Saturday night and Sunday, Lauren's Last Day :(

Last night after dinner, Mabel, Lauren and I got dressed up to go out dancing.  We were going to go to a discoteca called La Noche, but after the taxi dropped us off there, the men at the front door told us that Mabel couldn't go in with sneakers and that it cost 20 soles each.  We hadn't brought that much money and Mabel would've had to change her shoes anyway, so we caught another taxi and Mabel asked him to take us somewhere where we could go in with sneakers.  He took us to another club and Lauren and I waited in the car while Mabel talked to the men at the front door.  She came back and said that it was a private party, so she asked the driver to take us to another place.  He did and Lauren and I stayed in the car again while Mabel went to inquire.  She came back and said that you could wear sneakers in there, but that we would need our IDs.  Lauren and I were wondering if we should just go to karaoke instead, and Mabel said that if the last place didn't work out, we could go to karaoke.  She asked at the fourth place and they said that she could wear sneakers.  We went in and they told us that it was 10 soles each.  None of us had brought a lot of money, but after we had gotten that far, we didn't want to go home without having danced at all.  So we pooled our money and had enough to get into the club and get a taxi home.  The cost included two beers each.  Lauren doesn't like beer and Mabel and I hadn't planned to drink, but a waiter walked us in with six beers on a tray.  He lined them up in front of us, opened them all, and then gave us glasses.  We each drank a little bit and then got up to dance.  They had some good music and we ended up dancing until one in the morning, even though we were all feeling the effects of the hike.  Some guys wanted to dance with us, but Mabel shooed them away each time.  It felt really good to dance, but what I really miss is dancing salsa!

Lauren and I got up early even though we'd gone to bed late.  It always ends up being like that for some reason with both of us.  She had to move into my room on Saturday morning since the group of fifteen came, so we were discussing if we should get out of bed and go see if breakfast was in the making.  We eventually did and were trying to be sociable with new people, but they all weren't very sociable, so we spent more time in the kitchen talking with Mari and Mabel.  After breakfast, Lauren and I got ready to go out to accomplish everything she wanted to do her last day in Huancayo (sniff sniff :( ).

First we walked to the Coqui Cafe to get her some coffee.  It was raining, so we were hoping that by the time we had finished at the cafe that the rain would have stopped.  Lauren ordered coffee and I got a slice of torta de tres leches (three milk cake).  I felt a tiny bit guilty eating dessert in the morning, but not too guilty.  ;)

Torta de tres leches.

Lauren and her espresso vienes.

When we were finished at the cafe, the rain had let up, but there was a huge political demonstration in the Plaza de Constitucion.  There were police all around the square and we were wondering how we were going to get around.  We had wanted to go visit Leslie, Tino's niece, at her store, but when we made our way over to where we thought it was, a policeman said we couldn't go any further.  We ended up going down a side street to go to the Sunday market, thinking that we could go visit Leslie later on.

We got to the Sunday market just as everyone was setting up their stands.  We poked around the stalls, bought a few things, and then stopped at our favorite jewelry stand.  Anton knows us now and I think his wife recognizes us too.  Lauren had wanted to say goodbye to him, so I told him that it was her last day in Huancayo.  He said she couldn't go, and when she started looking at this pretty silver and quartz necklace, he said he would make her a bracelet and earrings to go with it as a going away present if she bought the necklace.  I was also looking at a quartz necklace and he said he would give me a quartz bracelet also if I got the necklace.  He calls us clientes fijos or loyal customers.  :)  We both ended up taking his offer and watched him as he made our bracelets and Lauren's earrings.  He designed our bracelets a little bit different from each other.  The silver links are different shapes.  Lauren's are triangular and mine are more circular, but they are both beautiful.  When we left his stand he gave us both a hug and a kiss on the cheek.  He told Lauren that she'd be back.  :)

When we left his stand, we were starving, so we made our way to Detras de la Catedral.  We both liked what we had last week so much that we had it again today.  She got a hamburger and I got lomo saltado.  We both got lucuma fruit juice too.  Leslie had told me that the crepes with ice cream (panqueques con helado) were really good, so I ordered that for dessert.  Lauren didn't help me so much with the dessert and it was so good that I thought it would be a shame to let it go to waste.  Unfortunately, the dessert won and I couldn't finish it all.  It was extremely delicious though.

Lomo saltado y jugo de lucuma.

Mmmm...panqueque y helado!!!

When we finished lunch, we went back across the plaza to see if we could find Leslie's shop.  We finally saw it and looked around for a bit.  She has purses, girl's toys, diaries, and stuffed animals.  It's a really beautiful store.  When we left, she wished Lauren good luck on her travels and said she would see me later.

Next we went to Plaza Real.  I wanted to look at a Peru jacket and Lauren wanted to get some sweets as gifts for the staff at the house.  We accomplished our tasks, and then finally made our way home so Lauren could pack.

Both Lauren and I did some laundry and I finished up right as the rain started coming down.  It had started to thunder in the distance while I was scrubbing my socks.  Tino's mother had been out there knitting and said "Chau" and went inside after it started to thunder.  She always laughs at me when I make faces at the sky.  :)

Back in our room, I turned on some music.  I sewed the strap back onto a top she had bought at the Sunday market while she continued packing.  I also helped her write notes in Spanish for the little gifts she had gotten for the house staff.  Rubila had made dinner for the big group, so we got dinner as well even though we usually don't get dinner on Sunday.  After dinner, we put on a movie and braced ourselves for the return of the big group.

Now I'm here by myself writing my blog and wishing I was already warm in my bed, teeth brushed and pajamas on.  Good night everyone...

Lemon meringue pie and chocolate cake

I forgot to post that Lauren and I walked down to the bodega yesterday afternoon to get lemon meringue pie and chocolate cake.  It was raining and there was already a family eating in there when we got there, so we got our desserts and walked over to the mall.  We sat outside near the building where we wouldn't get wet from the rain.  While we were eating and talking one of the landscapers showed us a snail that she'd plucked from one of the plants by us and asked if we knew what it was.  She said she was going to move it away from us.  It was kind of funny.  Anyway, here's the pictures of our desserts before they disappeared!!!

Lauren and her lemon meringue pie.

Me and my chocolate cake.  I look like I'm doing something really, really bad.  :)

Huaytapallana - Hike to the Glacier

Yesterday while I was working on the website, Leslie came to talk to me after she had given Emily, the new woman here from England, her Spanish lesson.  She said that Angela and Pilar had gone out to Plaza Constitucion to see the people celebrating the last days of carnival.  That meant that everyone was going to be throwing water at everyone else.  When Pilar came back, she came and told me all about it.  She said that people were throwing water at the dancers, the musicians, at people walking by, basically everyone.  We've had people throwing water at us all month and it hasn't been the most pleasant tradition here.

Lauren and I went for a walk before dinner to get some snacks for our hike.  Dwan had asked about going to the glacier and Lauren has been dying to go, so we recruited Mabel to take us.  After dinner we watched Shrek The Final Chapter, which was a good laugh.

This morning we had to wake up fairly early, which is normal for Lauren and I, because we wanted to leave the house at 8.  Everyone else in the house has been busy preparing for the group of fifteen students coming from Appalachian State University, which I just recently found out is in North Carolina.  Our taxi came to get us on time.  You would think it would be a truck or SUV that would take us up the side of a mountain, but it was just a Hyundai.  At one point he asked us to get out of the car because he had to go across a couple bridges that had rocks on either side.  We had to push the car for a bit to get it across.  Lauren said she wished we had a picture of that.  :)

The taxi took us up to a restaurant high up on the mountainside.  There were dogs and chickens around the restaurant and inside there were a couple kittens.  Lauren was petting the kitten, but when I sat down next to her, the cat jumped into my lap.  We had to pay for our lunch before we started hiking so that it would be ready when we got back.  Lauren and I ordered lamb soup and Dwan got trout.  Mabel didn't order anything.  I tried to put the cat down so we could set off, but every time I set it down it would hop back into my lap.  I really wanted to take him with me.

We set off and it was pretty foggy.  It had a peaceful feel to it because there weren't any sounds but us.  Mabel told us that Huaytapallana has a meaning in Quechua.  Huayta means flowers and pallana means gathering.  She says that in April there are a lot of flowers on the mountain and people come to pick them.  This is also the mountain that Pilar had told me a legend about.  How the man called Huaytapallana was turned into a mountain because the father of the woman he wanted to marry turned him into a mountain so he wouldn't marry his daughter.  The streams and water running down from the snow and glacier are his tears and they formed the lakes that were his sons.

On the way up Huaytapallana at the beginning of the hike.

It was cold walking up, but the hiking warmed us up quite a bit.  We stopped at a place where you could see snow in the mountain off in the distance and alpacas were running past us.

You can see the snow-covered mountains peeking out of the fog behind me.

The llamas started running right at me!  :)

Mabel said that people come up there to perform ceremonies and that she had brought some coca leaves so that we could all perform our own ceremony.  There were rocks piled on top of each other in various places around us.  She gave us each a handful of coca leaves, told us to look for the best one in our hand, and to place it under the rocks she had piled together.  We all did as she told us and this is supposed to bring us luck.  Sounds good to me!!!

Putting our coca leaves under the rocks for our little ceremony.

We kept walking.  The terrain was rocky and muddy and I ended up sticking my foot in mud a few times right after we started walking.  As we kept walking, it would snow off and on.  It was a really beautiful landscape of rocks, snow, lakes, and fog.  One of the lakes we passed Mabel said was the Laguna Celeste.  Celeste means light blue in Spanish.  The lake was an unworldly bluish-green color.  It was really beautiful seeing that with the backdrop of snow-covered mountains.  She said that there was a myth that a mermaid was living in that lake.

The Laguna Celeste is in the background.

As we neared the glacier, there were patches of snow on the ground.  We stopped to write some things in the snow and Lauren made a little snowman.  She put raisins on it for eyes.  It was super cute.

Lauren and her snowman with raisin eyes.

After that point, we had to trudge through more patches of snow.  Mabel and I were laughing as we sunk deep into some of the patches of snow.  She fell on her butt a few times and at one point I was ready to throw in the towel because we were sinking deep into snow and the only other options was walking to the side of the snow where there were small rocks that looked like they would slide you right down the mountainside if you stepped on them.  Lauren and Dwan were ahead of us and Lauren yelled to me that we were almost there.

Mabel making her way through the snow.

Once we got there, it was quite impressive.  Mabel said that more of the mountain used to be covered in snow and the glacier didn't have many holes in it.  I had been starting to feel the effects of the altitude.  Mabel had asked if we wanted to buy altitude sickness pills, but we had said we'd be okay.  Wikipedia says that the highest peak for the Huaytapallana glacier is 5557 meters, which translates to 18,231 feet.  I'm not sure if we were at the highest peak, but we definitely were high up there.

The sign once we got to the glacier.

We took pictures at the top and explored a bit around the glacier.

Me and the glacier.

Mabel and Dwan started to have a snowball fight, and Lauren told Mabel that if she got her wet, she'd put snow down her shirt.  :)  Dwan was exploring further than the rest of us.

Dwan exploring further around the glacier.

Lauren was hoping that we would hear the glacier cracking while we were there.  We had heard it cracking during our hike.  It had sounded really loud in all the stillness around us.

A glacier at Huaytapallana.

When we were hiking back, we passed another group of hikers.  Mabel said she thought they were from Lima.  One of them asked me if it was cool (chevere in Spanish) and I told him that it was.  I'm not sure if it's harder for me to climb up or to go down on a hike like this.  I was definitely the caboose though.  :)  It was hard on my lungs going up and going down, I was afraid that I was going to slip on the wet rocks, twist an ankle on a loose rock, or step into deep mud.  I felt like everyone else had a bit of mountain goat in them as they hopped around on the rocks and ran on some of the less rocky parts.

It started to rain on the way back.  My feet were already cold and wet from having to go through the snow and the rain added to the wetness and coldness.  I was so happy when we finally saw the sign for Huaytapallana that was in front of the restaurant.

In the restaurant, we sat at a big table.  Lauren had a cat on her lap when I sat down and it came and sat with me.  Apparently these kittens really liked me.  The woman served us the lamb soup and Dwan had to wait a bit for his trout.  Our driver also came in and had some soup.  Since were were wet from the rain and tired from the hike, the soup hit the spot.  I had started to get a headache from the altitude, but the soup helped to lessen the pain.  The broth was really tasty, but we were trying to figure out how to eat the big chunk of meat with only a spoon.  Mabel said we should just eat it with our hands.  I was able to bite off chunks just using my spoon only using one hand because my other was holding the kitten.  I gave the kitten some of my meat as I was eating.  Another kitten that I wanted to take with me.  When I had finished eating, the kitten was sniffing my bowl and she took what was left of the meat down onto the floor with her.  Unfortunately, we were so hungry, that I didn't take a picture of the soup.  :(

The taxi driver had started the engine running to get the car warm for us.  We had to get out at the same spot as before and give the car a bit of a nudge.  Mabel and I were dozing on and off for awhile, but when the radio came in better, Lauren and I started singing along to the music.  Mabel had been saying that I looked sad up on the mountain and that I had finally woken up when we started singing.  I really wasn't sad on the mountain, just concentrating on not slipping off.  :)

Back at the house there was a party going on in the middle of the street nearby.  They were having a birthday party.  We ran into the house and saw some new faces of the university students, but Lauren and I were set on taking a shower.  The students went out for awhile, so the house is still calm.  We just ate dinner and are thinking about putting on a movie.  Tonight we're supposed to go out dancing, but Mabel kept teasing me that we were going to be too tired like we always are on Saturday nights.  I really want to go tonight though, especially since it's Lauren's last Saturday here.

Viernes...

Last night before dinner, Lauren and I walked down to the ATM and then to La Casa de Artesenia even though it was raining a bit.  The guard at the bank always looks into the room where the ATM is when we're in there since the walls are all clear glass windows.  I looked back and smiled and Lauren asked me if I was making eye promises.  Haha.  I liked that saying, "eye promises."  I told her no, that I'd just smiled at him and he'd smiled back.  We looked at all of the jewelry counters at La Casa de Artesenia.  Lauren was looking at all of the earrings and I was looking at rings.  We were starving by the time we were walking back and were happy to see that dinner was ready when we got home.  After dinner I watched part of Dirty Dancing with the others and taught my English class.  :) 

Today I'm happy and sad at the same time.  I'm happy because Pilar and Angela love my ballet class so much that yesterday I caught them practicing their favorite ballet moves in the dining area, and today they came to get me for class almost fifteen minutes before our regular start time.  They even set up the desks how I usually have them.  We use the back of the desks as our ballet barre.  And when I asked if they wanted to end the class they said, "Noooooo," again even though an hour and twenty minutes had already passed.  They were enjoying learning how to do cartwheels and playing follow the leader.  For follow the leader, one person does some ballet moves and everyone else has to follow.  When I asked if we should end the class they wanted to have at least one more turn for each person.  It was cute because they were coming up with their own moves too, ones we hadn't learned in class.  So why am I sad when all of this is so happy and heartwarming?  Well, today was our last ballet class because both of the girls start school on Monday.  When we finished the ending stretches, I took more pictures of them in ballet poses.  I told them for my final picture they could do any pose they wanted to do and they stood in posse position, with one leg bent and the toe pointed to the knee.

Pilar and Angela doing their posses.  :)

After pictures, they both thanked me more than once.  Pilar said she didn't want to go to school on Monday and Angela said she wanted to go, but she also wanted to dance ballet all day.  :)  They both gave me big hugs.  So it's a bittersweet day for me.

This morning at breakfast Mabel asked me what we wanted to do on Saturday and said that Dwan had told her he wanted to go to Huaytapayana, the glacier.  I asked her if it was dangerous because Tino had said that it was, but she said it was only dangerous if we tried to climb the glacier.  Tino said you could do it before because there were only three holes in the ice, but now it's dangerous because there are hundreds of holes in the ice.  Lauren wants to go there too, so I think that's where we'll be going tomorrow.  Mabel said then we wouldn't go to karaoke tonight...I told her we should just go earlier.  :)  We're still planning to go dancing tomorrow night...no excuses!  :)  It's Lauren's last weekend and she said she'll go, so it will definitely be fun going dancing with them both.

Lauren and I have been talking about what things we'll have to do before she leaves on Monday.  Most of them have to do with food.  :)  She wants to get a lemon meringue pie at one of the bodegas nearby, go to the coffee shop near Plaza Constitucion, and go back to Detras de la Catedral, the restaurant we tried last weekend.  She also wants to go to the Sunday market one last time.  We have a lot to accomplish this weekend!!!

Oh...and today's fruit is granadilla...I took a picture before I started eating it after dance class today.  It looks kind of funny but it tastes really good.

Granadilla...a type of passion fruit.

Goodbye Ylfa and Emil!!!

This morning I woke up early even though I still felt sleepy.  I guess I was feeling like I still had a lot to do.  I really wanted to write in my blog, so I hopped on my computer.  Lauren was in the dining room also as she always is.  I worked on my blog before and after breakfast.

My stomach was acting up a little bit, so I asked Mari for some Inca muña before it got too bad.  I sat in the kitchen with Tino, Angela, and Mabel while Mari was making the tea.  Tino was trying to figure out what had upset my stomach and was telling me a story about sweet potatoes because he thought the sweet potatoes we had eaten last night were not cooked well enough.  After drinking the Inca muña I felt a lot better.

I was working on my blog again when Angela and Pilar came to remind me about ballet class.  I got my stuff and met them downstairs.  After the first half of class, I was teaching them another new move and Pilar asked if I knew how to do a cartwheel.  They said they didn't know how and they wanted to learn.  We spent awhile working on those and they were picking it up quickly.  Before I knew it, an hour and fifteen minutes had passed.  Usually we only have an hour class, but since they were having so much fun, it ran longer.  Even after I'd done the ending adagio, they were still practicing the new things we had learned.  I'm really proud of them.  They were asking to work on them some more tomorrow.

Emil and Ylfa were doing the last bits of packing when I came back upstairs.  Rubila served them lunch early since they were going to be leaving before our normal lunchtime.  After a taxi was called for them, we all gave them hugs.  Mari said she didn't want to say goodbye to them.  After she hugged them both she got all teary-eyed and I told her not to do that because then I started to get teary-eyed too.  We watched from the upstairs window as they left.  Emil and I had had a habit of flicking water at each other after we'd washed our hands, so I was happy that at least I'd gotten to do that to him once more before they left.  They will be missed!!!

We had so much food for lunch.  Mabel's been teasing me lately that I'm going to gain weight here, so I think she's given me a bit of a complex.  Either that or the portions have been getting bigger!  Today we had soup, chicken, french fries, a fried egg, and rice for lunch.  I couldn't finish my rice and left a lot of the noodles in the soup like Lauren usually does.  Tino was sitting at the table with us and asked me if I didn't like rice.  I told him it wasn't that, it was just that there was so much food, I couldn't eat it all.  Maybe that and the fact that I had eaten the lúcuma fruit that I had gotten at the everyday market after ballet class.  The lúcuma was yummy, yummy!!!

My lúcuma before I ate it all!!!  :)

I was feeling really sleepy after lunch, but I had promised Lauren that I would go with her to the bus station to help her get her bus tickets for Monday.  She's going down to Lima and then to Arequipa before she makes her way to Cusco.  Tino had drawn us a map and it was a little hard to follow since the streets aren't so clearly marked here.  We found our way there though and the woman was really nice at the counter.  Everything went by without a hitch and when we were walking back, Lauren said she didn't know what she was going to do without me.  We got some "Hola, bonita"s and other flirtations on the way back.  And then it started to rain.  Thankfully we were almost back to the house and didn't get too wet.

This afternoon I've been working on my blog.  The girls are playing a car racing game and Tino is teaching Emily how to weave.  Leslie came by to talk to Emily about taking English classes and she sat down to ask me how I was doing.  We talked for a little while.  It was nice to talk to her again.  :)

I'm exhausted right now!  Lauren wanted to go for a walk after they get back from the school, but hopefully after that I'll get a chance to rest!

Wednesday and the Zoo

I had so many things that I needed to do yesterday, and unfortunately, writing my blog was pushed down to last on my list, so here I am writing on Thursday morning.

Even though I had stayed up until midnight with Mabel, I still woke up early.  I think it had something to do with all the things I needed to accomplish...the list kept swirling around in my head.  I knew I had to finish my weaving, so I got up and continued my weaving before breakfast.  After breakfast, I continued weaving as well and Angela came to get me for ballet class.

I taught them a new ballet move in the second part of class and it took them longer than usual to get it.  I thought they might want to move on, but they were trying really hard to get it up until the end of class.  When I told them we were going to do the ending stretches, Pilar said, "Noooooo."  It was really cute.  I'm glad they are both enjoying the class so much.  Pilar has told me at the end of class most days that "La clase estaba muy bonita," meaning that the class was very nice.

I went back to weaving after ballet class in order to get as much done before lunch because Ylfa wanted me to come with her to the post office after lunch since I had already sent a package.  She thought that I could help her with some of the paperwork.  After lunch, Lauren, Ylfa and I got her box and set off for the post office since we wanted to get back in time for them to go to the mountain school.  When we got there, the woman behind the counter said that Ylfa's box was broken and she couldn't send it like that.  It did look like it had already made a trip halfway around the world.  The woman gave us another box, but it wasn't as big as the one that Ylfa had brought.  While Ylfa tried to fit all of her things into the smaller box, I helped Lauren mail her two postcards.  When we went back to Ylfa, she was frustrated because she couldn't get her things into the box.  The woman told us that there was a store nearby that sold bigger boxes, but I was determined to get everything into the box.  We took everything out and I started rolling the clothes and blankets up really tightly.  We put some items inside the decorative gourds and when it was filled to the brim, there was only a sweater left.  Ylfa said it was all right, but I said it would fit and it did.  They didn't bring along the engineer for nothing!  Haha.  We got everything sorted out and got back to the house with a bit of time before they were going to the mountain school.  They had decided to take the kids on a field trip to the zoo since it was the last day for Ylfa and Emil at the school.

I went back to my weaving and Mari came to tell me that she was leaving for the school to go on the field trip to the zoo, but that I could go with Pilar later.  I thought that would be good so that I could get some more weaving done.  Unfortunately, right after Mari left, one of the strings on the loom broke.  I had gone the whole time without breaking any and that was the third one I had broken that day.  Mari said that usually volunteers break lots of them.  Pilar and I left soon after that since I couldn't do any more weaving until Mari or Tino fixed the string.

On the way to the zoo, which is right up the hill from the house, Pilar was asking me what my favorite animal was.  I couldn't think of something, so I asked her what kinds of animals were at the zoo.  She started naming off a lot of animals and she said she liked bears.  I said I liked bears and monkeys too.  Mari had told me that Angela was dying to go to the zoo because one of the lionesses was supposed to have had cubs in February and she wanted to see them.  Mari told me that Pilar didn't really like the zoo that much.  I asked Pilar why she didn't like the zoo and she told me that it wasn't that she didn't like the zoo, but that it just pained her that the animals were in such little cages and didn't get much food.  She's a very wise and caring child.  Once we got to the zoo entrance, there was a big sign with all the pictures of the animals in the zoo.  Pilar pointed out all of them to me and as she was doing it, a man told us, "You know that all those animals are in the zoo live."  I thought it was pretty ridiculous that he thought he had to tell us that.

Pilar posing with the poster with all of the animals in the zoo.

We bought our tickets, which were less than a dollar each, and then Pilar was my tour guide around the zoo.

Pilar posing along the pathway in the zoo.

We saw bears, monkeys, owls, condors, eagles, snakes, a jaguar, pumas, lions, peacocks, alpacas, vicunas, and a lot more.  Pilar made sure that I had a good look at all of them and got to take pictures.

One of the bears.

The lion.

The lioness.

I think this is a zamaño or jungle guinea pig.

One of the peacocks.

The toucan came right in front of me to pose for this picture.

In front of the one of the cages, she said "excuse me" and pushed her way in front of a couple of teenagers who were kissing in front of the cage.  I started laughing and she just continued to tell me about the animal inside without batting an eye.  We stayed and watched the pumas for awhile.  She was telling me that one was the mother puma and the other was her baby.  When we finally saw them together she said to me, "Oh the mother is caring for her baby."  Except it looked more like one was mounting the other, and after a bit Pilar said, "Oh, maybe one is a male and the other is a female."  I thought it was pretty funny.

A puma among the cactus.

The poor otorongo andino, Andean jaguar, was pacing back and forth in front of the opening to the cage.  It looked so restless and made me think even more about what Pilar had said about it being sad that the animals were in such small spaces with such little food.  When we went by the alpaca cage, Pilar and another little boy were picking grass to give to them.  They would come right up to the front and take the grass from their hands.

Pilar feeding the alpaca.

We also saw Angela, her aunt, and grandmother across the zoo and I took a picture of them.  They were all smiling and waving and laughing at us.

Tino's mother, sister, and Angela.  Their smiles make me smile, especially Tino's mother.

We saw the big group of kids with Lauren, Dwan, Ylfa, Emil, and Mabel.  Pilar said to me, "Wow, Mabel is yelling really loud at those kids."  Afterwards they were saying it was so hard to keep the kids in a line and keep them from running ahead of the teachers to see the animals.  Dwan also said that one of the zoo visitors had asked to take a picture of him.  Ylfa said, "Yes, look at the gringo in its natural habitat."  :)

Pilar and I left the zoo and it was so sunny that I was dying of thirst.  We stopped at a store nearby, but the drinks were more expensive there since it was by the zoo, so we decided to get a drink further down the mountain.  I stopped to take pictures of a plane that was on display on the mountainside and also a church.

The church that was by the zoo.

We also took pictures overlooking Huancayo since you could see over the whole city.

Pilar took a picture of me with the view of the whole city behind me when we were walking back from the zoo.

We stopped at a store on the steps down to Avenida Giraldez and I got us some water.  We were talking as we walked along the street and went past a man on a payphone.  He apparently wasn't too busy on the phone because he said, "Hola, guapa," ("Hello, beautiful.") as we went past.  As we neared the house, I told Pilar for taking me to the zoo and she told me, "No, thank you."  :)

A bit after we got back, the rest of the crew came back too.  I got Tino to fix the broken string on the loom so I could continue weaving and I kept weaving before and after dinner.  I didn't end up teaching English class either because everyone in the class had places to go.  I didn't mind since I needed to finish my weaving.  I was almost done when Tino came in to ask me to translate an email for him.  After he finished asking me questions he told me to find him when I was done so we could weave in the final part.  When I went upstairs to find him, it had started to rain and he was grabbing people's clothes from the clotheslines.  I was helping him and he told me I should stay inside because I was going to get myself all wet.  It was kind of fun running out there in the rain.  He came down afterward and wove in the final thread.  He can weave incredibly fast.  I felt relieved after getting it done on time.

Tino finishing the very end of my weaving.

I took a shower and when I came into the dining and computer area, Mari, Tino and Ylfa were sitting and talking to a woman at the dining table.  She's here for a week or two to take weaving lessons from Tino, not do the volunteering at the school.  I had thought the woman who was going to be taking lessons from him was local.  Anyway, she seems nice.  Her name is Emily and she's from England.  I stayed up writing my blog and was so sleepy by the time I made it to bed.

Tuesday and Ylfa's birthday!

Here's something funny that happened the other day before I start in on Tuesday's activities...Lauren and I were crossing the street, which can sometimes be a bit dangerous with the taxis and buses turning corners, etc.  Anyway, after we got to the other side of the street, there was almost a car accident with a car trying to turn and other cars trying to go straight.  Lauren and I looked at each other and wondered if we'd caused the car accident.  She said, "I guess we're just that hot."  I said, "Yeah, or that white."  We laughed for about a block after that.

Lauren and I were up first as always, so we put out the birthday cards we made for Ylfa and the earrings we had gotten for her from the Casa de Artesenia.  They were little silver hummingbirds.  She was happy to see them at her place at the table when she came out to eat breakfast.  She laughed a bit at my card because I had attempted to write "Happy Birthday" in Icelandic.  She liked the earrings too.  After breakfast I started weaving because I was trying to use any spare time to get my weaving done because Tino told me that I had to have it done by Wednesday night.  I wove all through the morning because Angela had gone to get her school uniform fitting.

Angela came into the weaving room when she got back and asked if we were going to have the ballet class.  I got ready and since the others were already back, I told Lauren that she should join us for the ballet class.  Angela and Pilar have really been enjoying the class.  It was funny to see the contrast between Lauren and Tino's girls because Lauren has had highland dancing lessons in Canada that I imagine to be kind of like river dance.  She has a very stiff frame and Angela and Pilar are very loose still.  They all had fun though and Lauren was telling me I should always have class at that time so she can come.

Ylfa had chosen what we were eating for lunch.  She wanted hamburgers and it was interesting to see their interpretation of a hamburger.  We've had hamburgers in restaurants here, and they are the same as in the states, but their version didn't have a bun.  Ylfa was still happy with it though.  Ylfa had also gotten some soda to have with lunch.  In addition to our usual soup and main course, Ylfa had bought a cake also.  It was a chocolate cake with really creamy chocolate icing.  It also had green grapes on the top with some red glaze over them.  It had come with two candles on the box, so we gathered everyone around and sang happy birthday after she had lit the candles.  She cut herself a big piece and then I cut pieces for everyone else.  It was such a good cake.

Ylfa cutting her piece of the birthday cake.

After we ate, Lauren and I went for a walk since we thought we should try to walk off all the food and also take advantage of the nice, sunny day.  We found a mall that was at one end of Plaza Constitucion.  We walked through and looked into a bunch of shops before we had to go back to the house so she could go to the mountain school.

I ended up working on my weaving instead of the website.  Angela and Pilar have been on the computer for the past few afternoons anyway playing a car racing game.  They came into the weaving room with Mari to help me put more yarn onto the spindles you use for weaving.  Pilar was helping Mari and Angela was goofing around.  She was cracking me up because she had a piece of gummy stuff and she was sticking it to her hand, her shirt, her nose, and other things and then hanging a long stick from it.  When Mari first saw it stuck to her hand, she really thought it was magic.  She was also putting some yarn fuzz on her head and I helped her decorate herself with some extra yarn that was laying around.  She's the cutest little girl.  There was a political gathering going on in the restaurant across the street.  They were playing music really loud and people were giving speeches.  I had my music on, but you could barely make it out over the noise from the restaurant.  When I turned it off, Pilar and Mari said not to because it was much better than the other music even if you could hardly hear it.

About an hour and a half before we were going to go eat dinner, Ylfa broke out the rest of the cake.  She said we should have some because it probably would be all gone by the morning.  She, Lauren and I all had another slice of cake.  It was so yummy.

I wove up until everyone was starting to get ready to go out to dinner.  We were going to La Caramba for Ylfa's birthday.  I was debating whether or not to wear some of the boots I bought here because I wasn't sure if it was going to rain.  I decided that I would wear them at least for pictures with the girls.  Lauren was putting on makeup, so she put some on me also.  I decided to wear my boots and if it rained I'd just get a taxi home.

The girls!!!  Me, Ylfa, and Lauren.

We all walked out together, all the volunteers, Tino's family, and also Mabel and Lorenza.  For awhile I was walking with Mabel and Angela.  I held Angela's hand until Mari took her other hand to cross the street.  After that Pilar started walking with me and was telling me Christmas jokes in English and also Peruvian legends from around here.  I really liked the one about Huaytapayana.  I guess that was the name of a man and he wanted to marry this woman, but her father didn't like him.  Her father turned him into a mountain and his tears created lakes that were his five sons.  I'm probably not getting it totally right, but it was something to that effect.

When we got to the restaurant, I sat by Mabel, Angela, and Pilar.  Pilar continued telling me stories while we tried to decide what to eat.  Most of the table ordered two big meat plates, but Angela and I got fish.  She got trucha milanesa and I got trucha con maracuya.  It had said for one of the plates with maracuya that it was an aphrodesiac.  I thought it might be fun to try that.  It was really good.  Very sweet.  Pilar and Mari were telling me that it's a fruit from the jungle.  I looked it up online and it says it's a type of passion fruit.  I also got french fries with it.

Trout with maracuya sauce and french fries.

The meat plates the others had gotten came with sangria, so we all had some  (minus Pilar and Angela) to have a toast.  Angela went to the bathroom twice while we were there and Mari said that she's always liked to go into bathrooms to say if they're nice or not.  She said that a lot of times Angela doesn't even have to go to the bathroom, she just wants to see what it looks like.

The whole group at La Caramba.  Pilar, Lorenza, Dwan, Lauren, Angela, Tino, Mari, Mabel and me.

I was so happy it hadn't rained.  We all figured that it was the first time that we had all been there that it hadn't rained at least a little bit during the course of the day.  I was happy that I didn't have to take a taxi to save my boots.  Lorenza and Mabel were laughing at me because I couldn't whistle.  The only reason I couldn't was because I was laughing too hard.  Lorenza was trying to get me to whistle by holding your bottom lip with your fingers.  She can do it really well, but I told her I really couldn't do that one.  Mabel said we should stop whistling on the street because a taxi might stop or some guy might think we were whistling at them.  :)   When we got back to the house, Pilar found her book of Christmas jokes and was telling them to all of us at the kitchen table.  My favorites were "Where do you find reindeer with no legs?"  "Exactly where you left it." and "What is a snowman's favorite breakfast?"  "Snowflakes."  She was really cute telling us all these jokes in English.  Mari made peach pisco drinks that were so good and we all sat around the table talking for awhile with our drinks.  After almost everyone left the kitchen to go to sleep, Mabel and I got on the computer and were playing songs and singing along to them.  We were also showing each other pictures and talking about our lives.  We dragged ourselves off to bed just before midnight.  It was a lot of fun to spend that time with the whole family.