Jueves - Cuatro Semanas en Huancayo

Today marks four week in Huancayo...

This morning I was happy that Mabel made hot chocolate.  They make it differently here with rice and porridge, which makes it so much better.  I graded homework papers after breakfast and then taught ballet to Pilar and Angela for about an hour.  They are doing so well.  Their form obviously isn't perfect, but they are getting the steps pretty well.  After some bar work, I taught them a simple combination of chasse, pas du bourree.  I also showed them how to curtsey before we did our end of class adagio.  Angela was so cute because one of her teeth is loose and if we had a bit of downtime she would start yanking at it.  After class she continued to yank on it.

I was listening to some of the ballet music after class and Tino came by to give me a CD of Peruvian music.  He wants the children at the mountain school to be able to sing Condor Pasa.  I told him I liked singing, so he asked me if I would be able to teach them.  It's interesting because there is a version in Spanish and there is also a version in English that Simon and Garfunkel sang in the 70s.  I'm not sure which I'll be teaching the kids.  Mabel is also taking a singing class.  The other day Mari asked me if I played the organ or the piano.  I told her that's one thing that I'm not good at.

I read Como Agua Para Chocolate after I finished listening to the CD that Tino gave me.  When the others got back, we had lunch and then Lauren and I went out to go to the post office.  On the street right outside of our house there was a man urinating against the building.  He had been looking in our direction, so I had unfortunately looked over there.  He whistled as we walked by.  Lauren said, "I'm going to pretend he didn't just whistle at us while he was peeing."  

When we got to the post office, I sent off some of my postcards and then Lauren and I looked into some more nearby stores.  She ended up walking home and I went to the grocery store to get a few things.  I also browsed through some of the stores before heading home.  When I got home, there were three cows along the street where the man had been urinating earlier.  Funny things were just continuously popping up along that street today.

I reluctantly started to work on the website when I got home since I had been hitting brick walls yesterday.  I made some breakthroughs reading the help manual despite the fact that it's in Spanish.  I ended my website work on a good note when the other volunteers came back home.

Now James and Fiona and I are listening to Fleetwood Mac and relaxing in the common area before dinner.  I think we're expecting a new volunteer soon, maybe even tonight.  They cleaned out another room...

Another Wednesday

Today I was excited to teach ballet when I woke up.  I even had a dream about looking for my ballet slippers.  I got up and started looking for some ballet music to download and found a whole CD to download for free.  After breakfast I taught some of the ballet basics to Pilar, Angela, and Lauren.  Pilar and Angela are Tino's daughters.  I think they had fun.  I taught for about 45 minutes today so I wouldn't overwhelm them too much with lots of new things.  It felt good to do ballet again.

After the class, Lauren and I walked down to La Casa de Artesania, the artesan market that's open every day.  We looked around every stall and ended up buying a few things.  We were going to go to the post office, but there was a protest going on in the street near it.  There was police blocking the street around it to keep it contained.  We figured it would be best to stay out of that area so we wouldn't get confused with the protesters.  Instead of going to the post office, we looked into a clothing store before heading home for lunch.

I read a little bit of Como Agua Para Chocolate after lunch.  When everyone else left for the mountain school, I started back up on the website.  Trying to figure out Dreamweaver in Spanish is quite a frustrating task.

When the other volunteers got back, I watched a bit of a movie with Ylfa and Emil and then Mari came to get Ylfa and I for our weaving lesson.  We didn't get much done before dinner was ready.  I got a little frustrated at dinner because I feel like the other volunteers always make fun of the United States.  I've just gotten really tired of it and when I was done, I just got up from the table and started back up on my weaving.  Two of the volunteers came in and commented on how good my weaving was.  I was improvising when Tino came and and said I was doing a really good job.  He said now I can weave by myself whenever I want because I'm doing so well.  It's really coming along.  I'll have to take another picture of it soon.

I got so carried away with my weaving again, that we started English class late again.  We were going over the verb "to be."  Everyone did really well with it.  I have to correct the homework I gave them yesterday, but that can wait until tomorrow.  Now I'm exhausted and am ready to take a shower and fall into bed.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Monday afternoon and Tuesday

Yesterday after lunch, I worked on Tino’s website to sell his and other local people’s art.  I talked with him about naming his store Tino Andino, since he had used that as a username for an account he has.  He said he liked it, so I designed a logo for him, drawing an outline of a gourd next to the store name and the motto.  He and Mari both really liked it.  The other volunteers liked it as well.  My very first logo!

After that, I was tired but satisfied with my work.  We ate dinner and then after dinner, Tino and Mari helped Ylfa and I to with our weaving.  I got a lot more weaving done with Tino’s help.  It’s coming along really nicely.  I got so caught up in weaving that I lost track of time and when I asked Tino what time it was, it was already 8:30.  I had told his family that we would have class from 8 to 9 every night.  I got my things together and we started class shortly after.  By the time class was over at 9:30, I was thoroughly exhausted.  I still managed to correct their homework before taking a shower and heading to bed.

In the morning, Lauren and I were planning to go to Concepcion again.  After breakfast we were downstairs getting our shoes on when Tino came down and told us that the woman in Concepcion had called and said we weren’t going to have class there anymore.  Tino told us to write up a document about what we had taught in each class.  After we had finished, we walked down to Plaza Vea to get a few things from the supermarket and then from there went to the open market.  I wanted to find the skirt I had seen on Saturday.  Unfortunately the market is like a big maze and finding that skirt might be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.  We found where the majority of the stands selling skirts were and I tried on a few before getting a simple skirt and also one that has a lot of embroidery on the bottom.  Lauren wanted to get some more raisins, so we stumbled our way around until we found our way back to the fruit.  As we walked through the rows of fruit, vegetables and meat, we saw guinea pigs fileted, splayed open on their backs showing all of their guts inside.  There were several of them lined up on tables along the walkways.  Lauren got her raisins and I got some plums, cherimoyas, and a papaya, all for about $2.50.  The woman at the fruit stall we usually go to cuts off samples of fruit to try in order to get you to buy more.  I got a sample of the plums and also some pears.  On Saturday she had given us a whole banana to sample.  After we made our purchases, we were proud of ourselves that we found our way back to the street without getting caught up in the maze.  I stopped by a store to make copies for my class with Tino’s family and then we went home for lunch.

After lunch I lay down to take a short nap and ended up sleeping for a couple hours.  I got up and started working on Tino’s art website again.  Tino came by a bit before 6 to get me started on my weaving early, so we could start the English class on time after dinner.  Tino and I talked while he helped me with my weaving.  We had been talking about dancing over the weekend and I had told him that I danced ballet while growing up as well as other dances.  He was excited when I told him I had danced ballet and asked if I would teach Angela and Pilar.  I told him I could, so when I asked him when I should start classes, he told me tomorrow morning.  Lauren had also said she wanted to take an adult ballet class, so Tino said she could stay and take the class, too.  I think I will be teaching it for two or three weeks, since Pilar and Angela go off to school at the beginning of March.  I also told him that I enjoy singing and he said he wanted the students at the mountain school to be able to sing the Condor’s Pass.  He asked if I would be able to teach them.  I told him I could try after I learned the song.

I had to stop weaving to eat dinner and then I taught my late-night English class for Tino’s family.  Now I’m watching The King’s Speech with James, Fiona, and Emil.  I’m excited to start teaching the ballet class in the morning.

Feliz Dia de San Valentin! Happy Valentine's Day!

Last night at La Cabaña, James, Fiona, Lauren and I had a really good time.  The waiter was a bit absent-minded, but he had good intentions.  James ordered a pizza for him and Fiona and the waiter started to walk away.  We called him back so that Lauren and I could order.  Apparently he thought the pizza was large enough for all four of us and we didn't need any more food.  But then he had written down that we wanted four orders of garlic bread when James had only asked for one.  Fiona had ordered a cup of hot wine and he brought out a pitcher.  Poor guy.  We thought he hated us, but then he came back after we got our food and asked where we were from.  He said that he wanted to get better at English, that he had taken a course but had forgotten a lot of it since he hasn't practiced a lot.  He asked us what "chicha" was in English and we told him there wasn't a word for it in English since we don't have chicha (a drink made from corn).  I ordered an appetizer plate that was much too big for one person.  It had three meat skewers, tripe, and a salad.  I was quite surprised that I liked the tripe.  Lauren and Fiona also liked it.

Meat, tripe, potatoes, and salad at La Cabaña.

After we ate, James ordered a glass of wine and I ordered a glass of hot wine because Fiona had let me try hers.  It was really good.  We started to tell jokes and were all dying from laughing so hard, mostly at how bad some of the jokes were.  James took pictures of all of us after a straight hour of laughing.  He compiled the pictures together in photoshop.  Lauren's hiding behind the flowers that were sitting on the table and I hid behind a "beer mat" as James and Fiona call it.

Me, James, Fiona, and Lauren at La Cabaña.

This morning our usual taxi driver didn't come because he hadn't know if we were going to Concepcion.  Another driver drove us and when we got to Concepcion, the whiteboard that had been upstairs on the third floor was in the room where I had been teaching on the second floor.  Lauren went upstairs anyway, but the lady sent her back downstairs.  Nicolas was there.  He was in my class the last time.  Another little girl was dropped off by her mom.  She wouldn't sit in her chair and wasn't paying any attention to us.  Lauren tried the whole class to get her to write Happy Valentine's Day on a card.  She kept saying that she couldn't do it.  I worked with Nicolas and after he finished cards for his mother and grandmother, we worked on numbers.  I told Lauren I would buy her a pastry from the bakery we had tried the week before because she looked like she was at her wit's end with this little girl.  When Nicolas' mom came to get him, the little girl started crying and asking for her mom.  We couldn't console her.  I talked with Nicolas' mom and the woman who runs the desk upstairs for a little bit before they left.  The little girl went up the stairs, so we figured she wouldn't get hurt if she was still in the building.  I asked the woman if there were older students and she said not today but there would be tomorrow.  We'll see what happens tomorrow.

After that Lauren and I got pastries from the bakery to share with the other volunteers for Valentine's Day.  It was raining and there was a shortage of taxis.  When we finally got into one, by the end of the trip, we were sure that he really wasn't a taxi driver.  He was asking everyone at the beginning of the trip if we had money, and then he was driving really badly and almost ran into a car.  He told us to get out of the car a block before we usually do and even reached over to open the door so we would get out.  I didn't have any problem with that because I was starting to believe we were going to get into an accident.

Once we were free from the "Death Taxi," Lauren and I went to a coffee shop since we had some time before lunch.  She got a cappuccino and I got a hot chocolate.  We just sat and talked for awhile before making our way back to the house in the rain.  When we got back to the house and sat down for lunch, James presented Lauren and I with a box of chocolates each.  He had gotten Fiona some flowers.  It was really nice.  We showed them the pastries we had gotten and we divided them up after lunch.  All in all it has been a good Valentine's Day!

Domingo

This morning Fiona and James decided to make an English breakfast for us all.  It was quite a treat.  They made scrambled eggs, bacon, beans, fried tomatoes, cooked mushrooms, toast, and English breakfast tea.

After breakfast, Lauren and I went to the Sunday market like always.  They had a bunch of stands that were selling handmade jewelry.  We ended up staying at one of the stands for quite awhile looking at necklaces and bracelets.  Lauren ended up getting a silver necklace with a pendant made of pyrite and quartz.  I got a silver necklace with a turquoise pendant.  The man had a bunch of stones laid out on the table and he said he could put any of them into a pendant.  I chose one of them and he set it into a pendant really quickly.  I also got a woven bracelet with a serpentina stone set into it.  We walked around more and Lauren did more shopping for her family.  After we stopped by the open-air market and then headed home.

The day turned out to be quite sunny, so I went up to the roof to do some laundry.  After a bit, Fiona and James came up there to do their homework and keep me company.  Leslie came up to do her laundry after me and in the middle of her washing it started to sprinkle.  It let up after a bit, but the sun didn't come back out.

Now we're all sitting in the living room before we go to La Cabaña for dinner.  We're planning to stay in tonight and watch a movie.  Tino told Lauren and I that the classes are going to continue in Concepcion, so tomorrow we will get new students in the morning.

Warri Wilka and the oldest church in Huancayo

Today I rolled out of bed a bit late in order to get breakfast.  Tino said that he thought it wouldn't be a good day to go for a bike ride since it looked like rain.  He said it would be a better idea to go to a museum and to the oldest church in Huancayo.  Mari also said we would go to eat lunch at Los Girasoles.  James was too tired to go and Ylfa and Emil decided to do something else, so Lauren, Fiona, and I went with Mari and Mabel.

We took a taxi to the Warri Wilka museum.  It means sacred springs.  There are springs there that flow in little mini waterfalls.  It looks like the water is just running from the earth.  The people there built on this sacred ground and inside the ruins, there are two large trees.  They are hundreds of years old and the guide told us that they are very special trees that are sacred to the people.  One is male and the other is female by their shapes.  She told us to hug the trees and that if we did it would bring us luck.  Unfortunately the male tree had been burned and part had fallen over.  The guide said that they thought someone was performing a religious ritual, burning candles in the tree and had forgotten to extinguish the candles.  It is quite a shame since they are sacred trees and there aren't any others like it.

Me hugging the sacred male tree.  You can see the ashes where part of the tree burned.

We also went into the Warri Wilka museum.  There had been archaeologists who found the skeleton of a woman on the grounds.  She was pretty well preserved.  You could see her skin, hair, and nails.  The guide said she was killed when she was around 25.  From her teeth and other evidence, they think she was from a higher class.  She was killed by a blow to the head and also a blow to the pelvis.  There was a bird of prey tied to her and a frog skeleton was also found nearby her.  They think she may have been punished for some wrongdoing.  They also have excavated ceramics like water jugs and also tools they used like pointed rocks on the end of sticks and mortar and pestle.  They found many small jugs and bowls that were used as offerings.  They spent most of their time on agriculture.  There was also the skull of a priest.  The priests heads were shaped from birth so that the skull was elongated.  They put boards on the front and back of the skull from birth until they were four to deform the skull in this way.  It almost looked like a conehead.  Only priests had this done to them.  After the museum, we went into a small church next to the museum and then we took a combi to get us on our way to the first church in Huancayo.

The cross that's said to have healing powers.

When we first got to Chongos Bajo, we saw the Cani Cross.  There were people crowded around it and all the carts and stores sell candles and flowers to offer the cross.  It is supposed to have healing powers and Mari said that there is always a crowd around it, lighting candles and offering flowers.  She said that a lot of people claim to have been cured by the powers of this cross.

Bienvenidos a Chongos Bajo.  Welcome to Chongos Bajo.

The first church of Huancayo is in Chongos Bajo.  It was built in 1540.  Everyone really enjoyed this town and the area surrounding the church.  There was a stone path to get up to the church.  We were lucky enough to go when there was another group of women exploring the church.  One of them knew a lot about the church.  It was very peaceful and beautiful up there.

The church in Chongos Bajo.

The altar inside the church.

Mabel was picking berries from trees along the way.  They were really good, tasting almost like cherries.

Mari eating some of the berries Mabel picked.  Mabel is in the background eating more berries.

We looked around the church and then made our way around to an area with pretty flowers and some ruins of old structures.  There was cactus and aloe everywhere along our walk and up by the church.  When we walked back down to the town, Fiona, Lauren, and I wrote our names into one of the aloe plants using the sharp tip of the end of one leaf.

Our names carved into the aloe leaf.

After the church we went to Los Girasoles.  It was quite funny because when we drove up the the front of the restaurant, there were guys banging on the car and handing Mabel several corn husks filled with the cornbread that usually comes with pachamanca.  It turns out that they just wanted us to come into the restaurant.  Mabel had five bread-filled corn husks in her hands.

Los Girasoles (The Sunflowers) restaurant.

We got some juice that tasted fermented when we went in and on our left were two whole animals roasting on a large grill.  There was a band playing also, so there was a nice atmosphere.  Everyone ordered pachamanca except for me.  I got Chicharron Colorado.  It was pork in a nice, spicy sauce with potatoes and rice.  I also got chicha morada.  I was glad I ordered that because everyone said that the pachamanca wasn't as good as La Playita, where we had gone last weekend.  I'm not usually a fan of pork chops, but this was cooked really well and the sauce was amazing.  I guess drinking anise liquor is standard, because we got a small portion of it after our meal there as well.

Chiccharon Colorado...yum!

We went to the Mercado Libre, open-air market, that is close to the house before we headed home.  I was feeling like I could fall asleep standing up by this time.  But it was really an experience walking through this market.  I felt like I was in a film.  There were people selling all types of things.  There were chickens strung up by their feet in some of the stands, and I think I even saw a pig head in one of them.  There was a man with a monkey, probably trying to get money from pictures.  There were people selling all kinds of fresh fruit, every potato imaginable (there are several types of potato in Peru), purple corn, clothing, shoes, weaving, DVDs and music, and so much more.  Lauren and I were talking about going back tomorrow when we felt more awake.  We stopped at a stand selling cherimoyas and the woman let us try them.  They were so good that Fiona, Lauren, and I bought some.  The woman also let us taste some of the bananas and pomegranate.  As we walked along, Lauren laughed and said that a man had been staring at me while peeling potatoes and had missed the bucket when he threw a finished potato toward it.  People are so fascinated with us gringas.  We had some young boys yell, "Gringas!" several times at us.  Fiona and I yelled back at the same time, "Peruanos!"

When we got close to home, there was a band playing in the street.  Like Tino says, it seems there is always a reason for a party in Huancayo.  At the house we got some water and all fell into bed for a nap.  Dinner was ready shortly after we woke up from our nap, but since we had eaten so much at 3, we weren't as hungry as we usually are at dinner.  Lauren and I decided to stay in because I'm still feeling sleepy and she was feeling a bit off.  James and Fiona went off to a movie and Emil and Ylfa are already in bed.  I think I'm going to watch the end of Harry Potter that I missed out on last night when I was teaching English to Tino's family.

Until tomorrow...

I'm back!

This week I got off track as far as this blog, trying to get myself back to 100%.  I stayed at home on Monday and Tuesday, but by Wednesday I was feeling well enough to go teach my morning classes.  I was getting cabin fever and was missing my kids.  I didn't want to miss too much of this week, since it was our last week at Concepcion.

Wednesday after lunch, I was so exhausted that I took a long nap.  I had my last Spanish class before dinner and Ylfa and I also had our weaving class.  After dinner, James, Emil, and Ylfa went to La Rustica for drinks and Fiona, Lauren, and I stayed at home and watched the movie Mammoth.

What I have so far for my weaving.

On Thursday, my younger class was so enthralled with writing out numbers in English that we ended up doing it for the whole class.  Paola, the only girl who had come to class on Friday kept asking for more numbers, so she had me write homework up until 90,000.  The others followed suit and kept asking for more numbers for homework.  I couldn't believe I was turning down requests for more homework.

We ended up teaching adjectives in the older class.  The general energy was low.  Lauren and I were tired and the class seemed tired as well.  We decided to talk about Valentine's Day in the last half hour of class.  It was funny when I put up boyfriend and girlfriend on the board because one of the girls made a very sour face.  The boys were telling us that they weren't going to be in class on Friday because of the closing ceremonies and they told us they would see us next year.  I thought that was very sweet and funny.

After lunch, Lauren and I hurried over to the supermarket to buy notebooks for Tino, Mari, Mabel (another young woman who has been helping out at the house), and Pilar (Tino and Mari's oldest child). We were going to start teaching them all English, but it ended up being mostly me teaching.  We also got some lollipops for the kids to give to them for Valentine's Day and also for the last day of class.  I spent most of the afternoon trying to get the wireless to work on Tino's laptop.  Actually, it was getting Internet Explorer to work on his laptop because the wireless said it was working fine.  I'm thinking it has something to do with Windows Vista.  I was so frustrated by the time everyone got back from the mountain school and they pulled me away to start watching Harry Potter.  After dinner I taught the English class.  Tino and Mari's youngest, Angela, also sat in on the class.  I think she didn't want to be left out.  It was a fun class to teach since they are all very interested, but my mind was racing with English grammar after the class and I had a hard time sleeping.  It wasn't fun to have verb tenses crowding my head in my dreams.

On Friday, Lauren and I had our last day of class at Concepcion.  For the first bit of class, only Jhon was there.  He showed me his homework and we went over each number, saying them aloud.  We started making Valentine's cards and then Marycruz looked into the classroom with one of her friends from Lauren's class.  She had thought, along with most of the class, that there wasn't any class on the closing day.  I told her that there was and we were making Valentine's cards.  She and her friend stayed to make Valentine's Day cards because her friend wanted to do that more than what Lauren was doing in her class.  I figured since it was the last day, it didn't matter what class she was in.  We had a lot of fun writing cards with markers and putting stickers on them.  They made two each.  Jhon made them for his cousin and his friend, Camila.  The other two girls made them for their moms and grandmothers.  I'm going to miss my classes there!

None of the older kids showed up, so Lauren and I ended up walking around Concepcion a bit.  We went into the blue church that is cattycorner to the school we teach at.  We also looked at some bronze war statues around the corner from the church.  There was a band playing around the corner from that and so we peeked around the building and there was a funeral procession.  I thought it was nice that they were playing such happy music to celebrate the person's life rather than the usual gloomy setting at a funeral in the United States.  We looked into some of the stores and I ended up buying two pastries: one was called pañuelo because it was triangular like a handkerchief, and the other was called mil hojas, since it had a lot of fine layers of dough.  Both of them had caramel on them.  They were delicious when I ate them later.

The blue church near the school in Concepcion.

When we went to look for a taxi, our morning taxi driver Tito was in the taxi line and he waved at us.  We decided to wait a bit and take his taxi back to Huancayo.  While we were waiting for the cab to fill up, he showed us a book of pictures from excursions he has gone on around Huancayo.  It turns out he is a tour guide and he's friends with Tino because he takes volunteers on excursions that Tino's health conditions don't permit him to go on anymore.


After lunch we watched more of the Harry Potter movie.  I ended up taking a quick nap and then working on website ideas while the others were at the mountain school.  We had dinner when they got back and then I taught another session of English for Tino, Mabel, Mari, Pilar, and Angela.  After I was done with that, we ended up going out to karaoke.  There were a lot more people there this time.  I sang Como La Flor by myself, then Fiona, James and I sang Summer Lovin' from Grease, and then Fiona and I sang Madonna's La Isla Bonita.  The crowd really liked our performance of Summer Lovin'.  I'm sure it's a novelty to have English-speaking people singing show tunes.  The waiter was talking to me while I was waiting for the bathroom right before we left.  He asked where we were from and I told him.  I also told him we were volunteers teaching English.  He said he wanted to learn English.  


Emil, Ylfa, and Lauren went home, but Mabel took James, Fiona, and I to a discoteca called La Noche.  Fiona predicted that James would be the tallest person in the club and James guessed that there would be six people in the club.  When we went in, they were both right.  We ended up dancing anyway and there was a couple who started talking to us.  The girl was very drunk and the man, who was much older, said that he was from Huntington Beach.  He said it with a pretty thick accent though.  The girl took a liking to James and left her man for a bit to rub up against James.  Mabel and I were laughing because he looked pretty uncomfortable.  After awhile, three guys came into the club and Fiona said, "They've just doubled the number of people in here."  One of the guys asked me to dance.  It was really fun dancing cumbia, reggaeton, and other dances I hadn't danced before with this guy.  His name was Paul.  We all had a lot of fun dancing.  It was pouring rain when we went back outside to get the taxi Mabel had called.  We didn't end up getting to sleep until after 3.