Carmen's Birthday (July 23)

Tonight we celebrated my host-mom's sister's birthday. It was so much fun and such a great cultural experience. We ate really good pasta with chicken for our main course, then we had 2 desserts. A pineapple pastry and a huge piece of black forest chocolate cake. We also drank really good white wine from grapes grown in Peru.

After eating (actually while eating) we danced... a lot! In fact, there was even a live band there playing traditional Peruvian music. I wish we did that in the US!! After the dancing and eating, we broke open a piñata, which was filled with candy.

After celebrating with the family, Micah, Andrew, Brooke (another ISA student), and I went out with Carmen and her friends. We went to a few places that were filled with "gringos" and finally ended up in a Cusqueña bar, where we were the only "white" people there! It was my favorite place I've been to so far in Cusco. The other students and I left at about 2:30 and Carman and her friends stayed out until about 6! We were so tired the next day, but we all had a really fun time!

This week and (probably) next week I'll be working at Yanapay - the place I was originally supposed to work. They're a lot more strict than the kindergarten, but I still think it will be a good experience. I start today at 2:45. The main drawback to this is that I'll be working from 3-7:45 all weekdays this week and next week and these are the weeks that everyone is on vacation for the independence days so I'll be missing out on some family and independence day activities, but hopefully I'll like working at Yanapay and will get a lot from the experience!

Wed, July 21

My friend Ellen and I at trivia.

Today was another good day in Cusco. I'm growing so close to the students and teachers I work with at the kindergarten. There is one student in particular, Joaquin, that I work with a lot. He has been through a lot in his life and has some major behavioral problems. In fact, his nickname is the "diablito de los Andes" (the little devil of the Andes). However, I can tell he has a good heart and I love working with him. I will post pictures of him and the other kids the last week that I'm here.

This afternoon we went to listen to the traditional sounds of Perú. At a little museum, Taki, we heard a musician play instruments from the coast, Andes, and jungle. He played everything from a deer skull covered in beeswax to the pan flute.

There is also a popular restaurant here called "The Real McCoy" owned by some British people. They have trivia there almost every night so everyone from ISA goes once a week. It's a lot of fun and the food and drinks are really good! We've never won trivia, but we're learning a lot. Who knew the most commonly purchased musical instrument was the kazoo?!

I love it here...

Sorry it's been awhile since I last updated, I hardly ever get online and when I do it's pretty slow.

I'll start off with my volunteer news:

I'm going to continue working at the Jardín de Niños de San Cristóbal (Saint Cristopher's Kindergarten) and I absolutely love it there, BUT they have a two week vacation so during one of those weeks I'll work at Yanapay and we're still not sure about the second week yet. This means I only have 2 weeks left with the kids at Saint Cristopher's so I'm a little sad about that, but still glad I'm getting the chance to work there. A typical day consists of me hearing about how the US did in the world cup, Karla's pregnant mother, and Fátima's birthday party, but between the students' stories I have to stop Joaquín from breaking the copying machine and Clara from cutting off her pigtails. I love my job, I already want to come back to work there next summer!!

In Cusco news:

I keep getting more and more attached to this city, I couldn't have chose a better place to stay this summer. Most of the people from the ISA group went out to the discoteca last Thursday night and it was a lot of fun! Mama Julia even came!! Last Thursday, we also celebrated the Virgin Carmen. Mama Julia is devotedly Catholic and invited us to her house to pray and eat. It was a really great cultural experience and very sacred.

Last Friday, the whole city celebrated the Virgin Carmen.

We took the kids from Saint Cristopher's to a cathedral to watch a parade and the loved it! The people of Cuzco loved seeing a "gringa" working at a local school, seriously. Multiple people asked the other teachers what I was doing there, it was pretty funny for them. Last Friday, the group also took salsa dancing lessons together and it just reminded me how bad I am at dancing. It was still a lot of fun, though! I've been going to the markets around the city a lot, but still haven't really done any shopping, but I plan on starting today.

In travel news:

Yesterday we went to the Sacred Valley, which is made up of a lot of small towns around Cuzco. We visited ruins in Ollantay, which reminded me a lot of Machu Picchu. We also visited a Llama and Alpaca farm! We got to feed the animals and it was so much fun, we were like a bunch of 4-year-olds!!

We also went to Nelly's house. She is a woman who wears the traditional Inca clothes and speaks Quechua (and Spanish and English). There, they showed us how the dye the yarn to make clothes, scarves, hats, bags, etc, out of alpaca, sheep, and llama fur. It was really interesting and I took some cool photos that I'll put on facebook later.

When we got home Estéban and Mateo were dancing to Michael Jackson, which is what they do most nights. Mateo was wearing a bandana around his head because he wants to look more like Micah. It was so funny and cute I had to take a picture!

I'll try to be better about updating my blog this week. We're taking the students at Saint Cristopher's on more field trips so I'm excited to have some good pictures and good stories.

Machu Picchu

Micah, the other USC student, and I want to be featured on USC's study abroad site so we took a few pictures together at Machu Picchu. This one is definitely my favorite! Haha!

This weekend we went to Machu Picchu, it was so amazing I really can't describe it. I don't think the pictures really do it justice either. I've seen a lot of pictures of it in the past, but I never realized how big it is! We were there for over 3 hours and there is still a lot we didn't get to see. It rained at first, but quickly cleared up and it was nice and cool while we walked around. I was also surprised how many llamas were there! They were all over the place!!!

The town near Machu Picchu where we stayed, Aguascalientes, was really cool. Unlike other Peruvian cities there was no traffic at all. All of the people were really nice and although the prices were more expensive than Cuzco, they were willing to bargain (even on food prices!). In fact, we got free chips and guacomole and a free glass of wine at dinner! Later, we got 5 drinks for the price of one!

In other news, I guess I spoke a little too soon about the directors at Yanapay knowing what they're doing. Today when I went I wasn't on the schedule to work with the kids so instead they wanted me to be a "marketing intern" this week. This actually meant that I walked around touristy parts of town passing out flyers to English-speaking tourists - I cannot imagine a worse job, seriously. I talked to the ISA director so I'll be going to work at a school tomorrow and for the rest of this week. Then next week I'll go back to Yanapay to work with the kids. Hopefully this will all work out, but I'm hopeful that it will and I'm really glad the people at ISA are looking out for me.

PS - I'm sorry some of the pictures are small! The internet connection is pretty slow here so it takes even longer to upload bigger pictures, but I'll try to make them as big as possible.

9 de julio...

Today I went and met with the people at Aldea Yanapay. At first, it was a little sad because it’s pretty obvious these kids are poor. I’m so excited to work there though because it seems like the directors know exactly what they are doing and know what’s right for the children.

I also bought a Peruvian cellphone for 69 soles ($25) and it didn’t take me long to realize that 30 soles ($11) does not get you far if you want to call the US... I’m going to buy a calling card this weekend though, so it’ll be a lot easier and cheaper.

Since I was finally well enough to walk around, I explored the city a little bit. I bought some socks with llamas on them (that may fall apart very soon...), but my feet have been so cold at night I needed them.

I also saw the university students protesting today. I’m guessing the government is selling their school or something? They were chanting, “Cuzco no se vende, Cuzco se defiende” (Don’t sell Cuzco, defend Cuzco). I uploaded a picture of the protest. I know that this flag would be used at another kind of protest in the US, but the rainbow flag is the flag of Cuzco, so it’s all over the place.

Altitude Sickness

Here's the amazing view from my room, which I've been spending a lot of time in...

My altitude sickness got really bad today. I seriously felt like Cuzco was one giant ship moving back and forth, back and forth. I took some more dramamine and drank lots of mate de coca, but nothing helped at all today. The ISA group was walking through the city to show us where all the universities the others will go to, but I finally had to ask Gabi (the program director) if I could sit down for a few minutes. I tried to sit through a powerpoint presentation about safety, health, etc, but I just felt too bad. Andy (the other director) got me more mate de coca and a taxi back to my house. Of course I couldn't remember the address so the cab driver just drove me up and down Av Grau until I saw it, which never happened. He finally just let me out on a corner and I started walking up and down the street. Finally I saw Mama Julia and was soooo happy. She wanted to make me more mate de coca, but I told her I just need to sleep. I came up to Felice's house and only her live-in maid was here. She also wanted to make me mate de coca, but I told her I just needed to rest. I slept for about 6 hours (after 10 hours of sleep the night before). For those of you who know me well, you know I NEVER sleep this much. When I woke up I felt completely better. I ate a little for dinner and played with my host brothers some. I'll try to post every night since they have an ethernet cord I can plug into my computer, I just didn't last night because I didn't feel well.

In case you can't already tell, mate de coca is kind of the cure-all of Cuzco. It reminds me of the dad on "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" who thinks windex will fix anything, haha.

Hope you're all doing well :)

Arrival to Cuzco

7 de julio -

The arrival...

We left for the airport at 3:30 this morning. We literally had to run through the airport to make it to our plane on time. It was really amazing to fly over the Andes - you see land the whole time because the mountains are so high, higher than the clouds. I fell asleep and woke up right on time when we landed at the airport, which took us way longer than it was supposed to. Here were my first reactions to Cuzco:

• There were Palm trees!!!
• The sky was overcast, which was kind of disappointing since I’d been missing sunny weather.
• I felt absolutely fine, no altitude sickness at all :)

You may notice something isn’t right here...Much to my surprise we were back in Lima! The weather was bad in Cuzco so we couldn’t land so we turned around and headed back to Lima.

The second flight was smooth and we landed safely at the Cuzco airport. No one could really feel the altitude sickness at first. Felice, my host mom and her mom (another host mom) were waiting with signs, it was so cute! After a quick drive we arrived at their houses. To get to our house you have to walk through Mama Julia’s (her mom) house, where 2 other ISA students live. We carried our bags up five flights of stairs - and then the altitude sickness really kicked in because it was hard to breathe. Felice gave us some mate de coca, which helped a lot, but I still didn’t feel all the way better. We also talked a little with Miriam, a student from Quebec who is also staying at the house.

Felice then showed up our rooms, which are amazing! We each have our own room and bathroom. I would have never expected this! My view is absolutely amazing, I can see an elaborate cathedral and the mountains behind it. After getting acquainted with my room, I wanted to unpack, but then I started to feel incredibly dizzy so I laid down. I felt like I was on a rocking cruise ship, like the earth was moving around me. Luckily, I was able to sleep for a few hours. I woke up to Micah (the other USC student who is living with Mama Julia) cheering for Spain in the game against Germany. I wanted to go downstairs so bad, but when I stood up I fell back down on the bed since I was still so dizzy. I finally got downstairs after the game and Felice made me more mate de coca since I wasn’t feeling well and I took some dramamine, which helped a lot.

We met back up with the ISA group for a tour of the city. We’re all really excited to be here - there’s so much culture, beautiful architecture and fresh air. Unfortunately, walking around all the hills was difficult for our acclimating bodies so we couldn’t go too far, but we’ll do some more exploring tomorrow with the group.

I really can’t explain how much I like my host family. I still haven’t met Vladi, the father, but Felice has told us a lot about him. Their two boys, Esteban and Mateo, are so adorable. We gave them gifts tonight and it was so cute to see how excited they were! I don’t have wifi, though, so I’m going to post when I can at night on their computer.

Lima - Day 2

Today we went on a 3 hour bus ride of Lima so we got to see all of the districts of the city. At the end of the tour we went to La Iglesia de San Francisco where there was a library with books from before the invention of the printing press. There were also catacombs there, which were terrifying. I just looked away from the bones the whole time, which had been organized by archaeologists. This afternoon we went to Museo de Osma, a muesum that houses colonial religious art which was used to explain Christianity to the natives (and it was all from one man's private collection).

This picture of Jessica and me was taken in front of the Rimác River at the edge of the city. On the mountain in the background there is a giant Peruvian flag and a cross on top. Today was Jessica's birthday so we celebrated by going to a Mid-Eastern restaurant for dinner - once again, great food for less than $5 US.

They love Inca Kola here - a sweet soft drink that tastes like bubble gum. Here's a traffic guard in an Inca Cola stand...

Some things to know about Lima:

- There are NO traffic laws, it's every man for himself... complete madness

- Drivers constantly honk their horns for unknown reasons. Honking is such a problem it's prohibited on certain corners, but that doesn't stop anyone.

- Parque Kennedy is filled with stray cats, even though there's signs all around that say cats are "prohibido" (but I guess the cats can't read Spanish)

- Dogs wear sweaters here, just about all of them!

- Instead of flushing toilet paper, you're supposed to throw it away in the trash can next to the toilet

- The weather stays pretty much the same all of the time - constantly overcast and cold, but it never ever rains in the winter. Today we saw a little bit of blue sky and got excited, but it only lasted about 5 mins. I honestly don't even know why they say the weather on the news because it never really changes.

- There are concrete soccer fields along the beach and the kids play there all morning.

- Shrek is extremely popular and over-advertised for.

- Counterfeit money is a problem here - even counterfeit coins! Every time we pay for something the cashier checks to make sure it isn't counterfeit.

That's all for tonight - we're heading to Cuzco at 3:30am, so we will not only be dealing with altitude sickness, but we'll be doing it on just a few hours of sleep. I'll let you all know how that goes...

First Day in Lima

Here's a picture of the whole group in front of the ocean. We took this picture at Larcomar, a shopping center right on the beach. Afterwards we got delicious Italian ice cream (mine was lucuma, a fruit from the Peruvian jungle). Then four of us went to see Toy Story 3 in Spanish. Besides the Imax theater, it was the nicest movie theater I've ever been to - and the tickets were only about $4 US :)

We started off the day with a tour of Huaca Pucllana - a sacred place of the Lima people from thousands of years ago. The walls have withstood hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes...pretty impressive.

We also got to see our first Peruvian animals - llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs. The guinea pigs are called "cuy" in Peru because of the sound they make.

There are Chinese restaurants all over Perú, known as "chifas." We ate at one for lunch. All of this food for only about $4 US.

Jessica and I posed with some of the dancers after our dinner and show at Junius. The dancers were all amazing and showed popular dances from each era of Peruvian history. These guys stood on their head, did flips, even put their foot in their mouths while dancing - and clanging scissors in their hand!! Youtube it, it was amazing!!

At the airport...

Right now I'm waiting on my flight from Charlotte to Miami. There was an hour and a half delay, which is actually good because the internet is free here and it's $9.95 in Miami. Although I'm on my way, I still won't meet up with my group until 9AM, so I've got awhile! I refuse to get bored though, so I just downloaded Season 2 of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and I brought plenty of movies to watch so I'm all set. I was a little worried about what to get as a gift for my host family. ISA told us to get them something that represents our region, but is also useful. I got them some stationary with pictures of downtown Greenville last week and today at the airport I got them some pralines and Charleston taffy :)

I promise my future entries will be more exciting, but right now I'm basically just taking advantage of free internet and the extra time I have in Charlotte! I hope everyone has a fun and safe Fourth of July tomorrow! I'll be celebrating the Peruvian independence days (yes, 2 days of celebration for their independence) at the end of June :)