Malaria Pills, Hand Weights and Carnies…oh my! What a week
it has been; let’s recap.
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| With Erica on the Pacific Coast in Miraflores. |
Last week started out on a great note, because we hopped on
a combi bright and early Monday morning to meet up my friends Dave and Erica in
Miraflores. Dave and Erica and are a married couple living in Paraguay for two
years while Erica teaches Math at a local high school. It was refreshing to see
them after six months and to chat with someone who understand what it’s like to
relocate your whole life for such a long time. We spent most of the day walking
around the rocky Pacific Coast and chatting, but also hunting in pharmacy after
pharmacy for malaria pills. In one week, Dave, Erica, Katrina and I are going
to Iquitos, which is in the heart of the Amazon—thus, malaria medicine is
necessary. After more than a dozen pharmacies, we finally found a medicine we
were content with and headed to my favorite churro place to celebrate.
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| The view from the top...of the Ferris Wheel! |
Tuesday afternoon, Erica and Dave headed out to southern
Peru to check out some of the sights and Katrina and I headed to the Carlos apartment
for a movie night. All of Prudencio’s children share an apartment within walking
distance of our homestay. The sisters, Gladys, Marlene and Mirtha live on the
lower level, while their brother Roberto, lives upstairs with his wife and they’re
son. It was wonderful to spend the night gossiping and pigging out on cancha
and popcorn with the girls. Something odd about being a World Service Corps
volunteer is that you pretty much spend all of your time with people in the
church. That’s by no means a bad thing, but after a while, you miss the feeling
of just going out with your friends—the independence of saying, “See ya, I’ll
be back later tonight.” Now, of course, Gladys, Marlene, and Mirtha ARE our
church friends, but it was still refreshing to be hanging out with them strictly
on a social basis and to just spend the night having fun together—and we didn’t
even need an escort to walk to their apartment J.
Wednesday was the day we found out we STILL hadn’t seen the
REAL Peru. Living in Callao is pretty much as “real” Peru as you can get; it’s
on the outskirts of Lima and it’s where the normal people live. It’s not
tourist-centered, it’s a little dirty and dogs on the streets are a normal
thing. Living here for four months, we thought we’d pretty much seen it all;
but Wednesday, Wilfredo took us to a market we’d never been to before. It was
off the beaten path and a little…rough and tumble…but we found what we were looking
for: hand weights and yoga mats. Apparently home workout equipment is NOT
popular in Peru.
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| My horse looks rather strained... |
Friday marked our
first ever English lesson in Monte Sion. Something I LOVE about Peru is that
everyone seems to be excited about learning new languages. Everyone is always
trying to pick up words in both Quetchua, the language of the Incas, and
English. We only had five students for our first class and our age range was
from six years old to 52 years old, which I found absolutely fantastic.
Saturday was my first time teaching the young children’s
class. I’ve always taught the middle school aged children, but this time around
I was with a slightly different age range: 2-8 years old. I have little
experience working with kids this young, and it was a bit of a struggle, but
overall the class went well. If nothing else, they really seemed to like the
hand motions involved with singing “Esta Lucecita” (This Little Light of Mine.)
Attendance was down at the service that night, with only one
mom and her daughter from the local community attending. The little girl had attended
a few previous events with the church and I have to admit: I sometimes struggle
with her. She’s not fond of listening to adults and she is insistent on getting
what she wants. But—the thing about church is that everyone is welcome and we’re
all called to love each other. So I’m hoping this little girl will start coming
to more events and that we can learn to have a better understanding of each
other.
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| FYI: This guy added two tables after this! |
To round out the week, Sunday was an exhaustingly fantastic
day. Karen, Rocio, Katrina and I left the house bright and early to go a fair
at Costa Verde. Naturally, I was a little nervous about the event since my
stomach is less than fond of fairs; however, loaded up with Dramamine, I only
had one moment when I thought I was going to toss my cookies, and luckily, I
managed to choke that back. A particularly awesome part of the fair is that
they had exotic fair food: corn dogs, fried pickles and funnel cakes.
Naturally, we bought a giant funnel cake, complete with chocolate and
strawberries and destroyed the entire thing.
After the fair, we headed straight to church, where Johnny
preached and Betzabe presided. I always like it when Betza presides because she
loves music and carefully chooses every song we sing—and she leads all the songs
with passion. Sometimes in church here I feel like I’m at a concert because
whoever leads the song generally closes their eyes and just belts it out. Say
what you want about our pitch and rhythm, if nothing else, we’ve got passion.
As for this week, we start our malaria regiment today and I’m
a little anxious about it. Marlaria medicine is notorious for having weird side
effects like creepy dreams and I don’t really want to tango with that. Dave and
Erica will be back in town on Saturday, then Monday the four of us are
jungle-bound. Wish us luck!
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