Some Recreation

So, I've been getting really bad at doing this every day. A full week of being yucky and sick does that to you, I guess! But today is Saturday, so I'm ready to write!

Now, Wednesday was a sort of rough day at the school. Some days just flow really well, and other days don't. Bringing in new techniques messes with the teachers and the dynamic, and we've also been changing the schedule so that GeGe's goals for our visit can be better accomplished. So, that worked out to Wednesday just feeling stressful for all of the grown-ups at least. We already had plans to go out to pizza that night downtown, so we made a night of it!

Amanda (with the prison project) left yesterday, so Wednesday was our goodbye dinner. Plus, Hilda (the owner of the house where we live and where the school is and a staff member for the school) had her birthday on Wednesday, so we invited her and Yamile (her daughter) along for pizza! It was super fun, and they made a delicious vegan pizza for mom and me- probably the best vegan pizza sans cheese substitute that I've ever had. Then, we needed to get rid of some of the day's stress, so we had the whole group (minus the teenager) do a round of tequila shots! Drinking with my mom, so silly! Here's a picture, blurry because that's how all pictures involving alcohol ought to be (also because it was dark and the flash was off)

After that, we wandered around downtown for awhile, and we went into this new shopping structure which just looked like a transplant out of SoCal, really strange in the middle of Ayacucho, but it was really pretty! And it had a great view of the city all lit up. Here's a picture of the cathedral from the top of the shopping center!

Then, we wandered around a little more, and then went home. It was so fun getting to spend time with Hilda and Yamile- such good people. Anyway, when we got home, we found that the water was out. Boo. Luckily, GeGe always has a store of water, and we still had a bunch of drinking water ready. So, we went to bed, hoping that there would be water in the morning!

And! There was water in the morning, so we took showers and got ready, and then the water went out again. Darn.

Spiders are Scary

So, this post doesn't have any pictures because, when I see a spider, I'm not like "Oh cool, I should take a picture for my blog!" Instead, I'm like " Oh shit, someone save me from this spider." So, no pictures. Plus, spider pictures are almost as scary as spiders.

Anyway, there are a lot of spiders in Peru. Most of the ones that kill you are in the rainforest (so thank the lord I'm not in that part of Peru), but there are still too many here for my liking! There are brown recluses, which are real nasty guys, but we've only found one of those so far. Luckily mom is a good spider catcher!

Here's our most interesting spider saga yet:

So, I go up to use the bathroom, and when I'm washing my hands, I see a quite large spider up on the wall. It's a really nice, brown, furry one. About three inches in diameter. Now, I'm a huge baby when it comes to spiders, and my typical strategy is denial because I live in Washington, where the spiders don't kill you. So, I turn off the light, close the door, and scurry downstairs, where I recount my harrowing tale. Mom is appalled. She says "Gilli, you can't just leave spiders here." so, back up the stairs we go with a broom to get the spider down. I stand outside of the bathroom, freaking out and not being very helpful while mom gets the spider down to where we can reach it. But! The spider is nowhere to be found. We search everywhere, shake out the broom. It is gone. The worst case scenario has occurred. Eventually we give up, finding a little spider on the wall to take outside instead. Some force kept that spider away for the rest of that night and the next day, and we were lulled into a false sense of security. But then! I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and who is on the wall right in front of me? My little (not so little) spider friend. So, I go get my shmom, and she catches it in a cup and takes it outside. Such a trooper. And we only disturbed half of the house in so doing. The next morning, there was a different little yellowy, spindly, friend in the shower. And it moved really quickly, but mom got him too. And then! I go to the bathroom last night and not only is there no water with which to wash my hands (sometimes they the water goes off at night) but there is also another one of the giant spiders up on the wall! I watch it crawl into a crack above the door, and it walks like a tarantula and is awful, but ya know, okay, at least it's hiding from me. So, I assume that it has gone away and am only a little paranoid in the bathroom. Then! Mom comes knocking on the door down here, large spider in cup because it had come down to visit her in the bathroom. The end. Hopefully. Because I would really like for there not to be a whole big family of scary spiders around me ever.

There are also supposedly scorpions here. And lots of bugs that bit us over the weekend. But other than that, Peru is great! I promise! Look at this album and all of the beautiful faces we get to see every day!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.470530192958941.112531.100000058920523&type=1

Huanta

Yesterday, we went on a day-trip to the town of Huanta. The oldest kids at the school, who are mostly around 14 years old, sold waffles every Sunday for a few months, and they made a lot of money to fund a trip for them. And, they invited me and mom along! So, they rented a van, and we loaded up around eight yesterday morning and set off on a great adventure! In very non-US fashion, we stopped about a million times along the way. They were all cool stops, and I enjoyed them, but it was still rough for my little plan-loving head. Anyway, the first stop was at this place call Pikimachay (sp? It's in Quechua, the native language here, and I am just hopeless at sounding that stuff out). That place though is a cave where they found the oldest human remains in the Americas. Pretty neat. Here's a picture of me at the base of the climb up (the Andes are neat, huh?), and here's GeGe getting near the top!

Then, our next stop was to look at this big, white, Jesus statue that was made to replace a statue of a president who turned out to be super corrupt. Then, we stopped to look at this Incan bridge. The place is called something in Quechua that means "dead hanging" and sounds like ayawacuna. The Incans use to hang the bodies of the people who they defeated in war there. Interesting history!

A little up the river from that bridge is a place where a lot of bodies were left during the Shining Path years. For those of you who don't know, Shining Path was a rebel group that started in Ayacucho a few decades ago, and there was a pretty intense war between the revolutionaries and the existing (corrupt) government. As is often the case in those sorts of things, regular people got stuck in the middle. So, if the revolutionaries came through a town and stole all of their livestock, the military would later come and kill everyone in the town for aiding the Shining Path. The opposite was also true. GeGe told us that the Shining Path didn't really try to hide its killings, while the government did try to cover up its killings of innocent people (since, you know, the government is supposed to protect its citizens or something). So, a body-dumping site like this was probably used by the military. Anyway, whenever a body was found (and they continue to be found in some places), people create a little remembrance site. As this is a river, you can't really build anything, so they did engravings instead. There were way too many engravings. Jasson, a teacher at the school who was on the trip and played the part of guide, pointed out one engraving that he said was probably an uncle of his because the name matched. Just about everyone in Ayacucho lost someone (or lots of someones) during the Shining Path years, but most people don't talk about it because it is all so fresh, and I think that there is still some fear of government and Shining Path action. Here's a picture of some of the engravings.

Then, back to the van, and we drove on to our next stopping point, which was an outlook over Huanta. The view was pretty cool, but instead of showing you that, here's a picture of Me, Mom, GeGe, Jasson, and Yamile, and a few of the students (we live with Jasson and Yamile because they school is based out of their house!)

Then, we finally made it to Huanta! The first thing we did was try some Chicha de Sieta Semillas, it's made from seven different grains/beans. I thought that it was okay! Here's a picture of me drinking some! (I also made friends with a kitten at this store. It was the best)

Then, we drove to the central square, where there was a pretty park and a pretty church. A wedding procession went by, that was fun. Here are a few of the kids at the park!

Then, we piled back in the van and drove around for awhile, seeing the sites and trying to figure out where we wanted to get lunch. We eventually ended up back at the square and had lunch at a restaurant right by there. There was a TV in the restaurant, on which was playing Toy Story, so all of the kids were silently entranced throughout the meal. Pretty funny to watch. I also got to try real chicha with lunch, instead of the bottled version, and, I have to say, I might like the bottled version better. The homemade stuff has a much lime-ier flavor, and I don't love lime juice. Anyway, after that, we made our way to the border of town in search of a swimming pool which supposedly existed there. We weren't really seeing any swimming pool, but luckily we stopped to ask at the right place- a little house where they were hiding a swimming pool and a soccer field way in the back. No sign for the pool, just a word of mouth sort of thing, which is normal for Peruvian pools, but I was surprised. The kids all went swimming with a great view of the Andes in the background (see below), then they played some soccer, then they went back in the pool, and then we left!

On the way out of town, we bombarded a store with teenage requests for soda, ice cream, and cookies, but then we were on our way. And! We didn't even stop on the way home. We made it back a little after five, and the kids were reluctant to end their fun day, but they eventually went home. Then, we settled in the for the night, battled with some spiders, had banana waffles for dinner, felt bad for poor sick Gilli, and woke up ready for Sunday puca picante and a little adventure into town! It has definitely been a great weekend! Here are GeGe, Amanda (the one with the awesome prison project), and me with our puca!

Central Market and Physical Contact

So, I owe you guys a couple of posts. I've been pretty wiped out with a sinus infection which devolved into a nasty cold, so I've been being lazy. Anyway, here we go!

On Friday, Mom and I set off on a little morning adventure to the central market downtown. We jumped on our bus, number 14. I had a seat for a block or so, but then a mom got on with her little child, so young and healthy (relatively) me jumped up because I'm good at standing! As the bus got stuffed full, I was quickly surrounded by people on all sides. Here, the bus doesn't really ever get "full." They can always fit more. So, you get to be real close to a lot of people. Here, that space bubble doesn't really exist. In the US, if someone is touching your arm on public transit, you scoot over a little, but here people are touching you all over and that's just how it is! (Probably didn't help with the whole sick thing I have going on). My arm got a little tingly from reaching up to the bar to hold onto, but other than that, no problem. We wiggled our way out at our stop and made our way to the main square! From there, we walked to the grocery store to buy me more cookies and then we went onto the central market. Here's a picture of me sitting outside of the market (I look grungy because I didn't feel good, so there)

The central market is generally less touristy than the artisan market that we went to last weekend. This place sells everything- produce, bread, meats, prepared food, clothes, shoes, fabric, and all of the good touristy scarves and key chains and woven things. It's pretty crazy. We got some bread for later, and then hung out in the touristy area, looking at all of the cool things. I really hate when people try to make me buy things, and even when I want to buy things, I hate having to haggle about the price. But, luckily, mom is good at it. So, we got a few fun things! Here's a picture of the market right when you walk in the front entrance

Then, back on the bus, on which we got seats for the whole time, and up to Carmen Alto! We made it to the school around noon, made a quick potato lunch, and then got ready for kidlets. Friday is fun day, so we did a cool art project where they all drew self-portraits with the theme of self-esteem. It was so fun watching them work, but they are so much more worried about drawing than are kids in the US! If you give a kid in the US some colored pencils and some paper, they will typically just draw (unless they were a weird perfectionist sort of kid like me, and then they hate to draw because it never looks like real life...). The kids here though are all perfectionists. With handwriting and drawing, they use the eraser more than they use their pencils! So, it took work to convince some of the little sweeties that we wanted to see their own work, not a perfect drawing. Poor kids, drawing shouldn't be stressful. Here's me trying to council a few kids into starting their drawings and not erasing each time...

After that, we played some, and I got mobbed by my new best friends (see below). At the end of the day, all of the kids are called up one-by-one, and they hug GeGe, get their sandwich and their fruit, and then we get goodbye kisses! Like a lot of the world, they do kiss hello and kiss goodbye here, so I get a good 50+ kisses a day. It's the best. Between that and the lack of physical bubble, I'm meeting my quota for physical contact. The US is bad at that. Being close to people is nice sometimes. Especially when they're as sweet as all of these little pumpkins!

Things to Eat!

So, there are a lot of great things to eat in Peru, and I really like to eat, so that works out really well for me. All kinds of potatoes and grains and fruits and drinks, and I am just happy. Here is one of my favorite things, granadilla in Spanish, passion fruit in English, and "monkey brains" for tourists in Latin America.











Then, we also have chirimoya, which is this really unassuming brown/green fruit, which opens up to be deliciousness. The inside is all sweet and white and the seeds are this perfect black. It's great. It reminds me a lot of guanabana in Costa Rica, but that fruit is much larger! Here's a picture of chirimoya.

We of course are also drinking coca tea, made from the same leaves that can be turned into cocaine, but the tea and candy made from the leaves are really common here. I find it to be a lot like green tea. It's supposed to help with the altitude, so I use that as an excuse to drink lots. The US doesn't let us bring it back, but I don't see why. It definitely isn't a high-producing sort of concoction.

I have also discovered two of the most wonderful beverages here! We finally opened that bottle of chicha, and it is delicious! The kind we got reminds me of grape juice, partly because it's purple, and then also because of the sweet, sticky, kind of taste. It's fantastic! Then, there is also Inca Kola, certainly an elixir of the gods. It is bright yellow and super sweet. Most foreigners don't like it, I guess, but I am a big fan. It kind of tastes like cream soda on steroids. 46 grams of sugar per serving. Delicious and probably diabetes inducing. Here's me with a big bottle! (And I like to think that I look a little less like I'm dying now! Yay!)

We also eat a lot of this pita bread stuff that I think I've mentioned before, called chapla. It is great for stuffing full of avocado (called palta here) and cucumbers and tomatoes and potatoes and rice, and really anything else that you have. I also eat it by itself. I'm a fan.

And! We also found cookies here that are vegan. So yummy. Some have quinoa or other grains, and some have nuts, and I just want to eat all of them. In fact, we need to get down into town soon to buy some more...

So, basically, life is good here. I think that I could probably live anywhere where I could be vegan and eat well, so Peru is working out just swimmingly!


Unrelated:

Here's a picture of my best friend dog, Jory.

And here's my beautiful shmom working on lesson plans!

School!

So, we have now completed two days of classes, and it has just been great! To fill in some gaps for those of you who don't know, this school program, Kids at the Crossroads, provides supplementary support in the afternoons for kids who may otherwise have no place to go. Instead of these kids being on the street and getting into trouble, they come to school here to get extra class time, homework help, have some playtime, and get a sandwich and some fruit. It's a pretty great program. GeGe is usually at about 100 kids at day, but the numbers are a little lower right now, around eighty, because the public school teachers are on strike here (for the third week!). So, some kids have gone out to the country to work on their family's property out there. The ages range from first graders to kids who are just starting secondary school. Here're are two of a set of three brothers. These two attend classes here, while the third (see below) just hangs out while their mom helps with the program. About the cutest set of boys ever.

Mom's main focus on this trip, in conjunction with GeGe's direction for the program, is to get these kids understanding math a little better. They can count and perform mathematical operations, but often they don't have a real feel for what a number means. Take the number 25- they can count to 25 and add numbers to make 25 or subtract from 25, but they probably can't tell you that 25 is made up of two sets of ten and a set of 5 or one set of 20 and a set of 5. Without a real comprehension of what a number represents, it's harder to get really comfortable with math and move onto more advanced concepts. So, we're trying to get them better at that! Here's a picture of the first graders using some fun manipulatives that we brought to explore the number 10.

With the older kids, we're doing work with math and work with independent thinking. Classes here are mostly "sit and get," as mom would say. The teacher lectures or tells the kids exactly what to do, and they do it. There isn't a lot of room for imagination or creativity. So, we're doing math activities that don't have one right answer, and asking the kids to find one of many answers. Like a story problem where three people bought 30 cookies and asking them how many cookies each person ate. It's really tempting to say 10 each, and that's one right answer, but who's to say that one person didn't eat all of the cookies, or that it wasn't split 5, 5, 20. This is really hard for the kids to process. Another activity we tried yesterday was having the kids finish a story after we read them half of it. It took a really long time for them to figure out that they could write whatever they wanted, and a lot of them didn't like that. In the US, most kids would take off with that kind of activity because making up your own ending is fun, but school is so much more serious here, and having a wrong answer brings consequences, so kids don't know how to experiment and work outside of the box. It's hard watching them struggle, but making them think about things a little differently is great. (Here's an unrelated picture of the youngest two of the set of brothers with a puppy.)

Now, just a little plug, GeGe has devoted her whole life to this project, giving everything that she has to these kids. She's the teacher, nurse, confidante, protector, and provider for this whole community. Basically, she's a superhero. And any little bit of money helps to keep things going here. I'm a poor college student, and I still make a monthly donation because I think that this project is just that great. Here's the link if you're interested in giving a donation http://kids-at-the-crossroads.org/donations.html  And here's super-GeGe bandaging up one of the kids.

Our Day without Electricity

So, I was reminded yesterday morning that in Ayacucho they periodically turn off electricity, usually on Sundays, in order to do maintenance or something. So, we woke up to no power yesterday! Luckily, There is a lot of natural light in all of the rooms at the house, and there was still hot water in the tank, so I did not suffer at all. In fact, it was a pretty great day!

We kept our original plan of heading to an artisan market down in the center of the city. To get there, we rode the bus. My first time doing so here! There are two buses that go from Carmen Alto (our neighborhood) down to the center. One of them has nice buses, but the drivers are also under a lot of pressure to go fast, and that results in some pretty dangerous driving that has resulted in some casualties. So, we take the other bus, which is not so pretty, but I sure prefer it if it means being safer! Going down, the bus wasn't too crowded and we got seats, so that was really nice. Then we hopped off right near the market and went shopping! This market is in an old prison building, but I don't know that I would have guessed that just seeing it. Here's the front

This place is also pretty touristy- definitely catering to foreigners. Lots of woven stuff and trinkety key chains, pretty cool overall. But, a bunch of the stalls were closed because there wasn't power and there aren't really windows inside the building. Still, what was there was fun, and we visited a jewelry maker with whom mom had made friends last summer. She basically bought a bajillion pairs of earrings from him, so they got to know each other well. He recognized her and was super nice to us, giving us lots of deals and making me a wish bracelet for free! And some of you know how much I like wish bracelets... Here's a picture of the three of us

Notice the whiteness of my skin- the anemia is being mad at me. Anyway, that was really fun, then we left the market, and there's this cute little plaza in front of it! The statue is, according to GeGe, the lover of somebody who did something important in the revolution. I'll need to wiki it or something to get more details because the info plaque was missing. (Also, sorry about the cars, they wouldn't stop)

Then, we walked towards the central plaza just because. There, the streets were actually closed to cars, which was nice! We went into the grocery store since we were right there, and mom wanted to find some chicha, which is a drink made from purple corn. We bought a big bottle, but we still haven't opened it yet... In the grocery store, you may think that a lack of electricity would be a big problem. Our stores would probably be closed. But, they're pretty accustomed to it here and so there were still a bunch of people shopping, with candles lighting up the darker rooms.

Then, after not too much longer, we caught the bus back up. But! This time, it was much more crowded. At first, neither mom nor I had a seat, then mom had a seat for a little while, but then a woman got on with four kids, including a baby on her back, so mom of course gave up her seat. They just kept putting more and more people on! It was quite the experience! I liked it though. Better than Madrid public transport when it's crowded just because people aren't mean here. Anyway, we got off at our stop and walked back to the house, where we freshened up really quick before lunch.

For lunch, we walked up to the Mirador because they have a bunch of food and activity going on up there on Sundays. We were in search of Puca Picante, which is a festival sort of food that they have on Sundays a lot of places. It's made of potatoes stewed in a saucy mixture which consists of beets, peanuts, onions, garlic, and other spices, and it's served with rice. Mom had it last summer and loved it, so I have been waiting many months to try it for myself. And! It was everything that I had hoped and dreamed. So yummy. I could probably eat it every day forever and not get tired of it. I'm definitely going to have to learn how to make it at home. Here's a picture of my anemic self getting ready to indulge in the heavenly puca.

We ate at this row of tents with tables, where the "moms" cook. It's a bunch of ladies working over their fires, cooking chicharrones (pork stuff) and puca mostly (I think). Supposedly, it's the best place to go because these ladies really know how to cook good, authentic puca. I would certainly believe that after trying their food, although I don't know much about authenticity!

After that, we wandered around the Mirador for a bit and then headed back home. I took a little nap and an iron pill, and when I woke up it was getting pretty dark out. Still no electricity, so we pulled out the flashlights and ventured downstairs, where everyone was hanging out outside, just chatting. After awhile of that, we headed up to our respective living spaces, with us in GeGe's kitchen. We set up a bunch of candles and lights, and then the power came back on. Right as I was about to send a facebook message, out again. Mean electricity people, just playing with our feelings. After another few minutes, it was back on for good and has stayed that way! Yay!

So far today, we've just been cooking up some lentil soup (after some carrot and potato peeling), drinking Coca tea (which is really just a lot like green tea), and anticipating the arrival of those children this afternoon!