know it existed! I found myself falling back from my group to really take in the scenery.

Friday, May 27, 2011

After classes at El Sol today we went to FAP again and I was excited to go because I was sick for our last visit. My teaching group was myself, Kris, Rachel and Kelsey. We had a great lecture planned out to teach them about holidays and their respective foods. About halfway through our lecture, the professor interrupted us because the students had prepared about six typical Peruvian dishes for us to try. Many of the dishes were potato and egg-based. My favorites were the homemade papas fritas! Muy fresca! We used the rest of the class to eat and converse with the students. The students would ask us questions in English and we would respond in Spanish (or Spanglish). It was a great way to practice and the students had some fantastic questions. When we left class to head to our history lecture, students asking for our Facebook bombarded us. “Cual es tu face?!” I felt like a rockstar signing paper after paper so these kids could find me on Facebook. (I still have about thirty friend requests).

That night, we went to a pena called Rompe y Raja. SO MUCH FUN. Live music, live dancing and muchos bebidas! Monica ordered a few plates of lomo saltado (sautéed beef, onions and tomatoes over rice and papas fritas.) Looking back, this was the best lomo saltado I had eaten in Peru. After a few hours of dancing and watching performers, I was pulled on to the dance floor with Leslie to participate in a traditional Peruvian dance called Alcatraz. The dance involves one person dancing with a rag or napkin in the back pocket of your pants while your partner tries to light it on fire. The point is to shake your booty so they can’t light the napkin on fire. It was really tough! I could NOT catch that guy! I am, however, an expert booty shaker thanks to my years of dance training so he couldn’t catch me either! After catching our breath, everyone flooded the dance floor and they dropped balloons from the ceiling and I danced until about 1AM. I can’t remember the last time I danced so much. What a fun night! Why don’t we have penas in The States?! I plan on writing a formal letter to President Obama demanding the implementation of mandatory fun at penas!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

In grammar class today, we continued with the subjunctive. I had a really tough time paying attention as I was getting really run down. I still hadn’t fully recovered from being sick in Ica and was feeling awful. In our culture class, we started learning about the pre-Inca civilizations Chavin and Paracas. Each culture was incredibly innovative. The Paracas empire, for example, created aqueducts to access ground water. These aqueducts are still around today.

After class, we had our second day teaching at FAP. I was feeling really run down and I didn’t make it. Instead, I went back to my homestay and slept for eight hours, woke up for dinner, and then slept through the night. I was really sick and run down so it felt wonderful to rest.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Today, our classes were cut short to go on a Lima adventure! We met outside of El Sol to catch the public bus to downtown Lima. What an upgrade from the T! I asked my host family about the public transit and they told me it was only six months old. We got off the bus and walked to Lima’s Plaza de Armas, where we toured El Palacio de Gobierno. This was essentially the Peruvian White House. The inside was covered in Italian marble and was beautifully decorated. My favorite room was the Gold Room, which was covered in gold and mirrors and had a very high ceiling adorned with detailed murals. This room is where government officials are sworn in and where important press conferences are held. The next room was an enormous dining room with a V-shaped table that we all sat at and took pictures. I felt a little weird sitting at the table, though. I suppose I think of our White House as a museum with strict “look but don’t touch” policies. At the other end of the dining room, there was a fireplace with a large painting of Tupac Amaru and other elements that represented Peru. As we were touring the dining room, we could hear the beginnings of the changing of the guard. We went outside to watch the ceremony and it was quite interesting as they incorporated live music. What was especially neat about watching the ceremony was that we were right next to the action as we were already inside the palace gates.

Next we toured San Francisco Church. I love old churches. This one in particular housed one of the world’s oldest and most extensive libraries. We could only peer in the room because it was entirely blocked off. It was so amazing to look at. I felt like if I sneezed, the books would disintegrate! Our guide told us that due to lack of funding, it was very difficult for the church to preserve its contents. She mentioned that only three years ago, there was a new roof installed above the library to help protect the books from the damaging humidity. My favorite part of the tour was by far the catacombs under the church. Over 25,000 people were buried there. Femurs and skulls were displayed, sometimes in decorative patterns. The ceilings kept getting lower and lower the deeper we went in to the catacombs. Super creepy, super awesome!

After San Francisco Church, we toured the congressional building. Peru only has congress (no senate) and they meet once a week. I was especially excited for this given the approaching elections. We took the bus back to Benavides and split off for dinner. That night, we met up at an Irish Pub called Murphy’s to celebrate Dana’s 19th birthday.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Today was our first day of school(s)! This morning, at 7:45, we went to the Air Force School (FAP) to see their weekly Monday morning salute. The kids stood in perfect lines, singing the national anthem in their uniforms. A few people in our group got up and said a few words thanking the school for welcoming us.

We booked it back to Miraflores where we were a bit late for our first day of classes! We will be studying for two weeks at El Sol. My padres founded the school The day started out with a written placement exam and brief oral exam. I bombed the written part (grammar is the worst!) but rocked the oral exam. I was placed in an advanced language class with a great group of students. Both of my teachers, Carolina and Mili, are fantastic. Carolina, my grammar teacher, is very patient. Our first grammar lecture reviewed the subjunctive and imperative. Odio el subjuntivo y el subjuntivo me odia! Mili is my culture teacher and she is wonderful. It is very clear that she loves to learn and share her knowledge with others. We talked about what we would study for the next two weeks and then had a chance to tell Mili what we wanted to learn, too! She’s very talkative and I couldn’t wait to get our culture lectures started.

After school we went straight back to FAP to meet our language partners and have a small reception to meet the students and faculty. It was so much fun! The students were so excited to talk to us about Peru and practice their English. My language partner’s name was Leslie and she was so talkative and interested in life in the United States. She and her friends were surprisingly well versed in American culture and language (read: slang) and had a TON of questions. I was so excited to talk to everyone and for the first time, I really felt like I was using my Spanish!

We finished up at FAP around 4pm. It was tough to leave because the students wanted to keep talking. They’re fantastic! That night was a free night and I took advantage and went home to relax and do homework. I was still feeling a bit under the weather so it felt great to recharge.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Hoy vamos a nuestros familias!

Today was a very exciting day as we arrived at our Lima host families. I was greeted with open arms by my host father, Alan, and quickly met the whole family. My host father is Canadian and his wife, Shirley, is Peruvian (although Shirley says that Alan is more Peruano than her). They have two children, Alana, 13, and Salvador, 11, and a pup named Taffy! (Sidenote: I miss my dog). Everyone but Shirley spoke Spanish and English fluently; with my disease it is very comforting to know that in an emergency, I could communicate clearly with my familia de Lima.

I was given a quick tour of the apartment and shown to my room to unpack. By the time I had settled in, it was time for lunch. The whole family was there! I met Shirley’s mother, sister & novio, and brother & novia. We ate an enormous lunch from Pardo’s Chicken, a popular chain in Lima. The food was incredible! There were huge amounts of chicken, rice, papa pure (potato puree, like Peruvian mashed potatoes!), and salad! I took it upon myself to mix the papa pure with my rice. YUM. Shirley said that I could be Peruvian because apparently this is a very common way to eat arroz y papas! I sat and chatted with the family for a little while. I had a little trouble understanding Shirley’s sister because she spoke so quickly! But my familia was very gracious and made an effort to speak slowly and clearly.

After lunch, I had some down time to relax and chat with boyfriend, friends and family via skype. So nice to catch up with everyone after a whirlwind first week in Peru! I went to bed early tonight because our first day at school and at The Air Force School was the next day!

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Today was another monumental day! We got up early to tour Nazca, Peru and then head back to Lima. We arrived first at the Nazca lines and climbed a small observation tower, ten at a time, to see two figures: los manos y el arbol (the hands and the tree). Two theories exist for how these figures appeared in the desert. The first, that extraterrestrial life forms came to our planet and created them. This theory is supported by the existence of an alien-like figureamong the numerous Nazca lines. The second, and much morelikely theory, is that the carvings were created by pre-Incan civilizations in Nazca. This theory states that removing the dark colored, iron-coated pebbles that coat the surface of the Nazca desert to expose lighter colored sand is the process that created the lines. The extremely dry, windless climate of the Nazca desert has helped keep the lines visible for centuries.

Our next stop was a gold mining/production site. We had a brief tutorial about the 15-18-hour process. The men start their day by hiking up the mountains to search for stones from which they later extract gold. Our guide told us it was a more labor-intensive, arduous process than at a factory and also a bit more difficult because the chemicals are quite toxic and are handled by humans instead of machines. From one stone, about size of an apple, one gram of gold would be extracted. I couldn’t believe that such and intense (and seemingly dangerous) process yielded such minuscule results! After the tutorial, we popped in their jewelry shop with items that had been made on the premises from start to finish. It was crazy to think about! My favorite part of the gold production site was by far my trip to the bathroom. I met an elderly woman who was watching her two grandchildren. She introduced us to her youngest grandchild, a little girl who was two years old. Her older brother soon ran out and said, “Tengo cinco años!” andimmediately did a handstand. A-freaking-dorable.

We walked shortly down the street to sit for another tutorial, this time about ceramics (I love crafting!). The woman showed us the process that her grandfather had taught her which mimicked the process used in ancient Nazca. The paint used to decorate the finished ceramic was extracted from different minerals and soils. This place also had a gift shop with some rather interesting pieces. One in particular depicted a woman giving birth. I’m fairly positive every single one of us took a picture of it. Easily amused Americans, I suppose! Aside from the colorful ceramics, it was quite nice to see this woman carrying on her grandfather’s traditional ceramic work.

Next we stopped at a series of ancient aqueducts that still work to this day (although they are not in use). They were very large and spiraled deep into the ground. Our guide, Miguel, passed water around for us to try and it was surprisingly refreshing! From the aqueducts, we could see the world’s largest sand dune. (I was very skeptical that the world’s largest sand dune was in Peru. I though for sure it was in Africa. After wiki-confirming, I was totally stoked to have gotten a picture!)

Lastly, we toured ancient Incan ruins that were built on the side of a small mountain, which overlooked the entire valley. Our guide said that the Incans wanted to keep watch over their newly conquered valley and from this location they had a perfect view. The stones were very soft and many, many people had carved their names into the ruins. I found that to be a bit lame. I think that those tours really show me the importance of remembering and preserving the past. We should feel lucky to be standing on such ancient ruins instead of carving “Joe was here!” on a rock.

We headed back to Ica to eat dinner. I got some fantastic Chinese food with Andrew and Vinny. After about two hours, we boarded the bus and went back to Lima. I tried falling asleep on the bus with no luck. A bunch of us sitting in the back of the bus played games and told stories to better get to know one another. Upon returning to Lima, we went out to a discoteca and had a blast! It was our last night all together in the hostel before we all split up to go to our host families the next day.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Thank god for free days! I woke up today at about 9:00am to eat some breakfast with my wonderful roommates. We went back to our rooms to grab our computers to do some homework and blogging. I had every intention of spending my day relaxing by the pool and reading, but when I got back up to my room, I sat briefly on my bed to look for Dayquill. The next thing I knew I had been asleep for five hours. I was not feeling good at all! I woke up around 2:30 and felt much better. I was so hungry when I woke up (another sign I was feeling better!) and got some incredible Chinese food! Who knew Peruvians had amazing comida Chino!?!

Our only activity for the day was to meet in Ica’s Plaza de Armas to conduct interviews with three people. It was a bit uncomfortable at first but everyone we interviewed was very nice. I had trouble staying on track with the list of questions because I really enjoyed just talking to the people. I found it was easier to have a regular conversation, as the people we interviewed didn’t know the answers to some of our more specific questions. They responded really well when we asked them what their favorite tourist spots, festivals and foods were. We approached and older man for an interview and then his daughter joined us and we were able to chat with them both. She was a nurse and had two kids that were 15 and 20. He was retired and was visiting his daughter in Ica. We spoke with a younger woman who was 28 and a waitress. Everyone was really nice and very willing to share their experiences with us gringos!

That night a few people went out to the discotecas but since I wasn't feeling good, I stayed in and hung out with Andrew and Rosana and did some homework.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Today, we drove from Lima to Ica (about four hours) and I slept most of the way. I woke up about an hour and a half before we arrived in Ica. What I observed from the bus was rather interesting. Acres and acres of crops and farmland in what appeared to be desert. How could they cultivate such dry land? One side of the highway would be covered in row after row of lush, green plants being harvested by hardworking groups of about twenty. The other side of the road was dry, rocky, uninhabited desert. Sporadically, along both sides of the highway, there were small, church-like houses, some adorned with flowers and crosses.I asked Henry what they were for and he told me they are in memorial of people who had died while crossing the highway. He said the accidents normally happen at night because the cars don’t see crossing pedestrians until its too late. I found this so interesting. In the states, all highways have lights every few hundred yards and in most places, it’s illegal to walk along or near highways unlessyour car broke down.

We arrived at our hotel around 4:30 and relaxed by the pool. The side of our hotel is covered in paper-thin pink and red flowers. The furniture is made of tree trunks and I want it for my porch!

Since our rooms weren’t ready, we went in groups to hunt down some food. About eight of us went together and got caldo de rez, and chicharron de pollo con arroz y ensalada. The chicharron was so juicy and delicious. Peruvian food agrees with me, for sure! The caldo de rez was made with spaghetti, rice, chicken and corn (the biggest corn kernels I have ever seen… muy rico!!)

caldo de rez

After lunch, we settled into our rooms. I’m rooming with Syeda and Kaitlyn (chicas fantasticas!). The group met outside for some cerveza and vino before heading out to karaoke. We met an adorable turtle that lives at the hotel! I called him "novio" and tried to pet him but everyone laughed at me because apparently turtles cant feel petting. We shall see. That turtle LOVED me.

We went out to karaoke tonight and had an absolute blast! I could barely speak the next day but it was totally worth it. We started our set by serenading Monica with the Celine Dion classic “My Heart Will Go On.” We had such a fun time and I really think we have a great group dynamic! After karaoke, Kris and I got some french fries and sliced hot dogs to share before bed. We went right home after karaoke because Thursday is going to be a BIG day.

…..Stay tuned!