More than I thought

Tuesday night.

9pm in Lima.

10 pm in Boston.

I'm bored so I'm going to spend my time updating my blog.

I changed up the design. Hope you like it. I was feeling the need for a little change in my life.

Once again, nothing super exciting to report...just normal day-to-day living in Lima. Which I suppose is exciting in its own way. I mean riding the micros is always an adventure. I like watching people listening to their iPods and totally jamming out. Like grooving to the music. This one girl was totally getting into it. Shoulders going and lip-syncing. I also like listening to the cobrador-chofer interactions and trying to understand what is going on. Sometimes I can, and sometimes I can't. And sometimes I pick up on grammatical errors. ¿Alguién baja Sucre? Nadies. I still haven't figured out what the numbers mean that the dateros call out as we drive by. I'm determined to figure it out one day. It must be important information if its worth 10 céntimos.

Last Friday I went on a tour/orientation session for my volunteer work. Time warp got me bad and I was late and had to get picked up by the taxi. Laura, Cristina, Aprill, Marion and I travelled to Villa el Salvador to meet with the coordinator for Deporte y Vida. Then we all piled into her little old yellow VW bug and drove up the road to a section called Oasis. This is where we will be volunteering. Oasis just celebrated its 4th anniversary. The houses are all made out of plywood and there is no water. We will be helping out at a pre-school daycare sort of place. In the morning they have younger kids, ages 3-5 and some older kids too. Then in the afternoon its more of an after school program to help the kids with homework. The teachers were very sweet and welcoming. They are doing such a good thing in such a hard place. We will be going there on Friday mornings to help out in any way that we can. I'm excited.

When we arrived back in Miraflores, Marion, Cristina and I went to a restaurant with Arabic food and had a great turkey shawarma wrap. Delicious. Then we took a taxi over to el Museo de la Nación. It was a CIEE cultural activity. One of the professors for CIEE Jorge came along to explain things to us. It wasn't that impressive. The "artifacts" weren't very old. There were ceramics made in the 1940s and 50s. I even saw one that was made in 2009. Its like, I know there must be older more legitimate artifacts somewhere in Peru. You would think that the national museum would have them and want to display them. But oh well. Some of the paintings were pretty cool. Then we headed up the elevator to the 6th floor where there is a photographic display of the years of terrorism in Peru. It was really well done. Pretty heavy stuff, but good to learn about. Strangest part, I walked into one of the small rooms with pictures and information about the taking of the Japanese embassy in '96. There was a TV playing a documentary from the History Channel about it. And this man was talking and I was watching, and he looked and sounded very familiar. Then it clicked, it was Clint VanZandt. My sister-in-law Jenna's father. He used to work with the FBI on hostage situations and was getting interviewed. It was so weird to see him, I guess because it was just so unexpected. After the museum I came home and just chilled. I was thankful that my host mom didn't want to discuss the museum or anything. I appreciate that she likes having conversations with me, but sometimes its just hard. I mean what do I know about the teenage Japanese suicide rate or why poverty can exist in such wealthy countries? Yes, these are actual conversations that we've had.

Saturday I woke up and just kind of lounged around all day. I was going to go to Polvos Azules with Amelia and Audrey, but we didn't eat lunch until like 2:30 so it was a bit to late. So I just bummed around, did some homework and started feeling sorry for myself. Not sure why. It was just one of those days. There was no particular reason, I was just feeling crummy. Or "punky" as my Daddy would say. But I had plans to go bowling at night. So around 6:30 I left my house to head over to Parque Kennedy where we were meeting at 7. I walked down the 3 blocks to Benavides and waited to hop on a micro. And I waited, and waited and waited. I probably let like 5 micros pass me. I have no idea what my problem is and I was getting so frustrated with myself. It was strange and I was on the verge of tears and just about ready to turn back and call it a night. (I'm very glad that I didn't) I finally got on a micro and ended up arriving around 7:15. But thats ok, because things in Peru never ever happen on time. So I found Chris and Amelia showed up shortly after me. We just chilled for a bit and chatted. Then Raffa (short for Rafael, in case you're wondering) showed up. He knew Amelia from youth group and was joining us for the night. We walked over to the bowling alley and waited for Miki (Miguel Angel - our friend from CBU) He showed up and we went inside. Instead of bowling we decided to play pool. So I learned how to play pool on Saturday night. Now I'm not very good, but hey, it was my first time. I got two balls in. Thats pretty good, right? Raffa's friend Dyago joined us at the pool hall. It was fun hanging out with them. We were swapping slang words in Spanish and English. They've seen American Pie and had quite a few questions about words and phrases. So we had some explaining to do. I think I swore more on Saturday night that I have in my whole life. But it was a lot of fun. The guys are all Christians and really friendly. After playing a few games of pool, we took a taxi to Barranco and ate at Roky's restaurant. So yummy. Then we walked Amelia back to her house. After Chris got a tour of Amelia's amazingly awesome beautiful house we walked up to the paradero and waited for a micro that would pass my house and continue on to where Chris lives. Turns out there aren't many micros passing by that paradero at midnight. But we finally got one that would take me home, and Chris got off and was going to walk up to Benavides and catch another one to his house. Turns out he never found one and ended up walking for about an hour to get home. I felt bad.

Sunday I was tired, so I slept in and didn't go to church. It was nice because I got to have breakfast with the fam. Then they went to mass and I stayed home to do some homework. I stayed in my PJs all day. Well sort of, I kept my PJ shorts on all day. It was that type of day. I called and chatted with Mrs. Dee because it was her birthday. I miss her and everyone at the BBQ very very very very much. I would kill for some pulled pork, mashpot and mac and cheese right now. And my mom's pizza. And while we're at it lets have a chocolate chip bagel from Panera and fries from Nick's Roast Beef. Thats a totally healthy meal, right?

Monday night I talked with my parents. =) I love them and I miss them very much.

Also, on Monday during Spanish class Julio made a list of all the stories that we're going to read and we got to vote on what we would read next. Not surprisingly there were no female authors on the list. At the end of class I asked him why that was. He "apologized" and said that he would find a female to put on the list for next time. Apparently the good female authors aren't popular and the ones that are popular aren't very good. But he did admit that there are a lot of good female poets in Latin America. Good cover Julio. I'm on to you.

I discovered the newest single by Shakira today. I think its pretty good.

Gitana

Lo que tengo, lo doy
Digo lo que pienso
Tómame como soy

Y va liviano
Mi corazón gitano
Que solo entiende de latir
A contramano
No intentes amarrarme
Ni dominarme
Yo soy quien elige
Como equivocarme

Aprovechame
que si llegué ayer
Me puedo ir mañana
Que soy gitana
Que soy gitana

So wow, I guess I had more to share than I originally thought.

I hope all is well with you wherever you may be (Massachusetts, Spain, DR, New York, Minnesota, Lima...etc.)

All my love.