it's coming to an end.

it's quite hard to believe that tomorrow at this time i will be on a bus, riding back to lima. i'm excited to see the rest of the sst'ers. we became really close during our 6 weeks in lima and it has been strange not seeing them everyday. but at the same time, i just can't imagine leaving this place. walking the dusty streets has become such a comfortable routine. i can't imagine going back to the pavement of lima. and the friendly hello's and kisses from the children and adults of this community is something i never received in lima (or the u.s. for that matter). i'm definitely going to miss that.

this past week has been crazily hectic. i've been working on my final project about my women - finishing and perfecting the paper which has now grown to be too many pages. not only that, but i've been working and making endless amounts of bracelets. (i'm not going to brag or anything, but the women said i am "very intelligent" because i've learned how to make bracelets the fastest out of anyone they have taught before. i've actually started teaching other women how to make bracelets... which is quite crazy for me to comprehend, especially because i can barely even explain in spanish what they need to do, let alone the fact that i'm able to make these intricate peruvian bracelets. i've been making so many that i've had 5 different blisters that have now turned into caulises (i don't believe that's really how you spell that word...). who would have ever thought making bracelets could be so hard on your body?

also this week, i believe every person in la victoria has asked me to come over to their house for lunch. it's been fun traveling to the different houses, eating the different ceviche, praying that i won't get sick. but it's very time consuming and tiring on my mind. i've loved it even so.

i have so much more to say. so many more stories. so many more feelings. i just can't imagine saying goodbye to everything i've learned to love these past 6 weeks, but everything in life comes to an end, and i'll always hold these memories and people dear to me. and as í've been saying to every person who asks me when i'll return, "pronto, ojala" (soon, hopefully).

tonight we have a despidida (going away party with food, drinks, dancing, etc.) with the boys and girls groups of prevention. i'm planning on giving away a lot of my clothes to the girls as a going away present and a "thank you" for their help. then later on in the night the europeans, some peruvians, scott, and i are going to a diskotecca one last time. que chevere!

so, you'll have to wait until i return to hear of my stories and of my departure. but hopefully this message finds you well and you're all in good health wherever you may be. much love to you all.

"you suck, mickey!"

i have three goals to write about in this entry.

1) my family
2) semana santa... aka holy week and easter
3) work

although these are only 3 subjects, they all have a lot of content, and these subjects all intertwine, so you may not be able to decipher the difference between them, but they're there. bare with me. you can skip over the "boring bits."

my family. i absolutely adore them. although at times my sisters are crazy, and do unexplainable things, i love them and i've realized it kind of reminds me of home, and that is probably why i've been enjoying them so much. to begin with, i have finally figured out the family dynamics. so, i have a mother, and she has 3 daughters - patty (patricia) (20), kelly (31 or 32), and lilly (29). they come from a japanese decent and my mother and kelly lived and worked in japan for 9 years, which is where their money came from. i then have an uncle who lives in the house, and his daughter jenny, who i always thought was my sister, is here visiting for 2 months, but is married to a german and lives in germany. she also lived with my mother and kelly in japan for 6 years, after she finished studying in russia for 2 years (she doesn't live the typical peruvian life). my mother's parents live in the house, my abuelos, along with another one of her brothers and his wife and 2 boys, which makes the boys my cousins. and there we have it, all 12, 13 with me, living under the same roof. and i've finally found all their correct places in the line of the family. oh, and i am their "gringa hermana," of course.

this past week was semana santa, holy week, which is way more of a celebration in peru than it is in the states. in fact, thursday and friday are basically national holidays and no one works (yeah... pretty awesome in my opinon!). therefore, i had tons of time to spend with my family, which i absolutely loved and was so happy to have. first, monday was the day of the sick. i forget the exact name of it, but we had a speical service at the parroquia for all the sick in the community. sick also includes the prostitues, alcoholics, and people with drug addiction, so i had a lot of connections with the people there for the service. to back track, for palm sunday, they actually rode in on a donkey - just putting it out there. as for other services, there were tons (As always) and i'll confess, i didn't go to all them. but each day of the week had a special purpose and it was interesting to see how celebrated the whole week was. as an observation, i've realized that easter in the states is much more family oriented. granted, we celebrate jesus' resurrection, but then it's about getting together with the family, searching for eggs, and enjoying each others company. here, it's all about the church community, with many extra services, and they really focus in on the whole whole leading up to christ's death, which i think catholics do in general, not just here.

anyway, back to spending time with my family... on friday, my grandma, mother, 3 sisters, cousin jenny, an aunt and son who don't live with us, and my two boy cousins all went to a big park here in chimbote called "vivero." the park has a giant swimming pool, which we didn't go to, but also has a huge carnival type thing with all sorts of rides. it also four wheelers you could rent, and even monkey's in a cage, which i thought was random. they had a big lake with boats, and the whole park itself was essentially a "jungle." it was pretty beautiful and fun to actually spend quality time with my family outside of the house. my sisters and i took a ton of photos because they love looking at my photos i have of my cousin abbie and i, and they said they wanted to take "crazy photos" with me, too! it seems i can't even get away from my photo obsession here in peru.

friday night then provided to be an entertaining time with my sisters (and cousin - but when i say sisters, it just automatically counts jenny because after all, i thought she was my sister for so long). the title of my blog, "you suck, mickey!" comes from this night. (viewer disgression ahead: there will be some bad words in the following paragraph. if you feel you may be offended, skip on to the next paragraph). so anyway, we were all lounging around in my sister patty's bedroom, when one of my sister's got the bright idea to play bingo. she went off to find their bingo game, which was in fact bingo disney mickey mouse sytle. it was a whole machiene that when you pressed the button, this little mickey mouse turned this giant ball with all the bingo numbers in it. after mickey turned it about 3 times, it would ding, and a little bingo ball would pop out. my sisters decided to play for money, so before the games we would chip in our 1 sol, or 50 centimos, and one of my sisters would declare what kind of bingo we'd play - U shpaed, O shaped, or the whole card. the games began and we all started ticking off our cards when mickey gave us the right number. now a bit of side note for what comes next: my sisters know a small amount of english because they went to private high schools, therefore getting a little better english education than most. they can say a lot of the basic things like, "how are you." "what are you doing" "i like that." "where are you going?" "i'm going..." etc. and etc. for example, when my sister kelly tells patty that she's "gordita" (or fat.. which patty isn't), patty will say in english, "no kelly, i am light." they really love to attempt to talk in english and it's great fun for me to hear them attempt to speak to english. they ask me what different words meanings are all the time. and they actually have a semi-good "bad-word" vocabulary when it comes to english. so in any case, mickey mouse was popping out all these different bingo numbers, and when mickey wouldn't give me sister's what they wanted, they would start yelling mean things to mickey in spanish. so, when mickey didn't give me a good number, i yelled, "you suck, mickey!" they all thought this was hilarious and asked me to explain the meaning, which i attempted to do, so there on out, everytime mickey didn't give them their number, they would scream "you suck, mickey!!!" they then continued to use this on each other, so now whenever one of them does something they don't like, they'll say, "you suck, raquel." or "you suck, patty." then, so they could prove their english skills to me, one of my sister's said, "fuck you, mickey" which made me just about pee my pants with laughter. this then proceeded to them asking me to teach them every bad word i knew in english, which really weren't too many because for some reason i had trouble recalling bad words in english. but in any case, they now walk around the house using all these bad words all the time! in the states, this wouldn't exactly be funny... someone using all the bad words on each other all the time, but when i hear my sisters saying, "fuck off patty" or "damnit kelly!" or "you suck, lilly" or "you're a bitch, jenny"... i can not help but giggle hysterically. it's so out of place. i told them it was fine they used the words with each other, but not to use them on any other gringos because that could get them in trouble.

so, that basically sums up friday (i didn't win any bingo by the way), with many more details i'm leaving out for the sack of time and space, but that you can hear about and see in photos when i come home.

saturday was also a good day, beginning with "work." i woke up at 8, walked to benjamin's office at 9 to discover that he had a tooth pulled and was apparently in pain. i asked him if i could then find my group of girls and take them to the river and he said yes, that scott and i should round up the "boys and girls groups of prevention" and take them to the river. so, i went from house to house calling on my girls and around 10 o'clock, we were all ready to go, which was good because the sweat was starting to bead on my forehead. we spent the whole morning down at the river, letting the current take us and then playing with these awesome plants that resist water. they can't get wet. they were the craziest plants i had ever seen.

we walked back to chimbote and i got home around 12:30; enough time to take a shower, eat some amazing lunch (as always... i swear my mother is the best cook who has ever cooked for me - sorry mom, perhaps if you learn how to make peruvian food you will be as good as her, too), and then i was ready to go back to "work" at 2:00. this work was with my girls, who meet every saturday from 2-5 pm to work on the bracelets they're making for me to sell in the states. they made a lot this saturday, about 20, and it was so great to see them learning and improving their techniques, and how excited and happy they are just making these simple bracelets. i also met with a couple of them so they could relate their stories of their life to me, which is good because i really need to start working on my paper and getting all the information together.

when i got home on saturday, my family informed me that we would be celebrating renzo's 9th birthday (the youngest boy who lives in my house), and then afterwards my sister's were going to take me out to a diskotecca. i assumed that the whole birthday celebration would include some dinner, but apparently in peru for children's birthday's, they just have a huge buffet of desserts! first we all had this jello stuff, that was fluffier and tastier (in my opinion) than normal jello. then we had mazamorra morada, this purply, fruty, gooey stuff that is a traditional dessert of peru. then we had rice pudding, that is different than any rice pudding i've had before. and then we had cake! i was absolutely stuffed and had the largest sugar buzz of my life. and guess what? that's all we had! that literally was our dinner. crazy, right?

anyway, then all us girls went upstairs to get ready for the diskotecca. my sister's informed me that they were going to give me makeover for the diskotecca. i was fine with this because i really don't have appropriate clothes for a disckotecca, nor do i ever do my hair or makeup here, so i thought it may be fun to get all done-up for once in peru. apparently though, their idea of a make-over is to turn me into BARBIE! haha... seriously. i looked liked barbie. first they gave me a jean mini-skirt, which was size 2 and that SOMEHOW i ended up squeezing myself into. then they went on a search for tank tops, only to pull out the shortest, most revealing, hot pink halter-top i have possibly seen in my life. i put it on to be greated by a bunch of squeals about how "perfect!" it was. it apparently matched my tan skin and blond hair PERFECTLY! then they said my black old navy flip flops were no good, and gave me a pair of heels to wear instead. at this point, i didn't really recognize my body in these foreign clothes, but thought "whatever. i'm in peru. it's one night." then came the hair. my sister sat me down and straightened all my hair. this wouldn't be so strange except for the fact that it was the first time i have seen my hair straight since i've been in peru! and it's crazy how long it has gotten... i had no idea! never the less, when you're used to seeing your hair curly for 2.5 months, and all of a sudden it's straight, it's a weird sensation. oh no, but this isn't all. then my sister lilly, who is pretty great at make-up and faces in gereral, layed me down and i got the most in-depth tweezing of my eyebrows i've ever received in my life. in fact, i've never had someone else tweeze my eyebrows, so it was a first for a lot of things. after the whole eyebrow deal, she did my make-up, which she informed me that i was her first gringa ever to do make-up on and she was sorry if it didn't come out right, but she saw on tv that gringa's need more natural colors, so she would use browns on me with my "pretty green eyes." after 15 min. of her working on my face, i was told to check myself out in the mirror, and honestly - what i saw was not me. i don't know who that was staring back at me... but it wasn't me. someone took over my body. in fact BARBIE had taken over my body... minus the super long legs (although compared to peruvians, i defintely have those) and unproportional body parts.

in any case, around 11:30 pm we were all perfect and primped and off we went to the diskotecca. i'm not even going to go into too many details about the diskotecca. it was one of the largest i've ever been to, and half outside, which was a pretty neat experience because you could see the giant, beautiful, bright full-moon above as you danced. the music was quite fun, their friends were interesting, and i sweated a lot. of course i received a million and one looks and whistles, and i'm sure the barbie look made it 10 times worse, but i decided i wasn't going to mind for this one night. my sisters were very over-protective and wouldn't let anyone dance with me, or even come to near me.

don't worry, we took tons of photos, so you all can witness my barbie look and how bodacious i was for one night!

anyway, we returned to the house around 3:30 in the morning. as i was getting out of the taxi, my men from matt talbot (The halfway house) all walked by me on their way to mass! i'll admit, this was slightly embarresing. for one thing, i was dressed pretty scantly. for a second thing, they obviously knew i had gone out and i wasn't planning on going to mass. but in any case, they all shouted their "hola"s and i could see their grins on their faces as they passed by on their way to the parroquia.

now an explanation: on the morning of easter, they have a 4 hour mass service of the resurrection of christ. it starts at 3:00 am and ends at 7:00. it's outside - all the masses from thursday onwards were outside (i don't know the reason for this. when i asked them told me it was a custom. the only thing i could decide was that there were tons of people there, and all those people couldn't have fit in the actual church, therefore they started having it outside. in any case, it's quite beautiful). first, at this long service, they have some baptisms (i don't know if these are adult or baby, because i missed this part of the service and i have yet to ask anyone). then... i honestly don't really know what else they do. i wasn't there, and if i was, it would have been all in spanish and i would have been far too tired to figure out what the translation of that spanish would be. in any case, i did in fact end up going, around 5:45 in the morning. i was sleeping in my bed when all of a sudden i woke up. it was dark outside, but the birds were twittering away so i knew it was close to sun-rise. i could hear the mass and the people singing (which by the way, the singing in mass here is BEAUTIFUL. nothing like mass in the united states. i absolutely love it and the singing is one of the reasons i even go to mass). in any case, i heard all this and decided i really should just get up and go, because after all it would be an interesting experience. so, i hoped out of bed, put one some pants and shirt, and grogerly (is that a word?) made my short walk to mass. i arrived their as a small glimmer of light was coming up from the edge of the earth. the singing was gorgeous and the songs familiar, beacuse they always sing the same songs. i don't know what exactly was taking place when i came, it just appeared to be congregational singing that kept going until the sun was actually peeking up over the cresent of the earth. the hundreds of people sitting on the benches didn't even look tired. there were at least 100 standing up in the back, where i was, who i belive were standing their in hopes to not fall asleep, or so it seemed to me. after being there for about 15 min., my friend elvis, who works at matt talbot, came up to me and told me it was a good thing i got out of bed, because padre was going to present a gift to me, scott, and our friend robert for our work at the parroquia. at this point i was convinced got had poked me and made me get out of my bed, since i after all didn't have any reason for why i was led to walk to mass. you see, padre really likes us to go to mass, but there are 14 masses a week and i just honestly don't want to sit through 14 services in one week. therefore, i go to about 2 a week. unfortunately, padre would never announce me in the masses that i went to, yet when i wasn't in mass, he always annouced my name. so it appeared that i never went to any, even though i did in fact go to some. therefore, i was extremely relieved that i was at the end of this 4 hour service because if padre had announced me in front of the 300 some people all sitting outside for the past 4 hours, and i hadn't been there to receive it, i would have been extremely embarressed. in any case, sure enough, at the end of the service padre called us to the front and presented us with a plaque, a panoramic photo of chimbote, and a calendar of the dates were we here. it was pretty touching to be up there and to see the men of matt talbot all happily clapping and to see the faces of my different girls grinning at me from the crowd.

i went back home to sleep for a few hours, because padre wanted to take scott, robert, and i out to eat because he was leaving for the united states and wouldn't be back before we left. we had a pretty nice lunch, i ordered the rice with sea food (octopus, crab, fish, and probably other sea creatures, too), and overall it was a nice time to say goodbye to sister peggy and padre jack. i went back home, wathed some tv with my sister, read a little, took another 2 hour nap, got up and watched a movie with my sister. and that was the end of my easter weekend.

so there we have it. some details of how things take place here and how my life has been shaping up. i know that everything i just wrote was quite scattered. and i left out about 80% of the details that could be put in. there are so many things i want you to know about. and there are so many feelings, insights, knowledge, etc. that i wish you could hear come from me. for example, a thing i love but never really share are the little quarks with my family. my sister patty has a hilarious sense of humor and laughs at things no one else laughs at. for example, one day we were watching frankenstein. the doctor's wife lights herself on fire in the movie, and while all of the rest of us shrinked back and exclaimed things like, "ewww" and "disgusting!", patty just laughed and laughed and laughed. i love her sense of humor and whenever she laughs it just makes me laugh, even though i originally did not find it funny at all. also, my sister kelly is obsessed with bodies! she talks about bodies all the time and how she has gotten fatter and how i eat so much, yet stay so skinny (although i do believe i have gained a bit of weight since i've been here in chimbote), and how patty has gained so much weight, and who got plastic surgery, and that peruvian's noses are uglier than gringos, and on and on and on. it's interesting because people in peru are quite honest and blunt, and calling someone "fat" isn't really bad, it's just being honest. people will call you "gordita" if you're a bit chubby, and it's taken inoffensively. it's crazy. and in any case, my sister is convinced she's too big, and talks about it all the time... yet it's entertaining and funny to watch. she infact isn't big at all! she's 31 years old and wears size 2 jeans (peruvians hips are just different). she does have a small belly, but it's NOTHING compared to most 31 year olds! and she does things like take out the bread in the middle of her bun, yet she dumps 3 spoon fulls of sugar in her coffee, or eats dessert instead of the dinner. oh, it's comical. how peruvians are so funny.

anyway, i could go on like this for days, talking about stories and people, but i really ought to stop now. i hope you enjoy the few details i provide you with and that you can make sense of all my gibberish. i have less than 2 weeks left here in chimbote, which is definitely a bittersweet feeling. i find myself extremely anxious to get home, yet when i'm with my group of girls, i find my eyes welling up with tears at the thought of having to say goodbye to them. bittersweet. in any case, the time is coming to an end quite rapidly and i'm excited to see you all again.

a world of poverty is a world of stress.

a long time has passed since you have last heard from me. and as perhaps you would assume, or should assume, a lot has happened in that time. and as always, i don't exactly know where to begin. i suppose i shall begin with all the different projects i'm working on, and we'll go from there:

first, i'll talk about my group of girls, since they're the project i am most directly related to since i basically created them. to begin with - i love them! they're a wonderful group of girls - extremely energetic, fun, and loving. they have a lot going for them, they don't even realize how wonderful of people they are. in any case, my group comprises of 10-15 girls, around the ages of 12-18, and one 4 year old who loves to tag along (she's the sister of one of the girls). the leader of the group, whom we call bomba, is 18, has a 3 year old son, and is currently pregnant with her second child. she hasn't been around for the majority of our meetings, i suppose because she's occupied with a life an 18 year old shouldn't live, but naturally as the oldest, she was put as the head of the group. in any case, the girls i work with most are 4 girls, i think around 15 and 16 years old.

we've done quite a few different things already - had a speaker about self-esteem, i met with them as a group to discuss what it is their group exactly wants to do, we've met to play volleyball in the streets multiple times... the list goes on. i go to mass with them thursday nights, because thursday night mass is held in the chapel near their house. and, with money that the last 2 goshen students left here, i went and bought materials for them to begin making bracelets that they can sell, and that i can take back to the united states to sell, so then they can get money for their group and for more materials to make and sell more things. basically, the main purpose of this group is to keep the girls busy and away from the drugs, alcohol, and prostitution that is an active part of their lives. the purpose of the art is a way to provide them with an idea of making an income and being able to do something more with their lives and with their time than to roam the streets. i've also sat down with them multiple times and have explained to them my final project. right now, they have a story of my own life and an explanation of what kind of things i'm interested in learning about their own personal lives. they seemed really excited about helping me with my project, as long as i keep everything confidential, so i'm pretty happy they're willing to work with me on it. i explained to them that i'm here in chimbote to experience the life they experience everyday, and i told them that i want to understand their problems so i can understand their lives better, because when i graduate university i hope to help young women in the world like themselves. so i must say, i'm quite excited to receive their stories and i'm crossing my fingers that they actually give them to me. i'm also curious about what they'll write about. i'm not sure how much information they're willing to share with a stranger, although i'm no longer a stranger to them and much more a best friend, and i'm not sure how much they actually understand of what i'm looking for. one girl told me she was going to share with me a story of love. i said that was fine, she could share whatever kind of story she wanted to share. so... we'll see how that story of love ends up, i suppose.

i'm also still working with the men of matt talbot, the halfway house here in chimbote. i love those guys - they're so wonderful and completely harmless. i love to just sit and have conversations with them, to hear about their struggles with drugs and how much they hope to change their lives, along with what their lives were when they were young. one of my sisters here in chimbote asked me if i was scared working with the men of matt talbot and i said "not at all. they're completely harmless and all they want are people to talk to. i'm more scared of the men on the street who hiss, whistle, and make comments at me any time i walk down the dirt road." which is true. the half-way house is a pleasant escape from the rest of chimbote.

along with that, father jack was recently approached by a group of prostitutes who want to start a half-way house for women. he didn't want to take on any more projects, and if you could see the hectic life of this parish you would completely understand, but he couldn't say no to them, so he now has scott and i going and talking with these women.. which has provided to be an overwhelming and interesting experience. these women are highly addicted to drugs, have quite a few children, and are prostitutes because it's the only means of money they have. tonight we're handing out school supplies to them, so hopefully they don't prostitute themselves for money to buy their children school supplies, because normally they would. yesterday we met with them and they took us to one of the "whore houses" where they showed us the different rooms and how they get their drugs, etc. we went through the room and asked where each of them were born, and they were born in chimbote. it's just crazy how the people here are born here, live here, see this life day in and day out, never leave, and continue the cycle of poverty, drug usage, and depression. people just can not break the cycle. it's incredibly sad and depressing, and honestly it's no wonder drugs are so prevalent here. if i lived in this kind of poverty, who knows, i'd probably become a drug addict too. i'm going crazy as it is, knowing that i get to leave in 3 weeks, yet everyone here must stay. anyway, all this is a topic to talk about when i get home. it's too heavy to write about on here... and i'm afraid none of my words make the impact they should. some things just have to be witnessed, they can't be explained.

if you keep up with the goshen website, perhaps you saw that duane visited and put up some photos. the photos are a great visual of what i'm doing here, and some of the places i work at, and are nice because you can actually see me at work! they don't exactly depict the poverty i have been talking about though because the buildings we spent time in were the nicest in chimbote. when i come home though, i plan to show many photos so you can see a visual to my words. as of now, i don't have very many photos though.

i must be honest, i had four or five days in this past week that were just impossibly hard. it was the first time since i have been in peru that i just really wanted to go home. i wanted my bed, i wanted my family, i wanted security. i believe it was a combination of things that were getting me pretty low. for one thing, my health wasn't in the best of shape. first, i broke out with this horrible rash on my arms that burned and itched. then, after the first meeting with my girls, i was attacked by these horrible bugs known as sancuros. they're smaller then mosquitoes, bite more than mosquitoes, and itch 14 times more than mosquitoes. i had at least 100 on each leg, and i'm not exaggerating about the itching. i don't quite remember having chicken pox, but i'm tempted to say that these things itched worse than chicken pox. i couldn't sleep 2 nights in a row because the itching kept me wide awake and incredibly uncomfortable. then, to top that off, i had the worst diahrrea i've ever experienced in my life. i'll just say... it wasn't fun. then there was a rather large misunderstanding at the parroquia, and i had people angry at me for something i didn't do, and my group of girls erupted into a huge fight with another group of girls because of this misunderstanding, and i couldn't understand anything going on because they only people trying to explain to me what was going on were native spanish speakers. and most of them were angry 16 year olds who speak 7980898 words per minute on a normal day. let's just say it was a pretty stressful day and i about broke down in complete tears 4 different times. after this event, a person at the parroquia was being very passive aggressive about certain things and taking stress and anger out on me instead of the people who deserved it, therefore, to say the least, i was extremely upset. somehow it all died off, i've cooled off, and everyone has seemed to forgotten the whole ordeal, which i'm okay with.

overall, after i got over my sickness, this week has been good and more relaxing. i've been doing an array of things - working with my girls, talking with the matt talbot men a bit, and we've started a new project with a 27 year old gringo here named robert. apparently, robert's sunday school class donated 1500 dollars to rebuild an extremely poor families house, so the past 2 days of consisted of tearing down the old house - which was basically nothing, and leveling out the ground for a "nicer" dirt floor. i can't explain how horrible this house was. now, houses here don't consist of much... but this house, was nothing. and it was a disgusting nothing too. the entire dirt floor was covered in shit, trash, and some more shit and trash. you could barely even see the floor. and i don't even want to go into how many mice and cockroaches came scurrying out of that place. the walls, which are made of estrella - that bamboo stuff i talked about in an earlier entry - were rotting and basically falling down upon the house. they had chickens and cats running freely in there, and the neighbors apparently have donkeys living in the room right beside the house, which supposedly gives them diseases, or at least that's what i think the grandma of the family was telling me. anyway, i think people living in the streets are possibly better off then the large family living in this place. at least in the streets you're not living among poop. oh my, again, i can't explain very well what things are like here. it's just beyond words - or at least beyond MY words. my mother could probably do a better job at writing these sorts of descriptions, but i'm not quite up to par.

tonight i'm meeting with my girls at 8 and we're going to learn english, or they're going to learn english, or let's say we're going to attempt to work together so they can learn english. i really don't know how much will actually get accomplished. and i'll only be here for 3 more weeks so obviously, learning english needs more time than 3 weeks, but we can at least learn the basic "hello, how are you today.." phrases. hopefully. i also plan on talking to them about my project and seeing if they have any questions, and just making sure they all understand it. and honestly it's just fun to hang out with the girls, even though they enjoy joking with me about my spanish, or lack of, and how i make them speak slower all the time. it's quite an inside joke.

tomorrow i'm meeting with them again in the afternoon for artesinean classes, and then saturday night i'm apparently going to a discoteka with one of my friends, marcio, and scott. others will probably be there too, but who knows with peruvians. then sunday we're going to tortuga beach with another one of our peruvian friends, junior, who has a friend who has a beach house that we get to spend the day at, so that will be pretty awesome and good to get away from chimbote (tortuga is about an hour away... but is one of the beaches noted as the most beautiful in peru).

in any case, i need to go home and take a shower so i can be back here at the parroquia around 6:30 to hand out school supplies to the women. i hope this provided a bit of an update though so you know a bit more of what i'm doing. again, i'm sorry i can't explain it all. i wish i could bring you all here for one day so you could see it all for yourself, but alas, i can not. hopefully this is good enough though.

and i must say, although i'm over that little bout of 4 pretty crappy days, and i'm content here in chimbote, loving the friendships i've made and sad to leave them, as well as my family (who i also love by the way), i'm getting excited to come home. i believe if i were still in lima, i wouldn't quite be homesick yet, but i believe being around this poverty really takes a toll on a person. when i first came here, father (padre) juan told me he goes back to the u.s. about 3-4 times a year. i thought this was a bit excessive... but i now i completely understand. i really don't know how he has lived here for 33 years without having a heart attack. i certainly would. so, don't get me wrong. i love it here - i love the people, i love the work, i love the experience. but i'm really, really tired, and quite worn out. and i'm going to live these next 3 weeks to the fullest, but i'm going to be pretty happy to see all my loved ones faces in 3 weeks as well.

una historia para ti.

a story for you. about my father´s fiesta saturday night.

it started off a normal fiesta. well really, the whole thing was "normal" chimbote style. but in any case, i sat in my room until i was called downstairs to join the family, about 30 people or so, for dinner. the dinner was quite large consisting of turkey, chicken, puffy rice, green stuff which i still have no idea of it´s consistency, and chi-cha morrada, one of the typical drinks of peru. a toast of champagne was shared among the family. everyone stood up and first, the eldest daughter made a toast. then another family member, and finally my father himself made a toast to himself? he talked anyway, and everyone cheered, and drank another cup of champagne. then came out the wine, beer, and of course, dancing!

the dancing started off with my father dancing with his adorable, very old mother. quite touching and cute. then he danced with his girlfriend. and finally, apparently, the dance floor was open to all because my cousin, who i had never met before, immediatly grabbed my hands and pulled me up off my seat. of course i had no problem with this because i´ve fallen quite in love with peruvian music and will dance anywhere, anytime it is played. anyway, we danced and danced, and my family loved to shout out things such as, "bajo bajo!" which essentially means, "go down" so i would have to dance low to the ground. they were loving the gringa dancing.

in between songs i would sit back down in my chair until someone new would ask me to dance. in the meantime, my uncle taught me the tradition of "passing the cerveza." i don´t really know if this is a tradition or not, but there is an actual technique to it. so, there is one bottle of beer out (quite a large bottle - the size of a wine bottle i would say). the person two seats to the left of me would pour a glass for the person immediatly to the left of me. the person to the left would accept the glass, turn to me and say, "salud". i would have to accept the salud, then the person would drink the glass, pour more into the glass for me, pass me the glass. i would then look to the person to the right of me, say ¨salud.¨they would need to accept, i would then drink, pour them a glass, and on it goes down the line. this may seem like such an easy concept, but it took awhile for me to catch onto. my uncle kept looking at me and saying ¨salud!¨ and i would say salud back. he would then hand me a drink and i would drink it. but i never knew what to do after that until he explained it to me.

anyway, the night went on and on... more dancing, i learned the traditional "wino" dance, well attempted anyway. then around midnight, we all suddently heard gun fire outside. i was sitting down against the wall, taking a little breather from all the dancing. at first, i didn´t really get what was going on. then we heard it again, my family started yammering about in spanish, an uncle turned off the stereo, and about three-quarters of the family ran outside! i stayed right where i was. of course i was curious why guns were firing off, but i wasn´t about to be caught in the middle of it. we heard more guns firing and realized it was happening RIGHT in front of our house on the soccer fields right there. my family started yelling for the kids who were playing near the house to come inside, and they all still stood there, watching the gun spectacle. then, almost as abrubtly as the firing began, it ceased. the family all piled back into the house, someone turned the music back up to full volume, and the dancing began again as if a shooting didn´t just occur right in front of the house.

of course, this wasn´t a satisfying answer for me to what just took place, so i searched for my sister who knows a bit of english and said, "por favor, explain to me what just happened in spanglish!" so, from what i understood, there were some "bad boys" sitting outside in front of the house, probably doing drugs. apparently a house called them into the police. the police came in a car, asked the men to leave. the men didn´t so the please fired off their guns as precautionary shots. then one of the boys whipped a gun out and started firing back at the car. then the boys ran away as the cops fired back. and that was that. the end of the ordeal and everything resumed back to normal. it was never talked about again. it would never be considered material to mention in the newspaper, or on the news. it was just normal.

crazy. please don´t request me to come home now. i swear i´m safe... i just won´t get in the middle of any shootings outside my house.

apart from that, i´ve been having pretty average days here. i´m pretty sure every man in chimbote has some sort of interest in me. i´ve had at least 7 wedding proposals, 34 "i love you´s", and countless requests for dates. it´s come to the point that i just laugh at people right in their face. today we had a "campeonato de la paz", or championshipt for peace. it´s a 3 day soccer tournament with all the different youth centers around victoria, the area i live in chimbote. benjamin is the boss of the youth centers, so this was his idea for a peaceful activity to join all the differen groups together. a bit more of an explanation... at one point, the gangs were so bad in chimbote, especially our area victoria, that the youth would just go out in the streets and kill each other for really no reason other then the fact that they created these gangs and decided they didn´t like each other. the parish saw a need for change, so they created these different youth centers, one in each area or street where the gang resided, hoping to change the gangs attitude, and the drug problems that exist. well, the youth centers have indeed helped the gang problems - no one is out killing each other anymore, at least not very often, but anywhere from 80-90% of the guys in the youth centers still do drugs, so that´s still an issue. in any case, benjamin is in charge of all these centers and created this championship for peace in order to hopefully create a fun, accepting atmosphere for the different groups to be together in.

anyway, today was the first day of the championship, therefore i watched soccer for about 3 hours staright. and in the meantime of watching soccer, i was harrassed by at least one member of each youth center, or "gang." one young man, the goalie of one team, approached me, got about 3 inches from my face, and said, "puedo estar tu enormarado." which essentially means, "i can be your lover." i said, "no puedes." which means, "no you can´t." then he told me how beautiful my eyes were, and how beautiful my skin was, and that he would treat me right. and after i said no, he stole my water bottle and walked off. i was actually pissed about the water - i had payed for it! in any case, he came back and made my boss, benjamin, take a photo of us. benjamin said it costs 5 soles to take photos with the gringa, and the guy said he would bring the money on saturday and then take me out to eat. then almost immediatly after he went away, another guy came and asked me to have dinner at his house tonight. i told him i already have plans, which i do in fact have, and he said, "okay, tomorrow then." i said i would have to check with my family and he should ask me again tomorrow. i´m hoping he´ll forget, but unfortunately i don´t think he will. then about 10 min. after that espisode, another man, a police officer in fact, who told me he is 24, asked me to go get ceviche with him tomorrow for lunch! i acted like i didn´t really understand what he was saying, even though i did, just so i didn´t have to be bothered with explaining that i really didn´t want to.

it´s stressful being a woman in chimbote - i don´t have enough excuses for all these people!

tonight i´m meeting with my group of 14-18 year old women for the first time. i´m pretty excited, but also nervous, because i can´t really talk and i have no idea how many will actually turn up. yesterday i went around with a 16 year old girl. we went house to house asking for people and telling them they could come meet us as 7 tonight. we´re going to play volleyball, and then is a person coming in to talk about self-esteem, because that is something everyone in this part of this city is lacking. i´ve come up with an idea for my final project - i´m hoping to collect stories from this group of girls about their past, who they are today, what they want to become, the many problems they face - essentially "i am a girl in chimbote" type of stories. i hope to have them write them in spanish, and then translate them in english, turning it all into a book with both spanish and english translations. in the process, hopefully i can understand life here a little better, and perhaps i can help them somehow in the process as well. but i´m not couting on that working out - i will just have to wait and see. if anyone has a better idea for me and my final project, i will glady accept it because i´ve been racking my brain for ideas and this is the only thing i have been able to come up with - and this idea isn´t even very complete.

other then that, i don´t know what else to say. of course i could say so many differnt things, but i only have so much time and so much energy. the food here is delicious - even more delicious than my food in lima! which i just didn´t think was possible. i can basically eat any kind of fruit i want at anytime - mangos have become a daily part of my diet. the beach on saturday with my european friends was fantastic, loved every minute of it. today is my sisters birthday and we´re having cuy for dinner. unfortunately i had to see a bowl full of dead cuy. it wasn´t a pretty site, but i still want to eat it. i have great conversations with my family everynight, and the 31 year old sister, kelly, is still my favorite. i have something weird going on with my arms - they itch and burn. it´s been about 2 days. my sister put alcohol on them yesterday which idk what that was supposed to do, but oh well. i´m always really dirty and really sweaty, but i´m getting used to never being clean. my body is really sore but i have no idea why. and yeah... i can´t think of any other random details to share.

but in any case, i´m sure i´ll be back soon to write again. keep me updated on life there, too! much love.

chimbote smells like poverty.

it's not a fishy smell, like everyone claimed it would be. instead, it's a smell of poverty. it's a mix of trash flowing on the streets, rotten food, people who haven't taken showers for days, weeks, perhaps months?, dirty clothes, dirty houses, dirty everything... and of course, there is in fact a faint fishy smell. but one forgets about the smell quite quickly, or at least i did. it's become a part of me. i probably smell like the smell -in fact i'm sure i do. i smell like something, none-the-less.

the smell doesn't bother me, not after the first 12 hours anyway. and although the poverty is depressing, for some reason i just accept it. i don't stare at the poor sitting in the streets, or the dirt floors of hourses, or the unshowered children. it's just a natural part of this world known as chimbote. i don't mind when the sticky, stinky children run up to me shouting, "gringa!" and slap a dirty, slimy kiss on my cheek, or grasp my legs with their bodies. of course, the poverty disturbs me. no one should live in the poverty that these people live in. but they are so accepting to their position that it is hard for me to not be accepting to the position as well. unfortunately, this life has become so natural.

chimbote = children. there are children everywhere - playing in all the football/basketball courts, playing football in the streets, playing marbles in the streets, riding bicycles without seats. children are everywhere. i asked roel, my 18 year old belgium friend, if that is the case because they don't have school right now, or if there is just a surplus of children in this city. he said it's the latter. the majority of chimbote is old catholic, and old catholic = no condoms. when one wears a condom, they're killing a life. absitence is the only way. but in a city full of drugs and young people, abstinence just doesn't work out, therefore there is an excessive amount of children who are uncared for. a problem? yes, a huge problem that i wouldn't even know where to begin tackling.

it's crazy because the parish here does everything for these people. the clothes the children have on their back are because of the parish. the food they eat is most likely due to the parish. their parents receiving drug treatment at half-way houses is because of the parish. the hospitals. the soccer fields, the youth centers, the fruit trees in their yard - it's because of the parish. yet because of the parish, there are so many children being born into poverty. it just seems a bit backwards to me.

i've made chimbote sound like a depressing place - it in fact isn't though. there is so much beauty in this desert city. so many palm trees, a beautiful coast (if you ignore the highly polluted water), the centro de armas is beautiful, people are wonderful here, always shouting hellos from whereever they are. i love chimbote, poverty and all.

what have i been doing these past few days? well, i don't even really know myself. a huge array of things. wednesday, after my last blog, i received a walking tour to all the different buildings and projects of the parish which was quite interesting to see, and i met many different people, especially young men who have already provided me with wedding proposals and "i love yous" and i'm pretty sure they kissed my cheek a little more passionatly than what is appropriate... as well as my hand. at least 7 times each. but in any case, it was interesting to see all the different areas of the parish and to become more familiar with my neighborhood.

speaking of my neighborhood, i apparently live in the poorest of all the poor places in chimbote, which i find quite interesting because the house i live in is the only nice house, yet it's smack in this area. right in the middle of the crime. it doesn't make sense to me, and i don't really know why they live here. there is another city connected to chimbote called "nuevo chimbote" - it's kind of like coralville and iowa city, you can't tell the difference but they have different mayors. anyway, all the "rich" people live in neuvo chimbote, the poor in chimbote. the poorest in my area of chimbote. roel and my other AFS friends all live in nuevo chimbote because one) it's safer for gringos and 2) families can afford to keep them. so that got me thinking, why does my better off family live in this area? it's a question i don't have an answer to, but i'm glad they live here in any case.

back to my life: that night padre juan made us go to mass so he could introduce us to the community so the community would then watch out for us. apparently gringos get assulted here a lot, and if people don't know you're part of the parish then they don't care what happens to you and they'll just keep walking by, but if they recognize you, everyone will look out for you. i got home pretty late, extremely tired, and after dinner i fell asleep instantly.

thursday i went to work at 9, my scheduled time for each morning. first we (benjamin - my boss, scott, roel, andi) went over to centre matt talbot, the halfway house for men, and began working on the garden. after an hour, we headed off for a 1-2 mile hike to the river because it was apparently time for the men to have an outing. they're not allowed to leave the center, so every now and then they get a treat. the men of matt talbot are so kind and loving. they just love to talk to anyone, even if you don't understand half of what you say. and one specific man has specially taken interest in helping me learn spanish, which is quite nice. he's pretty understandable and loves to tell me stories of his family. he apparently has brother or sister living in the U.S. and they have 6 kids. he also draws and is constantly trying to get me to draw things with him.

anyway, we got to the river and jumped in, after all we are living in a desert with sand all around - i don't think i would ever hessitate to jump in a river, even if it does come all the way down from the moutains and must be highly contaminated. the current swept us away and we had a wild river adventure for about 15 minutes until we landed in an area of about 1-2 feet of water. the current was still strong, but here we could stand up. they then informed us that we were going to play a game where one would throw the ball and we would all have to dodge. if the ball hit you then you'd become "it" and would try to hit someone else. it was great fun dodging in a strong current river for an hour, but apparently not fun enough because all the men decided we were going to play football americana. (did i mention i was the only woman in this group? that seems to be a commen theme for me around here.) anyway, we played football for an hour or so, and little me even made a few goals against these strong peruvian men, and roel, an extremely TALL belgium. around noon we left the river and made the sandy trek back into the city.

after a cold shower, lunch, and a nice siesta, scott and i went back to work, which actually didn't amount to much. benjamin wanted us to burn a cd, so for about an hour we attempted to figureout how to burn this disc. then a peruvian computer technician came in and informed us that the computer was just too hold. so then we sat their for an hour, chit chatting with different people, attempting to learn spanish, and then benjamin told us we were finished.

roel had invited us our with his friends in the evening, so scott and i jumped into a collectivo (a kombi car - same concept of a kombi, but instead of a van, it's a car. yeah... pretty crazy), and we headed to the centro de armas, or city center. there we met roel, along with 2 other girls from belgium, another from austria, and their peruvian AFS leader. all spoke extremely good and rapid spanish.. it was crazy. i'm extremely envious of their abilities, but they've been here anywhere from 5-7 months, so i suppose they've had quite a bit more practice than i. we went out to a restaurant, ordered deserts and milkshakes, and then went to a karoke bar where the belgium and austria girl loved to sing songs in english at this spanish karoke bar. what a mix of worlds.

friday morning father padre kidnapped scott and i from benjamin and took us to Tancay with him, an area about 45 minutes from chimbote, basically little houses made from essentially nothing on huge sand dunes. we met with an italian priest who is apparently wanting to build up a community of houses but needs water and is asking support from the parish. it was hard to figure out what was going on in the meeting, and finally a peruvian boy came in and asked scott and i if we wanted a tour of the farm, so of course we accepted and off we went to look at the guinea pigs, cows, horses, rabbits, donkeys, etc.

we had our lovely siesta time from noon-3, and then went back to benjamin's office. benjamin took us then to the center of chimbote where we met roel and were informed we'd be asking businesses for donations for the youth programs in the parish. we wondered about a lot, got some free uniforms, gave people a few forms, ate some cake... this is basically work here. it's laid back and we don't really know what is going on. i have no idea what help i served in being there. i couldn't talk - i just watched. i ate some cake. i attempted to chat to benjamin and roel in spanish. i sat in front of the ocean for 30 min. and looked at it's beauty. but for some reason, benjamin wants us to come along, and tells us what great help we are even though we know we don't do a thing.

it was great to see more of chimbote though - to see how a non-tourist city in peru actually opporates. i loved walking through the markets and stores, just watching and taking it all in, like a baby. i got home early friday night, around 7, and sat in the living room chatting with my sisters. i've discovered more about my family - apparently i have 4 sisters. the oldest is 39 and she is the one married to a german and who lives in germany but is here for a few months. then there is my other sister, who is 31. i haven't met her yet and she apparently works in lima during the week and comes home on weekends. thenthere is my other sister, who i personally like the most, and i think she is 28 or 29. and finally there is my sister of the same age - 20. unfortunately i can't remember any of their names, but at least i've figured out they exist. then i have my mother, who is adorable and loving. and again my grandpa who everyone morning shouts, "hola gringa! como estas?" and my grandma who doesn't say much but is quite cute and smiles often. then apparently the brother of my mother lives in our house, along with his wife, and the 2 little boys belong to him, so i'm glad i sorted out that mystery.

tonight we're having a birthday party at my house for my dad, who i still don't believe is married to my mother. they told me to prepare myself for a lot of dancing, eating, and drinking - so i suppose that's what i'm doing right now. then tomorrow i'm going to besike beach with roel and his other AFS friends, which i'm pretty excited for -minus the fact that they speak spanish so well - because when am i not excited to spend the day at the beach?

i need to head out and do some laundry. all this morning i worked on the garden at matt talbot. i shoveled so much dirt i got 2 blisters that popped (dad, you would be so proud. remember my pathetic ability of shoveling the snow? well, i believe i have improved). anyway, because of the whole garden business, i am disgustingly dirty from shoveling mierda (poop) and dirt all morning, not to mention how much i sweated. it was a great time though and i loved attempting to talk to them, as always. but alas, i shall go back to my home and see what other adventures i can find myself in.

la parroquia en chimbote

i successfully arrived in chimbote at 3:30 pm yesterday. scott and i were greeted by 3 very friendly peruvian men from the parish, one of which spoke english quite fluently. driving through chimbote to the parroquia (parish) was a good view of my new home for the next 5 weeks. it is definitely much more poor than lima. most of the roads are dust, which they "water" each morning to keep it from flying up off the road. most of the houses are made from cement or from a plant that is native to this area (i forget the name), but it's a cross between bamboo and straw, only not as strong as bamboo and not as flimsy as straw. the parroquia itself is very beautiful and large, with many facilities to utalize. right now i'm using the internet in the bibliotecca (library of the parish) on my 3 hour siesta (break, or nap time) which i get everyday from noon to three. there is also an excercise room, and an entire quarters for the gringos, known as the gringo room, which is a nice place to hang out and eat. there are couches, books, tables, lockers to keep your stuff in - basically anything you may need while at the parish.

i honestly think i have fallen in love with my placement immediatly. i don't want to instantly assume that this place is a perfect fit, but so far it seems it is. after i arrived to the parroquia, i was taken to my host families home which is only 2 cuadras (blocks) from the parroquia. it's a large house, obviously much nicer than most in chimbote, and i was greeted by my friendly mother, who is japanese decent of some sort. she showed me to the room i'll be staying in, which is her daughter's room, but her daughter is studying in lima and only comes home on weekends, so apparently that's why i get her room. i didn't bother asking where she would stay on weekends - sometimes it's just not worth it. after i settled in, i was then introduced to person after person after person! first it was one of my sisters, who actually married a german and lives in germany with him. she speaks spanish, english, and german, so she converses with me in english quite often. i then met my adorable grandpa who loves to sit in the living room and stare out the window at children playing on the soccer courts right in front of our house. then therr is the grandma who is also adorable, and quite old, but still up and running, and apparently who makes declicious cuy (guinnea pig). then i met two of my sobrinos, or nephews, who lives in the house too apparently. i don't exactly understand where they belong in the string of the family, but they enjoy making fun of my spanish. that's about the whole interacction the young boys and i have had so far. then there was a father, but i do not believe he and my mother are married because he has a girlfriend. but both him and the girlfriend were over for dinner last night, and then he was there again this morning, so honestly i have no clue. then there was another man there this morning at the breakfast table with me. i have no idea who he is either, but i am just going to assume it is the boys father. and then i met another daughter after dinner, who looks about my age, who apparently works and is studying for exams so she can go to university in lima. in the backyard there are cages upon cages of cuy, birds, and rabbits, and then some chickens wondering about as well. so overall, i think there are 10 people living in our house, but there could definitely be more. they're all extremely friendly and love to joke around and have conversation with each other. we sat and watched tv for a bit last night and they enjoyed asking me questions. i told them i wanted to try cuy and they got so excited and promised me we would surely eat it.

this morning i wondered over to the parish around 8:30. everything here is so laid back and we were never given a time we should appear, so i just did what felt right. i couldn't find katie, my gringa contact person, so i just went into the gringo room where i found an english man who lives in ireland, who worked here for 5 years of his life, and is currently on holiday reuniting with old friends. he was apparently a priest, until he met the woman of his dreams, which at that point he quit the whole priest thing, got married, and then came to chimbote and worked in this parish. in any case, we had an interesting conversation and he informed me more about the dangers in chimbote and what all goes on in the parish. scott then showed up and we both went to search for katie, who we eventually found in her office. she took us across the street to a different branch of the parish (did i mention this parish is HUGE... and beautiful. with many different buildings in the 10 blocks surrounding the main parish). anyway, we were given to a man, who i already unfortunately forget the name of, and were told we would be under his instruction for the next 5 weeks. he works with the young children in the area as well as matt talbot, a halfway house for drugs addicts. also in the room was rul, a 28 year old from belgium who has been here for 4 months, not knowing any spanish, and now speaks spanish fluently, and english semi-fluently (did i mention im incredibly jealous of this?) also, i met a 19 year old guy from germany who has been here working for 7 months and also now speaks spanish fluently,and english semi-fluently. anyway, we made a schedule with our supervisor, which honestly now i have no idea what it is because everything was in spanish, but from what i can understand apparently i'm going to work on starting up a group at the church for girls 14-18 years old, because at the moment there is only one for boys. then in many of the mornings, scott and i will be making a garden at the half-way house for the men who live there. many afternoons we will be working with children and teaching them english, and sometimes i will be working with a women's group who weave chairs and rugs. apparently they'll teach me how to do it, which will be pretty awesome because these rugs they make are out of the same plants as the houses, and they're pretty awesome. i was hoping to purchase one and take it home with me. we'll always take groups to the river, which apparently is large and has beaches, or to the pool, or to the beach. tomorrow we're going to one of the three, but i already forget! (did i mention everything is pretty overwhelming at this stage? and the english speakers are only speaking to us in spanish because they say its the only way we'll learn, which is true, but extremely frustrating).

this morning after our meeting, rul, scott, and i, along with a pack of about 10 boys, set off walking the streets of chimbote, knocking on doors and talking to girls about their participation in a girls group if one started at the parish. many were very interested. it was crazy to see the poverty they live in. one girl was only just 17, she had a two year old son, and was living in basically a dirt home. she seemed very excited about a group getting started and wrote her name down excitedly. we only found about 4 other girls, but i'm hoping this continues and we can start up a group. then all the boys requested we play a match of futbol (soccer) so we all went to another building owned by the parish, which actually has an amazing open soccer court inside it. i sat down with a 12 year old girl and we had a conversation about my family at home and about living in lima, which she informed me that everyone in lima is rich, which is a huge assumption but is what many rural peruvians believe because supposidly lima is where the opporutinity is, which is also an assumption made by many because lima itself actually does not have very much opportunity. that is a whole different topic to talk about though...

as i was chatting with this girl, a little boy ran up to me and handed me a fruit icy, which was delicious and quite sweet of him to think of me. the girl knew some english and loved to ask me what different words were in english. i told her i would only tell her if she promised to help me with my spanish. apparently we're meeting again at 7:30 pm, although i don't know where, so perhaps i will see her again and we can both help each other out! which i don't mind a 12 year old tutor at all...

anyway, im supposed to meet back with our supervisor at 3, and then i think we're getting a tour, more or less, of everything that is here, and then who knows what we'll do. i already love this placement because it is so laid back. we have a large variety of things to work on. everyone is friendly, joking around quite a bit, and they all have such extremely large hearts.

i don't completely understand everything this parish does, or how it came about. i obviously hope to learn more as the days tick by, but essentially what i understand is father jack, a priest from the united states, started this parish back in 1970 something. he and sister peggy, who i havent met, devoted their live to the work in chimbote and built up this extremely large and functioning parish, which appears to be a major asset to this city in extreme poverty. not only do they have a working half-way house, as well as many groups of women and children, but they also have a hospital, a hospice center, orphanage, women's shelter, food kitchens, and other programs i have not even encountered yet. it's pretty amazing to see all the different volunteers here, and to see how many people have given up time in their life to work at this really incredible place. as it is a catholic parish, i'm pretty excited to learn more about the catholic religion, especially here in peru, and see the "good side" of it (as my parents in lima were hard core evangelicals and didn't care much for the catholics, therefore all i heard were the "bad things" about the church - which this in itself is again a totally different topic i could talk about for days).

well, i think that's about all i have for now. i will surely have more i want to say at a later date. in fact, i'm sure each minute there will be something i want to share with someone, but alas this is an experience i need to have on my own. therefore, once again, even though i have computers at easy access, i'm going to limit my time spent on them just to insure that i'm immersing myself here and not staying too connected to home. i do want to continually inform you on my happenings though, so count on hearing from me occasionally!

i hope all are doing well, and i love and miss you very much.

ps. cj posts photos on his blog, so if you would like to see some of the things i talk about, you should check out his block which i have a link to on the side of my page. i would put photos up, but honestly it's just too much work, so you'll have to wait to see them until i return!

trekking amoung peruvian protesters

for those of you who received the GC email about our adventure early, early friday morning... it was nothing like they made it out to be. that email was to reassure all the crazies that life was okay. now, life WAS okay, but it was far more huge of a deal than they made it out to be. we were told not to exaggerate any of the events that happened - the following is not an exaggeration.

i thought my next blog would be about machu picchu and how amazing that experience was. well... that experience was quite amazing, can not lie. but it seems like that happened a century ago, and the past 48 hours have been far more overwhelming, adventurous, and incredible in a different way than machu picchu.

at the moment, i'm writing from an internet cafe in cusco. i was supposed to be on a bus on my way to chimbote, but that one isn't happening until tuesday. and now i shall explain:

we got back to ollantaytambo, an extremely small village in the andes where we were staying for the machu picchu adventure, at about 8 pm thursday night. we had to walk a mile and a half from the train station to our hostel in the pouring rain, and we were all thoroughly exhausted from exploring all of machu picchu for about 6 hours earlier in the day. i would estimate i walked 5-7 miles there. at our hostel, we all sat down for dinner and then our tour guide elvis stood up to make an annoucement, which was that we apparently had to be on the bus, packed and ready to travel to cusco at 3:00 am friday morning. the reason being that cusco was going through a 2 day strike and it could potentially be difficult to get through, therefore they wanted to aim to get to the airport at 5:30 am and wait until 11:00 am when our flight would take off for lima. in my last blog i explained a bit of the situation here in peru, but i'll give a brief overview again. basically, the government is passing a law that would let developement happen near the Incan ruins here in the Andes. people are pissed with an incredibly good reason to be. but not only are they mad about the fact that developers will come in and destroy their beautiful land, but they're also upset with their living conditions, their pay, their lives. here in peru, when people are angry about one thing, it developes into about 32 other things, therefore everyone gets invovled and things can get crazy. i hope that gives you a bit more context of why the following events then happened.

so, we're all driving along in a freezing cold bus, tired and hungry, just wanting to get to the airport. we appruptly stop because apparently their is a large tree across the road. their are a few other cars ahead of us, and people pile out to remove the tree. the first tree was removed after about 10 min. and we went on our way. only 5 min. down the winding, mountain road we encountered another tree. at this moment we all understood that these trees were intentially placed on the road as a blockade into cusco. this time there were about 10 cars ahead, and as this was a much larger tree, it took about a half hour to remove in the cold rain. we continue on our way and again stop abruptly. honestly, we didn't really know what was going on. we had blinds over our windows and it was still dark out. we just knew the protestors were putting road blocks up so we couldn't drive through to cusco. our tour guide, elvis, got off the bus to talk to people we couldn't see. then all of a sudden we heard many spanish voices outside our bus, screaming different chants, yelling words like "turistos." apparently, it was a mob of drunken men who had decided to stay up all night and then go out on the roads to stop from driving during their strike. the voices grew louder and louder, and then people started pounding on our bus, throwing rocks at it. one man started ramming up against the side, which at that point people started fearing they would push it over. when they started hitting our bus, it was the first time i have ever seen our entire SST group voluntarily shut up. everyone was completely silent, staring straight ahead. the only sounds one could hear were the spanish cries of angry men, the pounds on our bus, and the hiss of the air being let our of our tires. (we were lucky, they only let air out of ours. they actually popped others). i personally didn't know what to think - i had never been in this kind of situation in my whole life. i didn't know what was going to happen, i really didn't know what WAS happening. it was just a shock.

the mob left us and went to a car behind us. at this point, kathryn started freaking out a bit, exclaiming how she didn't want to die. then i went on rant about how they weren't going to injure a bunch of gringos because that would completely screw peru over. number one, tourism industry would end, and they need the tourism. number two, the united states government would flip out and the relations between peru and the u.s. would be disastorous. and number three, possibly the most important to keep in mind, is that the people of peru are pissed off at their goverment, not the tourists. they're angry and all they want is to be heard, and this is the way they can get heard. when a goverment doesn't listen to their people, the people must take drastic measures. and if that means pissing off a tourism company by letting air out of their tires and by throwing rocks at the bus, then that's what they're going to do. they don't want to injure anyone. and that's the truth. i honestly don't think we were actually in danger at any moment.

elvis then got on the bus and explained that we were 9 miles from the entrance of cusco and we had no choice but to walk. if we walked, we would be safe because we would be complying with the strike, almost as if we were joining in. if we would drive, we would not be safe because we would not be complying with the strike (the strike was that no one was going to work for 2 days - or more - and it was happening all over the country, in some places it's still going on, and no one was supposed to drive or use any form of transportation. basically everyone's lives were supposed to stop. and then they had massive protests and burnings and bill board bashings all day). so anyway, we went through our stuff and took what we wanted in small bags, obviously left the large ones, and at 5:50 am we set off for a 9 mile hike to cusco. we had no water, no food, no sleep. it was raining and we were wearing giant ponchos. it was cold. i could see my breath. but somehow the first 4 miles went by quickly. at every village, elvis would stop and ask to buy water at a corner store, but no one would sell it to us because of the strike. we weren't the only ones walking - there were many groups of people, and many deserted cars along side the road as well. the road to cusco had many different blockade methods. we had to walk over large rocks, trees, even dumpsters in the middle of the road. finally after about 5 or 6 miles, a kombi drove up to us yelling, "cusco! cusco!" i really have no idea how he got through. there must have been some back roads? but in any case, we all jumped on and road 2 or 3 miles to the outskirts of cusco, where it was absolutely impossible to get any further by driving. here we were left off again to continue our long trek into the city. the road was a mess of blockades with broken glass everywhere and large rocks. we continued on our way, watched by many andean people who would make comments such as "blancos!" or "gringos" or "hace frio, no?" i don't really know what they thought about the massive group of whities walking through their chaotic protesting, but we just kept walking, not thinking about how tired we were or about how much our legs burned from the day before of hiking up the large mountain, wuaynapicchu, at machu picchu.

finally, after half an hour, we stopped and were told we were going into our tour guide's friends house for breakfast, which was apparently also a very small restaurant. we all piled into this tiny room and they quickly shut the doors behind us, blocking out the sights and sounds of spanish protesting. at this point it was almost 8:00 am and we were all ravenous. it took quite some time to cook eggs, rice, and tomatoes for all of us, but by 9:30 am all our bellys were satisfied and we were craving some sleep. at this point we were informed that no flights had gone out of cusco the day before, nor would they be going out friday because of the strike, and we would be staying in cusco at a hostel for an indefinite amount of time. the hostel was an hour walk from where we were, so we once again prepared ourselves and headed out. unfortunately, as we all piled out of the house/restaurant, there was a group of angry people. apparently our tour guides had done a very bad things in serving us, because it was a strike and no one was supposed to work, and they had worked. there was a bunch of yelling and finally elvis just told us to walk away and keep walking down the road.

i'm going to pause: this whole situation is very complicated. the woman who made us food obviously felt horrible as the protestors were yelling at her for cooking, yet she felt she needed to serve us. she had been along the whole time, so she understood the hunger and fatigue all were going through. everything is complicated because people want to protest. they're protesting because they need money, they need food, they need to be heard. yet people don't want to protest because that means they won't have money for those 2 days they did protest. there are so many different layers that go into this situation - so many i can't even see with my shielded eyes.

our giant gringo pack continued walking down the cusco streets. this time we ran into a huge parade of protestors with signs, sticks, rocks, and chants. it was an incredible sight to see - it gave me goosebumps and tears in my eyes. the stream of people just went on and on and they were so passionate. i've never seen people fight for their lives like these people. their faces just told all. as we continued walking, we saw people tearing down big billboards, burning tires in the middle of the road. we saw businesses, such as lan airline, which we flew on to cusco, have rocks thrown through their windows. we saw people with all sorts of emotions with one common goal - to be heard. they even had signs that said, "tourists. this has nothing to do with you. please just try to understand why we are doing this." okay, so maybe it didn't say exactly that, but something quite similar. and we just kept walking... walking... and walking. i would say we walked 3 miles, give or take, within cusco itself.

finally, about 10 am, we arrived to the hostel, quite dishelved, quite wet, no clean clothes or belongings. our goshen group all gathered together, everyone sitting their, attempting to process what had just happened to us over the past 7 hours. it felt as if it was 3 in the afternoon - we had been up since 3 am after all. duane opened the group up for discussion and we decided to sing "down by the river we pray," which was somehow sentimental and touching, we said a prayer, and they we all went to ours beds with thick llama and alpaca blankets to attempt to regain life from our trek.

i slept on and off from 11 am - 4 pm. i started a cold the second day we arrived in the andes, most likely because of the drastic temperature change (it is SO cold here - i've been quite miserable), and the lack of sleep. in any case, this cold has turned into a full fledge flemmy sickness and i woke up with a clogged up nose, raspy throad, and juicy cough. there wasn't much of a point to shower because we didn't have anything to shower with, nor did we have clean clothes... or even underwear for that matter. our group met and we were informed that they found a flight for us on sunday, therefore we would be spending two more nights in cusco. honestly, i didn't really mind this, i only cared about the whole no clean clothes thing. but we're all making the best of this adventure and situation and so far it has been quite entertaining! last night we went to the plaza in cusco (basically the downtown), and then ate at a really nice pizza restaurant for dinner. we again encountered protestors... it was pretty crazy. they were angry that businesses opened after 7 pm (that was when the strike was technically over so people started actually opening up their businesses and restaurants). in any case, the group of protestors were banging on windows, so as we were walking the stores keepers and restaurant owners were temporarily shutting up their businesses as to not get harassed. once we got inside our restaurant, they locked us all inside and boarded up the outside. the waitress told us it was normal and we shouldn't worry, which honestly none of us were because we all felt we had been through much worse.

i hadn' t eaten since our breakfast at 8:30 that morning, so i was quite ravenous. our table of 7 ended ordering 4 giant, delicious, brick oven baked pizzas. afterwords a group of us wondered next door to a pretty awesome bar called "underground cafe -bar." and we had a pretty nice evening, just hanging out and enjoying each others presence in finally, a relaxing manner. because we slept so late in the day we weren't tired. i ended up not being able to fall asleep until 5:00 am today, due to my sickness (i couldn't breath out of my nose), and probably due to my enourmous nap as well.

unfortunately i woke up at 9:00 am this morning, so at the moment i feel pretty crappy. luckily our bags from the bus arrived late last night, so i at least have my belongings. we have tourist passes for cusco, so there are tons of things to do today, but i'm thinking a nap may be necessary. tonight i'm planning on going to "centro Qosqo de arte nativo danzas folkloricas" which is basically a native dance program. i also wanted to go to the contemporary art museum, but it closes at 1 so i don't think that will happen. i plan to do a bunch of market shopping today - buy all my loved ones some gifts and such. then late tonight we're planning on heading out to a disco tecca, even though all we have our disgusting clothes that we hiked in for 3 days. cusco is the most tourist town i have been in, which has it's negatives and positives, but a positive is that it has an amazing night life. we decided we couldn't pass up the opportunity to experience it for at least one night. i'm planning on being even sicker tomorrow, but hopefully i can sleep all day monday in lima and then be fresh and ready to go to chimbote with scott on tuesday. i'm scheduled for a flight tomorrow at noon, which will hopefully land me in lima about 1 in the afternoon.

i feel like this is enough information for one blog entry. i'm still attempting to process the protests, or perhaps process isn't the right word, but i'm still attempting to piece all the events together. i really want to understand the problems of peru better, and i feel like this weekend i received a first hand experience, which i am thankful for. i hope none of you are now worried for my safety, because honestly, we were fine the whole time. it's just a part of life here.

the one thing about this "vacation" that i absolutely loved was that i was able to apply everything i learned in lima. through traveling through all sorts of incan ruins and buildings here in cusco, i was able to apply my andean history and actually see where past events took place. i was able to walk on the same groups that pizzaro and the incans fought on. i was able to walk on the same trails the incan runners delivered messages on. i also was able to apply my knowledge of current politics, decentralization, poverty, and life in peru through witnessing the protests and the everyday lives of people here in more rural peru. i feel like this trip brought all the loose ends together.

i hope to talk to you about all this when i am home.
and i hope you are all safe and well.

tomorrow, at 6:15 am, i am leaving my house for the airport to go to cusco. can't lie, i'm pretty pumped. machu picchu? who would not be excited?

what else is new in my life?

well, yesterday, carlos and bachy went back to the united states. i'm pretty sad, and excited that now is the time i'm leaving for chimbote, because i don't know if i could return to life in peru without carlos and bachy. they became such a part of my life. and bachy is insisting the minute i return to the united states i take a drive down to cincinnati and stay at their house. she's even going to show me how to cook my favorite peruvian dish, lomo saltado (which basically consists of steak, tomatoes, onions, rice, and spices and sauces of sorts, of course - que rico!). in any case, they left peru last night and it was basically "THE HUGEST DEAL EVER!" no, really. i haven't seen a family become so obsessed with people leaving as what yesterday turned out to be, but i suppose that is the difference between having your family leave your native country, rarely returning, versus having some family in a different part of the world, easily accesable and living stabily. also, plain and simple, it's the difference between the peruvian culture, and the "culture" of the united states. so, at about 7:30 pm, while i was in the middle of studying for my SST final exam (worth 25% of our grade), 20 some family members all pile into our small apartment and start talking rapidly, giving any advice they could think of as to how much bachy's suitcases could weigh, if she could really sneak in food, where she should put specfic items, how she should carry it all in the airport... on and on. i don't think there was a person there who didn't have some sort of "helpful" advice to offer. and then there was all this commotion, and i became overwhelmed, and even had to retreat to the roof for 10 min. out of sheer over-stimulation. but alas, it was about 9:30 and they were heading off to the airport. i kissed bachy goodbye, about 4 times, and hugged and took multiple photos with carlos. and then 10 people, 5 in a taxi, 5 in an uncle's car, all zoom off the airport! what a family commotion for something so common in my own person life. but i won't lie, i loved it (even though i thanked god it wasn't how my real family opperates).

saturday night we had a "fiesta de disfrases," aka costume party, at reuben's house. honestly, it was just like something like the disney party at goshen, only in peru, with costumes rented at some shop in jesus maria, peruvian music, and peruvian people. oh, and walking down the streets of lima where everyone looks at you - especially when dressed as a bubble bee. and an english speaking bubble bee at that! (ps. i went as a bubble bee).

but yeah, basically we all went and rented costumes, and then showed up at reubens house, drank and dance a bit, ate a bit, laughed at each other a lot... yup. overall, a grand time. i must say the best part was when cj (a monk) and i went on a search for a certain drink and had a little trouble finding it. we ended up walking an extremely main road in lima, where the sidewalks were crowded with native peruvians getting a pretty good chuckle and the white people dressed up in ridiculous costumes. to make it a little better, we decided to act like we were arguing. we made it into a walmart like super store, and just went at it, "fighting" in english. it was great. ive never had so many people look at me with such astonished faces as i did that night. you may want to look at cj's blog. he was going to write about this and his perspective may be a bit more funny.

but all you need to know is that it was a great night, and i was one badass abeja.

and i realize i never wrote about the crazy holiday called carnival (and if i did and just completely blanked out on it, please correct me), but in any case, all of the month of february, peru celebrates carnival. orginally it was invented to celebrate the fact that peruvians made it through another year. now it's just a fun tradition where boys can fill up water balloons, pelt all the girls with them, and not get in trouble for it. the first sunday of carnival (the craziest carnival day of them all), i was hit with water baloons on 3 different occassions. the first was on a kombi ride to church. i was just sitting quietly in the backseat, bumpin along the rode, looking out the open window with a breeze running my hair when BAM! all of a sudden i, and the rest of the cambi, was covered in water! we had been carnivaled. thank goodness for the hot weather - i dried in about 10 min. the second time i was hit was when i was walking to my friend gisela's house. that time i wondered if they scored more points hitting a gringa, because they definitely aimed for me, not her. the third time was on a bus ride home. i actually wasn't hit with the balloon, but everyone around me was.

i wish i had more time, because i could then explain this whole carnival thing in a bit more details, but this may just have to be something we need to talk about when i come home.

right now i'm flying around the house. i have to wash some clothes before i go to cusco tomorrow, so they can then dry while i'm gone. friday we all get back from cusco, and then need to turn around and leave for chimbote on saturday. therefore, i need to pack my bags for cusco, but also get everything ready to leave on saturday. crazycrazy business. it snuck up on me so quickly, i don't even know what to think.

i will admit i am nervous for chimbote. for one thing, there are huge protests and riots going on in peru right now. alan garcia, the president, isn't making the smartest of decisions (seems like presidents all over the world can be dumbasses), and all sorts of workers are going on strike. one of the biggest things is that cusco people are striking because the peruvian government might let foreign interprises come into the cusco surrounding area and machi picchu, and build all sorts of glorious resorts and such. we actually aren't completly sure if we'll get through to cusco, but everyone is praying for the best. anyway, protestors have been blocking the highway to chimbote. therefore, people haven't been able to get through, or have had to walk a few miles past the road block, or have had to sit in a bus for hours upon hours because of these protestors. protestors who throw rocks at the bus windows even. so yeah, i won't lie, i'm a bit nervous about that.

also, everyone in our group seems so excited to get out of the city, but i personally love it here. i don't notice the pollution, and i've even begun to not notice the noise so much. the crazy highways seem normal now. i also sleep all the way through the nights, and i'm pretty capable at getting around anywhere here in lima. i truly do love it here in this city, and as much as i know service will be an incredible experience, i just don't want to leave what has become so familiar and comfortable for me.

but alas, i must leave, and i know it will be an exciting and advenurous experience.
i hope to inform you on all the excitement, but i will be going to an extremely poor area of lima, in fact one the poorest with the biggest drug problems, so i'm not promising a bunch of contact from me. especially not compared to how accessable i was here in lima.

plan to hear from me in a week or so?
peace and love.

una rápida update!

it has been awhile since i have updated you on the details of my life. honestly, i don't really know what has all happened since the last information i have relayed to you. but i'll attempt to do a quick sum-up right about... now.

so, to being with, yesterday was my birthday. and thank you all for the many birthday wishes, emails, cards, etc. i would love to reply back to all, but it's just impossible. but it still meant a lot and it made me think of you all fondly!

an incredble amount has happened, but i'm going to tell you about the biggest and most fantastic.

last saturday we all swam with sea lions!! if you check the goshen blog than you would have seen that there. we piled into a boat at calloa, which then took us to a yacht. we traveled out into the ocean, and in about an hour we arrived to an island COVERED in sea lions. we all just jumped right into the ocean and swam about with them! besides the fact that the water was so cold it took me 2 minutes to regulate my breathing, it was fantastic.

that night we all went to a discotecca, producto peruana, for matt's sister's birthday. now that was quite an experience. it only cost 25 soles to get in (about 8 dollars), and once in, all alcohol was free. loco? si. i'm not sure where else you could find such a thing, but here they've got it and it's quite the fun time. i would go more into this, but due to my lack of time and the want to update you on everything, i won't. i'll just say this - i think the men in our group experienced peruvian women quite pleasurably that evening.

i've mentioned my cousin carlos a few times. he moved to the united states when he was 12, not knowing any english. now he is 19, quite fluent in both english and spanish, and he, his mom, and another aunt all moved into our teeny little apartment here in lima! so these past 2 weeks have been very crowded, but tons of fun. them moving in has actually been a blessing. there are so many family members here, i'm never bored and always have someone to talk to, or someone to take me to some new place. it's been great - minus the fact that i feel like i have NO free time! but i wouldn't trade the love of my family for anything.

so anyway, carlos and i spend a lot of time together, mainly conversing in english, but occasionally spanish. it helps to have him take my friends and i places... and all my friends enjoy him a lot, so all works out well. his mother, batchi, is WONDERFUL. i absolutely adore her. she's always looking after me, making sure i'm safe and comfortable. it's cute - she's more worried about my safety than my own mother ever was! and she made my birthday quite special.

unfortunately, my mother's mother has gotten quite ill. therefore, around midnight of the 13th, or 14th, whichever way you want to look at it, my mother got up and left and won't be back for quite sometime, apparently. therefore, batchi took over the whole mothering routine, more so than she was. we had tons of family over because an aunt who was visitng here, but who lives in germany, was going back on the 14th, so they were all having a farewell get together. anyway, my family made me stay up until midnight so they could all toast to my birthday and sing. so i stayed up.. and then we ended up having a two hour conversation, almost all in spanish! minus the fact that i stayed up until 2 am and i had my spanish final exam the next day, it was one of my favorite nights thus far. it was just so great to finally be able to communicate to my family members in spanish, and to understand what they were saying to me. and just to feel their love for me, and how much they wanted to make my birthday special.

on to more birthday celebrations. the 13th all the students celebrated my bithday because we have goshen tambo on wednesdays. we ended up all going to my favorite ice cream shop in miraflores. the ice cream there is delicious - almost like gellato, but honestly, BETTER. they have a mango flavor that is identical to mangos. no lie... it is identical. they also have a pisco sour flavor that is actually made with pisco sour. alcoholic ice cream? who would have ever known?

after the ice cream party, small cake, and "happy birthday" singing, a group of us went to centro de lima to go to some markets and buy a few things. then we headed off to the circuito magico del agua, which i have talked about before. it's basically these massive fountains that have lights and are incredible. someday you will see photos, and you will finally understand the enchantment of these things. i actually got in this time, and got a little wet (i have a photo here of me wet!), but it was great fun. in fact, we ended up staying there for 2 hours!

then yesterday, thursday, the day of my actual birthday, i had a final spanish exam in the morning. then we all went to the playa (beach) for the afternoon. i relished at the fact that i have never once been able to spend my birthday in hot weather, let alone on the beach. it was magnificent though, and it gave me all the more incentive to live somewhere hot when i can move on and have my own life! a birthday on a beach is the best way one can have it, i do believe.

then last night a group of about 16 of us dressed up in some formal wear and went to an EXTREMELY fancy restaurant in miraflores. it was about 40 soles per person, the equivalent of 13ish dollars, but if this restaurant was the in states it would have cost about 40 dollars per person! they had all sorts of courses. first, it was some sort of shrimp, with a kind of bread or pastry, and a delicious sauce. then we were of course given delicious, pricy wine. the main course consisted of steak, peruvian style of course, vegetables, rice (or course), with a delicious sauce. and the desert, oh the desert! it was a delicious chocolate cake with mangos and strawberries and pinapple inbetween the layers, along with a kind of whipped icing. delicious. (on a side note: peru has incredible deserts and pastries and cakes. just delicious and amazing... and cheap!).

so yes, that about sums up my birthday. this evening we are having a despidida (farewell party) for our parents. unfortunately, my mom will miss it, but i believe my dad and daniela will be attending. then after that, i'm planning on going out to a discotecca for mark's and my birthday (mark is having his birthday on monday). so yes, i'm pretty excited for my third discotecca experience! they always seem to be interesting.

i should go and attempt to take a nap. or at least a shower - it is so hot here in february! i hope this gave a better assessment of what has been happening and i really am sorry for not updating sooner. and also for this being such a rapid update because it isn't one of my best.

i love you and continue to miss you all.