This.. is for two weeks ago or something? I can't keep up xD

Going Backwards (yet again im 2 weeks behind in catch up mode)

Monday the ..20th.. i hope

                Okay. So it was probably my body’s way of saying that Saturday night I didn’t get enough sleep, but yesterday after we got home from el centro, I went to bed at 6pm (planning to take a NAP) and then woke up today at 7:30, late for my last day of colegio. I was soooo confused! I woke up at 7:30 and thought woohoo I only slept an hour and yet feel so refreshed! But then I started to wonder why it was soooo sunny. And then I couldn’t believe that I’d slept over 13 hours without waking up to my alarms. And then I was freaking out because I hadn’t brushed my teeth last night. And then I raced to school in a moto, still confused and half asleep. Last day ever at I.E.P. Sr de la Vida, Chimbote, Peru. Everyone was in full uniform for class photos and then we spent the majority of the day signing eachothers’ polos and gettin all teary. Now it’s time for summer vacay! Beach time. It’s hot out. But none of them want to go to the beach until after our promocion ceremony because they’ll be all black hahaha and I suppose I’d be a lobster. But AFS wants to have our gringo xmas joke gifts reunion tomorrow at the beach! If I’m allowed that is.. :S

Sunday

                Yesterday, after going to sleep around 6 and waking up at 9, Nancy, Gabo, Soledad, Jhoselyn and I met up (1h20m late as usual) with Louise and Clemens in la Plaza de Armas to take them with us to give out tickets for la chocolatada in... los Ceros? Not sure how to spell it. The neighbourhood above Sra Vicky’s house, same as last time. It was so heartwarming to see how happy everyone was when we came by with their names on tickets, for each one of them, guaranteeing each one a present, piece of paneton, and cup of hot chocolate, this Wednesday. J All the kids ran out of their “houses” and huddled around us smiling and running around. It felt like we were doing something amazing. I got some good photos I think that really capture this part of Peru. Or part of it, because after what happened we all put the cameras away. Clemens, Louise and I had our backs turned and were walking the other direction, when we heard shouts from behind. We turned to see a young man trying to grab Nancy’s videocamera from her hand and they ended up on the ground in the sand. Sra Vicky’s older daughter Lady and a bunch of other people quickly crowded around to help struggle him off of her, and luckily he ran off without it. It had been strapped to her hand but the fold out screen is now broken. I admire her strength for fighting. The rest of us (gringos) were momentarily stunned, as if in slow motion and not fully comprehending what was happening. I couldn’t believe he’d tried something like that with so many of us in a group, and how he kept fighting and wouldn’t give up! Lady says she knows him and afterwards all the kids helped find where he lived and his full name. Still hasn’t really sunk in... It makes me sad though because it shows how desperate that joven is for money. L So far we haven’t been exposed to very much of that sort of stuff.  But when Louise was in Lima, she was using her cellphone (from Belgica) in a taxi with the window open less than half way, and a man walked by and grabbed it out of her hand! And my friend Liam in Arequipa was mugged when he got into a taxi! Instead of taking him to his destination, the driver took him to another location, where he met two other men who beat my friend around a bit and stole everything he had on him. It’s so hard to believe but it’s real. And it happens to Peruvians too, that’s the thing. Don’t get in taxi’s alone... L

                After our early return to Sra Vicky’s house and a ceviche luncheon, Nancy took me down to el centro to pick up Francheska from her weekend religious retreat, where all the families were seated to receive their children. I didn’t quite understand it, but for 2 days all the children camped out in this church together without music or internet, and talked about their lives and it was this big reflection type thing. What I saw was that every kid stood up and told us what they liked about the retreat and what they wanted to say to their families based on the camp’s different themes. Almost everybody, boy or girl, was bawling when they walked forward to hug their families and tell them they loved them. It made me think of Challenge Day or something. I thought it was a little too emotional for what’s necessary, and definitely cannot picture it happening with my friends or parents in Canada, but yeah. I actually did get a bit teary just because it forced me to think about and remember my family and how far away you guys are. I really miss you. And near Christmas... it kinda sucks. I didn’t think I even liked Christmas so much, but I’ll never complain about it again. It sure doesn’t feel Christmasy here. We have a fake tree and stuff I guess. But it’s freaking boiling out! And it’s just not as big or as overdone as it is in Canada...not necessarily a bad thing. But I want to be with my family. I just know I’m going to cry this Christmas. Yay. Sometimes I still feel like a stranger here.. and yeah, still don’t have my own room. Not even worth the effort now because I’m leaving so soon. Don’t even care. Good job, thank you AFS. Yes, it will be special because it’s probably the only Christmas I’ll ever spend in Peru, but at the same time.  I dunno. L I’d prefer not to have it here.

Saturday

                Jesus why do I have to write so much! Hahahah just realized that. Again. Anyways. Saturday.. Can’t remember if I actually went to school or not actually. Oh wait- yes I did! That’s a record. I probably only made it to a total of 5 Saturdays in my time here xD. Oh wait. There wasn’t even school. Hahaha but the music professor asked me to bring my violin and then a big group of lil wee ones with musical bells and box drums and I took some combi’s (super crowded taxi van things) to el centro. There we went up on stage and played some xmas tunes for 5 channels of live Peru television in a Teleton. All the kids were super excited about it and it would’ve been cool to have had our handy pvr (which i totally forgot about cuz i don’t even watch tv anymore and haven’t since i got here) to record us! Oh well, that was cool, boiling our butts off in santa hats hahah and apparently it’s not even hot here yet, and it was 10am!! I’m seeing death by sunburn in my future.

                Then I went and bought ingrediants to make shortbread cookies for our AFS xmas reunion at 8pm. That. Was interesting. How can you even mess up shortbread cookies?! Hahaha okay first of all, Nancy wasn’t home to help Soledad and I. She definitely would have know what a “libra” of mantequilla is. I didn’t. The recipe asked for ½ libra of sweetened butter, but all we could find was normal butter. And the ladies in the store, who cook often and whom I trusted, sold me what a 1/2 libra was. Turns out, it was twice as much as necessary. That’s what I thought. So.. Soledad and I are mixing all the stuff together and it looked like it needed more butter, so we put in the full libra (THINKING IT WAS HALF, HOW THE RECIPE SAYS). Horrible mistake. Then it said we had to cut the chilled dough into cookies, but it was hardly a “dough”. So we put it in the freezer quickly, which accidentally dried it out. Then we tried cutting it up but it was disgustingly obvious that there was too much butter. Greasy. So then we tried to put it all back into a bowl and mix it again and add 2x as much of the rest of the ingrediantes to level it out a double batch. BUT the dough batter thing was too thick and messed up for our beater to handle. So we couldn’t finish our  double batch perfectly. So we added almost the right amount of flour and tried again. There was still too much butter in the end so we flattened it with our hands and made little “short-i mean butterbread” circles to put in the oven. We were very rushed, which also didn’t help our whole cookie making process. Then lighting the oven was another disaster and a half because you have to light a thin rolled up piece of newspaper and put it down a hole and turn on the propane and wuck. At first, a bunch of butter melted out of the cookies and I was sure that I’d wasted 20soles on this experiment, but we turned the heat up a lot and left them in for 45min (instead of 10-15m) hahaha. And they turned out edible!! We also made vanilla icing to cover up the buttery taste. The slightly burnt ones tasted the best, and actually pretty delish. Then we went to the reunion and ate more food from other countries and their Peru versions of their xmas dishes as well :P

                Then, for the first time with permission from Nancy, the dad, AND Jose (who said it was fine because it’s summer vacation.. which means he’s admitting it’s not an AFS rule and he just wanted me to study when school was on) Jhoselyn and I went to a discoteca. Wow. So I AM allowed. Cool, thanks.  

Friday PERU GRAD!

                Friday during the day we ate SUPER freaking good pollo a la brasa in colegio for lunch, and gave out all our secret santa gifts. Here, it’s not really secret, but it’s still cool. Everyone goes to the front and describes the person they got their gift for, and then everyone else guesses who the present’s for. So everyone finds out eventually, but it was still fun. I’m going to miss my classmates. They’re a really close group, and they really care for eachother. Then Friday night at 7 we all showed up back at Sr de la Vida to put on blue gowns and hats and walk across the stage as graduates. For each person (except me haha) there was a quick slideshow of a few baby photos and then a clip of their parents talking to them about how proud they are and stuff. Then we each walked across the stage to receive our certificates (me, giggling my ass off because I don’t deserve to grad here, not with the amount of homework I never did and exams I failed xD) But anyways. It was not as special or as big of a deal as it seems to be in North America. We had to give the rented hats and poncho gowns back to be returned after. It probably feels different for me because I can’t believe they’re all “grads” because most of them just turned 16! Asi es en Peru. Buuuut it made me think ahead to my grad and what it’ll be like and how freaking AWESOME it’s going to be !!!!

Ummmm that other week...  don’t remember or care hahah other than Nancy went to Lima and bought me my prom dress. Scary! And there was a “despedida” or goodbye party for quinto grado in my colegio and Mona and I had a blast...but only because we had a super bad hair day. Long story.

Photos (resized to 15%) man it's hard to put them up here

I'm sorry but . . .

i want to live here.

I'm so confused lately. My head is so spacey and muddled and I just feel like I'm floating around in space between different lives and strangers. I don't feel attached to Canada or Peru exactly but. It's not like I'm forgetting my life back home, or that it's being replaced, but it just feels like I've always lived here and always will.

I can't describe it. I used to think there were some things I could never live without, for example snow, but it's just so weird. To be so far away from my old life seems so surreal. As if that was an exchange and now I'm back home. Or as if I don't have a home and I'll just always be going from exchange to exchange and wandering this earth until I die, but never settling somewhere.

I do but I don't. I have to be careful what I say... I don't even know.

At first- I didn't miss any of you :P Until about a month and a half in... then I was soooo incredibley homesick for a few weeks it was nuts. And now.. I don't know. I never could have predicted this sort of emotional conFUSION!!! Wow. Writing it that way just made me see that word in a different way. Con-with. Fusion-of many or different emotions.

I'm depressed and delighted and content and triste. I'm coming home February 19th and i know it will be amazing. Maybe this is why they push you towards doing the year long exchanges instead... but then again. If I stayed here any longer, it would just hurt even more to be leaving. OMG this is so hard to properly describe without saying something I'm not sure I mean or not. I'm trying but.

I think I'm realizing that like my whole life is going to be about meeting, loving, missing and losing and gaining people and places and experiences and wow its just this crazy awakening and yeah. Nothing lasts forever, everything changes, there will always be happiness and sadness and I'm just so glad I did this. It is going to hurt to leave, but I would never regret it. Ever.

No Longer Pirate

      Thursday: Thursday Nancy and I went to el centro to finally mail my postcards woot! 7.50 cada uno, and so to save money it was suggested I send the 3 Whitehorse ones together to one address (my fam) and then my darling lil sister can distribute the others :P Then it's based on weight instead, and to send 4 it was 19.50 soles hahah you guys owe me! xD We went to the orchestra thingy again but they were preparing for a concert and the woman who'd asked me to teach wasn't there and the other guy hadn't heard that I was going to help teach sooo... yeah. I didn't want to play in the concert or rehearsal because I'd die of boredom, so he said next week I can start learning viola instead to make it more interesting :P Hopefully it won't be too big but yeah we'll see.

      Viernes: On Friday Nancy told me at 2:45 that I was going with her to see some dance thing at Junior's colegio at 3pm, so I had to drop other plans w Louise but yeah. We didn't even leave until 3:25ish and then once we got there, found out that it didn't start until 4pm. Then we walked through Nuevo Chimbote alongside a parade of children in all these amazing, colourful, traditional costumes and ropa of Peru. Once we reached our destination, we sat and watched a dance competition (between the different classrooms) of traditional Peruvian dances until 8:30pm at night. (And we left early :P) Hahaha of course Junior's class was one of the last ones to perform, but they were super good! Even all the little tiny preschool kids were dressed up and um.. sort of dancing.. with the professor(a)s' help and stuff. I got a bunch of photos and film :P It was cool and interesting, but my butt was sore on the cold concrete.. haha 4-5 hours is a biiiit much hahahaha. But it's cool that they keep the old culture and dance traditions in the schools and that the kids all participate willingly and keep it alive and yeah! Junior's class won :)

      Saturday: Saturday I went to my first dance "ensayos" for our promocion with my partner and good looking good friend Fabian hahaha. And holy crap he knows how to dance. Sabe bailar. He works as a dancer sometimes, like gets paid to be the guy that the girls dance with at quinceanos haha so yeah. But he says I learn fast and that I was better than all the other kids in my salon who'd already had a practice session the other week when I was walking into glass doors. I miss choreographed dance classes!! Hardcore. I can do all the dance moves by myself, but the partner stuff is suuuuper new to me! At one point he has to pick me up and turn around and there's even a little tango thrown in! hahah oh man. Not to mention I'll have to do it in a fancy dress and high heels. HA good luck kid. Then Fabian came over for almuerzo with me n Jhoselyn. (they're super tight)
       After almuerzo Nancy, Gabo, Jhoselyn, Fran y yo fuimos a la casa de Senora Vicky otra vez to go around door to door and writing out tickets for children and abuelitos for the chocolatada that we're going to set up on December 18th. We went to the poorest section of Chimbote I have ever seen. I mean.. I knew the difference in wealth was bigger between the people here than in Canada but. You have no idea until you're surrounded by it. The higher up the sandy desert mountain we went, the poorer the people living there. At the top, the houses were short, one room shacks of weaved materials and scavenged walls. No floors, no lights, no water, no nothing. These people made Sra Vicky look rich. And she makes Nancy look rich. And then there's me feeling so lucky and privelegded and stunned and amazed and sad. I've always known I was lucky and am lucky to live the life I live, but now I really, really, know. As we went door to door, people peeked out their houses to see the rare visitors. I played with a starving little puppy and just. I wish I'd had my camera to capture the life these people live; who don't have enough food, whose children cannot go to school for lack of money, and who have probably never seen the Chimbote that I have been living in. I was just so silenced, standing in the garbage strewn sandy dunes looking out over all of "wealthy" Chimbote below us. Going down the mountain was even more powerful, because after being with those that have nothing, every slightly bigger house was stunning. I couldn't close my mouth. And when we started seeing cars in the streets again I was just mindblown by how much money those people must have, just to own a car AND a house. And then I was hit again when I started seeing all the bustling busy stores selling packaged useless crap (and other things too) and just. I couldn't even comprehend thinking about my house back home again. Even the amount of money I spent to come to Peru, is incredible for the people we visited. Absolutely amazing moment. Absolutely, amazing.

      Sunday: Yesterday we all helped fry some unidentifiable body part of a pig I think, for breakfast. It was really good. We also had salad and a super delicious juice (pure papaya, pineapple, water and sugar) and this weird green avocado relative that I don't like for it's weird texture haha. Then I washed all the dishes (I kinda like doing it. And if I don't... it won't get done haha and we need them for lunch) And then I skyped my amazing, beautiful family for over a good chunk of time and we compared bed heads. :P Then I went over and visited the lovely older ladies next door (including the mother of Mario, Jhoselyn's pop) to play my violin for her and lend them my Canada photos. Aaw it was so lovely hahaha lovely. But seriously, they're super sweet and everyday when I walk home from school we talk a bit and she always tries to give my money back when I buy something from their store :P She gave me cookies and so I played more songs after :P Then after washing some dishes, Jhoselyn and I went to our friend MyDholi's house for Fummer's Argentina going away party (hahah on a sunday..), with some of our usual buds, Andre, Fercho, Louisa, Gabo, and Chemo.

      Monday: Monday I finally returned to colegio hehe and it's Advent Week or something so yet again, another excuse for lack of classes and stuff. Then at recreo Yessenia and I snuck out of colegio (by saying we needed to take out copies of our textbook; the photocopier in colegio wasn't working :D) and then we went and ate some food at the Mercado nearby hahaha. mmm I love markets here. They smell so amazing and just yeah! Mom you're gonna love it and we're going to gain 9/10 pounds, one for each day you're here :)

      Tuesday: Yuriko and Yessenia thought of another excuse to escape colegio and fuimos al mercado otra vez haha. They ate combinados of tallarins (pasta noodles), potato and ceviche (and of course choclo y cancha.. two diff ways of preparing corn) and I had a fruit salad with yogurt hehe. We're going swimming on Friday, don't want a belly. Actually so scared to be "la leche entre los chocolates" in the pool for gym class hahaha anyways. I also found out (by looking and walking through the meat section of the market) that Peruvians eat horses. Yeah. Great. :S

3 Months in Peru

     Today Nancy asked me to clean off every single leaf of every single one of her dusty plants with a damp sponge. I now intimitely know around 500 leaves, having carefully bathed each one of them. It only took a bit over an hour and a half, but, without even really realizing it, I turned it into a sort of zen activity. I'm not saying I enjoyed it, but I didn't mind it and was not bored or frustrated by it. Dampen sponge, swipe, rinse sponge, repeat. It was just something that was supposed to get done and I did it. hahaha In fact, I might even do it again... Interesting.
   
     Although you might ask... why clean your house plants? But maybe the answer is... something deeper.. some sort of Zen koan that will one day lead me to enlightenment. :P I have pondered it but cannot yet put down in words my answer. Hahaha yes. Anywhoo.

     They have a new maid lady and she's super cool. We're both bored often and so we talk and she's my buddy. I was the first one to ask the name of their previous maid, and I think they noticed that because even after the first 3 days, the family has more of a relationship with Kari than with their previous maid Felicity, who left without notice and never returned. (except her last day I had a feeling she was leaving, and she just smiled at me and said goodbye) In fact... I might have been the only one who knew her as something other than "senora". Anyways. Today Kari taught me how to make "quinoa", a pineapple/quinoa/sugary hot drink, and "cachanga" which is a super yummy fried bread pancake type thing haha. She really loves to cook and we were talking about typical meals in Canada and stuff. We're going to make bananabread together :) It's super sad because she is a fantastic chef but couldn't finish her last year of university because she didn't have enough money. :(

      Doctor appointment tomorrow (or, AFS & peru time...next week) but I think my eye's good to go.

Cows

     Yesterday we got our milk freshly squeezed n warm from someone's back yard pets.

     Today I ate a kamote or something delicious that is like a sweet potatoe but better because it's not toooo sweet. I hate sweet potatoes. I love kamotes. Love.

      Tomorrow they're teaching me how to cook Peruvian meals n ima jot down the recetas for the fam back homesies :)

I'm a freaking pirate.

     Well my awesome surprise trip to the jungle tree houses of the Silba was CANCELLED by two trips to the doctor/eye person in Lima. Hooray. That's what I get for sleeping with my contacts in for three hours. But I always do that for naps or whatever! It was only THREE LITTLE HOURS because I was on the 8 hour bus ride from Chimbote to Lima. I even made myself stay awake so that I slept for as little time as possible with them in anyways. Guess it didn't work, because when I woke up my left eye was bothering me a little.
       During the day Thursday it got worse and worse and started watering and got all red and veiny. Obviously I took them out and put my glasses on but by the end of the day it hurt so bad I had to go blind and just have my shades on to block out the light even when it was closed. I have NEVER felt pain that bad in my eye hahaha oh god. Then they all wanted to rush me to medical attention right away and put tea bags of manzanilla on my eye and all this stuff but I was too embarassed and was pretty sure that if I just went to sleep it'd be better in the morning. NOT. Next morning it hurt a bit less but still was blurry vision out of it and jlkasdjasldkaj so I let them take me to Lima. (we were in some little towny thing a few hours outta Lima for the AFS workshop stuff, which was cool, hung out with 6 german hippies) Anyways. Ended up with some sort of inflamation INSIDE my eye, 3 different types of eye drops, pills, and an eye patch. I walked into a glass door. Lima is super awesome and old looking in parts of it but I didn't see very much. They wouldn't let me go to the Silba because I'm the doc's responsability, and she can't let me go off to the insecty jungle where the only "doctors" are healers. So. Yeah. I'm home and not allowed to watch tv or use the comp much or go out or go to school (aw man.. xD) or use contacts for 3 weeks. And I'm goin to the doc again on Wed/Thursday.

GOOD ONE MIACLAIRE.

      Nancy and Jose keep trying to tell me "everything happens for a reason, maybe you weren't meant to go on that trip or something worse would have happened, don't worry blahblah". Yeah..that's just a sad way of trying to comfort yourself after doing something stupid like sleeping with contacts in. And it comes from people who believe in God so. WOW stupid stupid stupid mia hahaha. Didn't even get a single photo. o_O