Despedidas y viajes

Hello!

The past week has been a whirlwind of good-byes and getting things ready for travel. We left for Arequipa last Friday and took the 20-hour bus ride there and the 18-hour bus ride home on Tuesday night. It was so much fun and a nice final trip with friends. We saw the city a little bit and did a three-day trek of the Colca Canyon, the largest canyon in the world!

Since I've been back from Arequipa, I've been busy getting ready for the trip with my sister! My sister comes tonight and tomorrow we leave for Buenos Aires, Argentina. We will be there for a week and then go to Santiago, Chile. Then we go to Cusco for Christmas and we start a trek of Machu Picchu the day after Christmas. We will end up in Lima from December 30th until January 4th, when I return home the the US. I cannot believe how fast everything has gone by, and I am just trying to enjoy every moment of the time left here.

This week we said a lot of good-byes, to friends and to the children in my volunteer work. It was extremelly difficult to say good-bye to people who have made such an impact on my life, but I have to keep in mind what a blessing it was to have met them.

I will write more all about this week, Arequipa, and my trip with my sister when I return home and have the time to express all the details. This will be my last entry in Peru! It has been a completely amazing experience to have lived the past 6 months of my life in this country, and I will never forget a single moment of it.

Hasta luego!
Michelle

Trabajo Final de Fotografía

Terminando Finales!

The past two weeks have been pretty stressful with everything winding down, including the academic semester!

In terms of school, I had to finish up my semester-long group project for Peruvian Social Reality. We had to write a paper that ended up being 25 pages and make a video presentation as well. Though it can certainly be frustrating to work with a group of eight students, we got it done and I ended up getting to know the kids in my group pretty well. We studied the shopping mall Mega Plaza, its location in one of the lower-class areas of the city, and the implication that commercialization of the area means development of the area in other aspects as well.

I finally finished all of my photography prints and put all my final 8 photos together to present. My theme was taking portraits of working in local markets and streets, focusing on the informal system of work. We presented yesterday in class and it was really nice for me to be able to explain my theme and why it was interesting for me to try to capture the personality of the markets, because the markets here are quite a bit different than any market I have ever seen.
As for the rest of the classes, I had an Ecology presentation last week to end our practicums.

This week is finals week, and I am basically finished! Yesterday I took my Peruvian Social Reality oral final, which was pretty scary. We had studying the politics, history, and sociology of Peru in the last 50 years, and were asked to answer to short, specific questions making it hard to show him that we had really studied! I had my Ecology final today and all I have left is a small presentation for Spanish class tomorrow. I can´t believe the semester is over! I am relieved to be done with classes, but I am also sad to say good-bye to my friends from school and sad that everything is ending.

Other than school, in the last few weeks we´ve been trying to enjoy our remaining time in Peru as well. On Friday (two Fridays ago) we went out to Son de Cuba with a group of friends to dance salsa, or at least try! On Saturday night we went to a university-sponsored party for the Law School, which was fun. On Sunday I went to have lunch at an anual get-together at Guillermo's church with his family.

Although during the week last week I was busy studying and finishing up projects, we made some time for fun too. On Wednesday we went with our Spanish teacher to interview a well-known Peruvian chef, Flavio Solórzano, in his family-run restuarant in Miraflores - El Señorío del Sulco. He was a very interesting person and his responses to our questions clearly showed his passion for cooking. After the interview I went to a comedy show called Sírvase un Payaso in Miraflores. It was really funny and the type of comedy with a lot of actions and slow dialogue, making it easy for me to understand!

En la entrevista con el chef Flabio Solórzano

Thursday was Thanksgiving day, and although Thanksgiving is clearly not a holiday in Perú, the girls who live in my house decided that we needed to do something American to celebrate. After dinner with the family we went to our friend Caitlyn´s house and made pancakes with maple syrup and kraft macaroni and cheese. Although it wasn´t quite turkey and mashed potatoes, it was nice to spend time with my ¨family¨here and make some familiar food. On Friday I sang in the weekly mass with my chorus, and this time I had taught the group a song in English. I taught them the song One Bread, One Body, and we sang it during communion. It was a really nice way to celebrate our last mass of the semester and I was glad that I could share something with those who have already shared so much with me. On Friday night our program directors took all of the Holy Cross kids and ten of our friends out to dinner at an Italian restaurant to celebrate Thanksgiving with everyone. It was a really nice way to have all of our

Mini-celebración para el día de la acción de gracias

La cena para el día de acción de gracias

I spent the weekend studying for finals and then finally finished everything on Wednesday morning. On Tuesday afternoon I did some shopping at the local Inca Markets near school, and on Wednesday after my presentation in the morning we decided to celebrate the end of finals and go to the beach. Meg, Guillermo, Guillermo´s friend Julio, and I took the bus about an hour south of Lima to a beach called Arica in the district called Lurin. Although it is still not quite summer yet and it wasn´t too sunny, it was really nice and relaxing to be at the beach.

When we got back from the beach last night, our family had planned a nice dinner for us since it would be the last day that all five of us girls would be in the house together. They decorated the house for Christmas with the Christmas tree and fancy tablecloth, toasted with Pisco Sours and Algarrobina, and had a lovely feast topped off with gingerbread cookies and cupcakes. After dinner we spent a while chatting with Señora and our ¨sister¨ Cynthia and we all ended up dancing a little - Meredith showed us the step dance that she practices at Holy Cross, Kelly and Leia showed us some salsa, Anna Maria and I showed some of our Afro-peruvian that we learned in class, and then Señora showed us some of her salsa dancing. We made sure to take a lot of pictures. All in all it was a really nice night to celebrate with the family we have become here in Perú.

Cena con la familia

Señora y Meredith bailando salsa

Today I spent the day in the children´s hospital and then the house with children with HIV. I am now packing my suitcase for the trip to Arequipa! We leave tomorrow afternoon for out 16-hour bus ride to Arequipa, so it should certainly be an adventure!

Hasta la proxima semana,

Michelle

Lomas de Lachay

This past week was a very enjoyable one. I´ve been advancing with my photography project and now have five of the eight final photos that I need for my project. I have printed a lot more, but the final photos need to be ¨basically perfect¨ according to my professor. I have really grown to respect the art of photography because it is such a long process to come up with even one great photo. I´ve also been coming along on my group project for Peruvian Social Reality. Our 21-page paper is due this coming week so we were getting a little worried about finishing it, but split between the work of eight of us it shouldn´t be a problem.

Other than classes, I went to my volunteering again on Thursday and Friday. In the hospital on Friday I switched between the wing of Medicine D and Neumology. I am starting to get attached to the kids, and when I left the hospital on Friday one of the girls, Lady, look up at me from her wheelchair and said: ¨Michelle, por favor no te vayas a tu país. Tienes que quedar en Perú!¨ which means ¨Michelle, please don´t leave to go back to your country. You have to stay here in Perú!¨ How could you not want to stay in Perú after hearing that?

On Thursday I went to the movies to see 2012, the movie about the end of the world, and I left the movie a little more frightened than when I entered! Last weekend and the past few weeks my chapel chorus has been practicing to sing in a confirmation mass. The mass was held this past Friday and was a really nice ceremony. It was really cool to be a part of the service, and the twelve of us got to stand up at the front right next to the bishop each with our own microphone! Although I was a little nervous to be singing songs in Spanish in front of a large group, it was a good experience and it turned out well. There were 61 students who got confirmed! On Friday during the day, Meg and I had to interview our friend Deyver for our Social Reality project. He has lived in los Olivos for his entire life,which is near Mega Plaza and is in the Cono Norte - the area of Lima that we are studying. He was very insightful and enjoyed helping us learn a little more about the area. That night after the confirmation mass some of our house and Holy Cross friends and I went with some of our Peruvian friends to a house party. When we entered the house we heard a big group of Peruvian boys singing Backstreet Boys which we thought was histerical.

On Saturday the girls and I decided we wanted to do a day trip out of Lima, so we went to Lomas de Lachay, a nature reserve about 2 hours outside of Lima. We first had to take a bus to the little city of Huaran, and then we went from there in taxi to Lomas. It is strange because all the surrounding area is desert overlooking the coast, and it suddenly changes over to greenery in the mountains instead of sand when you enter Lomas. It was beautiful, with beautiful mountains and hills covered in interesting trees and nature. We went hiking for a few hours, took lots of pictures, and then returned back to Huaran in taxi. We then took the bus ride home, which turned out to be a three hour trip due to traffic. It was an all-day event, but the trip was well worth it and a good change of scenery to see something outside of the city. All in all the trip probably cost me a grand total of between 10 and 15 dollars!

On Saturday night Meg and I did a second interview, this time with our friends Fernando and Juan Pa who also live in los Olivos. On Sunday morning I had to wake up early to work on our project for Peruvian Social Reality with the group. We all worked on it for about 5 or 6 hours! It´s always a little difficult to put so many people working on one thing all together, but it was nice to spend time with our group and we are all certainly getting to know each other pretty well. After, Guillermo came with me take take my last two roles of film for photography class in the Magdalena market area. I went to mass later near my house and then made sure to get to bed early after a busy weekend.

We only have these two weeks left of classes and then the week of finals, so I am going to busy busy finishing up projects and preparing for exams. Of course, though, I will also be busy trying to enjoy the time I have left here!

Chau,
Michelle

Photos from Lomas de Lachay:

Pasando Rápido

The weeks have been flying by here, as this past Wednesday marked 4 months here in Peru! I´ll start back three weeks ago, the weekend before we traveled to Iquitos. After going out to dance (or at least try to dance) salsa on Friday night, I went shopping at a market called Gamarra on Saturday. The market is a huge shopping area with streets and streets of shops, all containing the some of the lowest-priced clothing I have ever seen. The only catch is that it is in an area of the city that can be a little dangerous, so Meredith, Ana Maria and I went with Guillermo and his friend Julio, who knew his way around.

On Sunday we decided to go to the procession of Señor de los Milagros, which is a big religious procession here in Peru. It is the main catholic festivity in Peru and is one of the largest religious processions in the world. In the mid-1600s, there was a big earthquake in Lima and the entire Chruch of the Nazaerenes collapsed except for one wall with a painting of Jesus Christ. The painting is called Señor de los Milagros, and is especially interesting because the paining portrays Jesus with darker skin. Every October begins the celebration and there are various processions where they carry an image of the painting around the city. We went to the Plaza de Armas to see the procession and the entire plaza was completely filled with people, and even the streets around it. We could see the President, Alan García, waving out of his balcony and the mayor of Lima as well. They celebrated a mass outside of the cathedral with all of the people as well. It was a pretty powerful experience to be around so many devoted people, and you are supposed to pray for one petition when you see the painting pass by.

I´ve also been taking photos pretty much every weekend for my final project in photography. I need eight basically flawless photos that have to do with a single theme. My theme is to photograph people working in the streets, because the unemployment here is so high that there is an unbelievable amount of people who work in the streets selling anything you can imagine. It´s been pretty difficult to go around asking people if I can take their pictures, because a lot of times people don´t want to be bothered, but Guillermo comes with me every time and we´ve had some successful pictures.

Anyways, the following week I was just busy getting work done before out trip to Iquitos. I went to the fountain park again one night, which was just as pretty as I remembered from when we went before. On Thursday we has a mini field trip for Peruvian Social Reality. It was the second of two field trips. For the first one we drove to the area called Pachacutec, which is one of the poorest zones in Lima. We just stayed in the bus because it is too dangerous to get out, but it was pretty eye-opening to see. The poorest areas in Lima are on the outskirts of the city in these large, dirt hills. It is so suffocating to look as, because they are crowded with house on top of house built up on the hill, and I can imagine that some people could probably live their entire lives without ever getting to see what else is out there beyond the poverty of their neighborhood. In the area of Pachacutec there is no running water so people need to get their water shipped in by bottles. The bathrooms in each little house consist of a whole in the ground, and I can only imagine what that would make the whole little house smell like. On our second field trip we drove through a few of the informal markets in Lima, including Gamarra and Polvos Azules. We ended up on the outskirts of La Victoria and got out of the bus to take a look at another one of these hill communities.

After that, we spent our very interesting weekend in Iquitos. The week of our return was pretty relaxed. Around this time, each school within the University celebrates its own week with competitions and parties. It was the week of Generales Letras, the school for general studies before the students enter their majors that I have two classes in. (My photography course is in the school for Communications). Part of the week includes a tournament of soccer, volleyball, and basketball. I joined a team and played soccer Monday through Thursday of that week. Although it was a little unorganized the not that intense, it was so much fun to get to play soccer again because I had really missed it. It was also nice to get to know some new girls. On Thursday of that week we celebrated the birthday of our Peruvian sister, Cynthia, who lives in the house and turned 32. All the little grandchildren and aunts were over and it was nice to get to know the extended family a little better. We has little apetizers and of course some cake!

Mi familia completa durante la cena, menos nuestra hermana Cynthia

That Friday we went to an exchange-student/peruvian student house party at Meg and Jen´s house. There are nine girls living in there house so it was fun to get to meet some of everyone´s friends, and it reminded me a little of being back at Holy Cross. Saturday was Halloween, which is celebrated here by some people. We saw the grandchildren of our family come over dressed up in their little costumes. Along with celebrating Halloween on October 31st, they also celebrate the festival de la canción criolla, which is a holiday to celebrate the typical peruvian music and dance. We went to see a performance in the engineering school of the university, where our friend Jonna sang and danced in the show. It was so nice to see him sing, and afterwards we all went to a party with a bunch of his engineering friends at his friends house to celebrate.

El show de Jonna

Todos los amigos en el show de ingeniería

On Sunday I went to take more photos and finished up some homework. This week was another pretty relaxed week, although it was a little more stressful because I had to choose classes for second semester at Holy Cross. It is so strange to start thinking about second semester, because I´ve been adapting to life here and it´ll be a challenge to change back so quickly. All of us who are returning home after this semester are getting a little weary of having the end in sight, but we are just trying to enjoy the time we have left with the great people we have had the chance to meet.

This past Wednesday my Peruvian Social Reality group went back to Mega Plaza, the mall that we have been studying as the theme for our semester project. We have quite a bit of work to do for the project since it is due in two weeks and between the eight of us we need to put together a video presentation and write a 22 page paper. On Thursday after dance class I went out with some friends from school to say goodbye to one of the exchange students from Spain who was returning home this weekend. He was doing an internship here through the university, and his internship had just ended. After, we went out to dinner with Rey and his family and friends to celebrate his birthday. Meredith and Peter had gone out earlier that day to buy him a cake, which we gave to him in the cafeteria at lunch earlier that day.

Comiendo polla a las brasa para celebrar el cumpleaños de Rey

This weekend was a nice time to just catch up on sleep and take a break from school and the busy schedule of the week. On Saturday I went into the the center of Lima with Guillermo to take some more pictures for Photography. We got to see the big weekly ceremony at noon of the changing of the guards in the government palace. We also went inside two churches I had never seen before, one of them which is the actual church that houses the painting of Señor de los Milagros. In the afternoon, I went to the Chinatown of Lima, which is near the downtown area and is an area with a few streets of chinese restaurants (called Chifas) and stores. We had a tasty meal with Guillermo´s family. Later, on Saturday night, Meg, Meredith, and I met up with our friends Corina and Guillermo and some of their friends to go to a party sponsored by our school. It was a party to celebrate the end of the week of Generales Letras, and although it kind of reminded us of a school dance from high school, it ended up being really fun.

Today I just relaxed and enjoyed having one day with nothing planned. I´m ready to sign up for Holy Cross courses tomorrow and ready for a new week to begin.

Michelle :)

Cucarachas, Tatántulas, Serpientes - Viaje a Iquitos

This past weekend I traveled with the four other Holy Cross students to Iquitos, the largest city in the rainforest in Peru. It was certainly an adventure! The only logical way to get to Iquitos is by planes, and out flight was on Thursday afternoon so we arrived in Iquitos around 7pm Thursday evening. The city itself was pretty nice; it was pretty small and relaxed and everyone drives around in moto-taxis and mopeds. As soon as we got there we spent the rest of the night finding a guide and tour agency, finding a hostel for the night, and grabbing something to eat.

On Friday the adventure began. We met our guide Timo at 9am and took off in boat down the Amazon river to start our 3-day, 2-night tour. It was so cool to be on the Amazon river, and it was so wide! Our first stop was a little village on the bank of the river where we saw a little lagoon full of alligators! We got to feed all the allilgators dead fish, and we were able to get very close to them. Thank God there was a little fence in between! In another little lagoon we got to feed these huge fish called Paiche, which were probably four or five feet long and are an endagered species. Later, we made our second stop along the river to an animal refuge area, mainly for monkeys. As soon as we got off the boat a bunch of friendly monkeys started running towards us! I have never gotten so close to monkeys as I was there, and I even got to hold a few of them. They were so cute and we spent a while playing with the monkeys and observing in awe how many different kinds there were.

Con mi amigo el mono

After the monkeys we continued out journey in the boat, but not without problems. The branch of the river that we had taken ended up being pretty shallow because the dry season just ended in Iquitos, and our guides, the boys in our group, and some of the local people all ended up have to stand in the river and push the boat! At one point, we had to empty our backpacks and food supplies out of the boat to carry along the shore and then we had to get into a local family´s boat to make it out of the shallow branch of river. Eventually our boat made it and we switched back to our original boat and continued on to our lodge. Our lodge was located on a branch of the Amazon river called Yanayacu.

Once we got settled and enjoyed a lunch of fresh catfish we headed back out to the Amazon river to visit a native tribe called Yaguas. Although the tribe clearly had modified it´s way of making money towards tourists, it´s basic way of life remained the same. The tribe consists of only about 45 people and speaks mainly Yaguas with a little Spanish. We met some of the children and their pet monkey and then got a demonstration of how the chief uses a huge dart gun to catch their dinner. We shopped a little perusing their hand-made goods and ended the visit with a tribal dance around the fire stones. We ended the day with dinner back in our lodge, a night-time boat trip to hear the sounds of the jungle and look for alligators, and bedtime in our bungalows since there was no electricity and therefore no lights!

Una niña del tribu Yaguas

The next day we started out early with a nature walk into the jungle. Along the way we saw some very interesting nature. Once in a while our guide would warn us - ¨Don´t touch that tree, it´s poisoness!¨ Then he would poke the tree with his machete and some liquid would dribble down it. He told us that some of the local people use the liquid on their darts when hunting. We continued on the hike until suddenly our guide jumped back in shock! What originally looked like a stick in our path turned out to be a poisonous snake! Timo told us about how he has seen people get bitten from these snakes and start bleeding out of their eyes before they die! After that we all looked around carefully before every step we took. We got to see the biggest tree in the jungle called the Lupuna, or Ceiba petandra, which is by far the biggest tree I could ever imagine. We also tried a rope swing from a vine hanging for one of the big trees.

El grupo en frente del árbol Lupuna

After our hike we decided to cool off by swimming in the river, trying not to think about the fact that there were pirhanas swimming with us at the bottom. After lounging on the hammocks that afternoon we took a boatride in a downpour of rain up the river for about twenty minutes until we got to Timo's village. We got to meet Timo's family and see the simple village with little houses, a primary school , and a meeting house centered around a soccer field. The village is called Yanayacu, after the river, and it had about 100 people in it. It seemed so interesting how cut off this community was from the outside world. The first language of the majority of the people in the village is Quechua, although most speak spanish too. It seemed like a very simple life of farming and spending time with family. As we were about to leave the village we ran into Timo's cousin who was carrying an anaconda which he had just caught the day before! We all got to take turns holding the anaconda. Since snakes are probably my least favorite animal, it definitely took some convincing for me to hold the snake!

Con la anaconda!

Our adventure didn't end yet on Saturday. When we returned back to the bungalows we ate alligator for dinner, which I ended up really liking and which tasted like a mix of chicken and fish. Our guide also pointed out a tarantula crawling along the pathway outside! Peter, Jen, and I found multiple cockroaches crawling around the room - even one on Jen's suitcase! After examining the situation and noticing there were cockroaches in every part of the room, we decided it would be better to sleep in Meredith and Meg's room since they hadn't found any insects. We ended up smooshing all five of us full-grown students into two beds pushed together!
On Sunday morning we got up early to head out to go fishing - piranha fishing! Although I came close to catching a few, Jen and Peter had a little more success and actually got to catch some. We ended up eating turtle for lunch that day, which was a challenge for me because I could see the poor little shell on my plate. After lunch we set off in boat to return to Iquitos for our evening flight back to Lima, stopping to watch the Amazon dolphins along the way.

The boat ride was an experience in itself. We watched as some storm clouds slowly approached us, and it started to rain harder and harder. We were in a little metal boat with a small covering over it, probably only big enough to hold ten people. The storm got worse and worse, and at one point we could see lighting blots hitting the earth in front of us, behind us, and on both sides of us! The fact that we were in a small metal boat in the middle of the huge Amazon river during this lighting storm made the experience one of the scariest in my life. We ended up almost deciding to pull the boat over, but then we realized that the only option for where we could pull over the boat was an extremelly poor area. As soon as the people who lived there saw our boat of tourists approaching, they started getting closer with big grins on their faces. We knew at that moment we had to decide if we wanted to risk it and continue going in the storm or stop on this shore and be robbed! We decided to keep going, and by some miracle we arrived safe and sound in Iquitos in time to grab dinner before our flight home.

All in all the trip was an experience! It was the most adventurous trip I have ever taken, and although at times I felt a little bit in danger, in the end everything was fine and we all get to look back on some very interesting memories!

~Michelle

Anochecer en una rama del río Amazona

Voluntariado - La mejor parte de cada semana

The most meaningful time I have spent in Peru has been volunteering in La Posadita and in the Hospital del Niño. I have been working through a program called Aprendo Contigo which has locations in 4 health care centers throughout Lima. The purpose of the organization is to provide education for the children even though they are ill and cannot attend a normal school.

Every Thursday I go to La Posadita del Buen Pastor, a home where child carriers of HIV live and go to school. Most of the children either have parents who have died of AIDs or who cannot support them anymore. I go in the afternoon and assist a professor in teaching two classes of children, the first with kids about 7 to 10 years old, and the second with kids from about 10 to 13 years old. It is so humbling to see the hope and spirit of the children. Every time I walk into the room they are full of energy and excited to learn and play games. One of the girls, Lucía, was really curious about learning English and wanted me to spend extra time with her helping with her English homework and teaching her new words. Despite the fact that they are carriers of a very serious virus and that they lack families, the kids appear to be living a normal and very happy life and don´t ever pity themselves. Instead, they are more interested in learning and having fun - what a lesson for all of us who are fortunate enough to have our health.

Las niñas en La Posadita después del show de teatro

I spend the majority of my volunteer time in el Hopital del Niño, which is a huge public hospital for about 700 children. There are children in the hospital from all over Peru, since most families come to Lima to receive better medical care. In the hospital, the program Aprendo Contigo can only support the education needs of 100 children. Even though we only teach 100 of the 700 children, it is a struggle every day to make time for everyone. The number of daily volunteers ranges from 2 to about 12, and even the ratio of 12 volunteers to 100 children makes it a stretch to cover everyone. The program teaches in Infectology, General Medicine D, Neumology, and Hematology. I generally find myself in the General Medicine area or lately Neumology. Our daily task is to deliver the homework to the kids and help them with it. We usually go through one reading and answer questions and then do a sheet of math homework, depending on the level and age of the patient. I am lucky to work on Fridays, because after homework we get to play some games with the kids like puzzles or bingo.

Sometime going through the homework with the kids is a struggle for me too, since there are always some words that I do not know in Spanish! One day I was working on a reading with a girl in neumology named Josselyn and after finishing the reading we both looked at each other and laughed after admitting that neither of us had understood what we just read! We started to read it again, making sure that she understood the content and that I understood the language. Sometimes the kids cannot physically write since their hands are attached to an IV or have wounds or are paralyzed, so in these cases I have to physically go through the questions with the kids and write their responses. One girl who I spent some time with in General Medicine is 16 years old and her name is Lady. She has a variety of illnesses, has lost mobility of most of her body, and has open wounds on her skull. Seeing her for the first time strikes a pain of pity, but after getting to know her and seeing her hope and happy attitude it´s easy to focus less on her illness and more on her wonderful personality.

As I have been getting more and more comfortable working in the hospital, I have been really getting used to working in the room for neumology. The room that I usually work in has children and babies with lung problems. Most of them have tumors in their lungs or some other type of problem that requires surgery. It is very sad to see the kids painfully going through physicial therapy, coughing up saliva in the middle of working on homework, and having to take in oxygen from a machine.

One girl in particular who I have gotten to know well in Neumology is Josselyn. She is fifteen and is in the hospital for a very serious episode of cancer in her lungs, and she has been there since I first started working in the hospital. I have now worked with her for about 5 different weeks, and each time she becomes more and more friendly with me. When I first met her she was a little hesitant towards me because I am quite clearly a foreigner and am far from perfect at Spanish, but each time she has warmed up to me and she now looks excited when she sees me enter the room each week. She makes earrings from her hospital bed so I bought a pair in exchange for bringing a new pair for her and I´ve gotten to know a little more about her life and her family each time I see her. Although it is extremelly painful to see someone I have grown close with so sick, it is also so nice to have met such an inspiration as Josselyn. She is always mature and always willing to talk and laugh, and when I leave the room and take a look back to see her waving goodbye each day it puts a smile on my face.

Con Josselyn en el Hospital del Niño

As of now, my experience working with the kids has been more than anything a learning experience for me, an introduction to some really great people, and an experience to open my eyes to how the many opportunities I have been blessed with - most importantly my health. I really think I have found my passion, the one thing that really sticks out above all the busyness of my daily life here and gives me a feeling of tranquility.

Cuídate,

Michelle

Semana de Examenes

Since I returned from Trujillo two Monday´s ago, September 28th, I´ve been pretty busy with schoolwork preparing for midterms. I had a lot of work to finish up for my photography class, since I had my written exam last week and I also had to prepare a notebook with all of my photos and excercises from the semester. This week I had my exam for Peruvian Social Reality, and this coming week I have my exam for Spanish. It´s nice to be basically done with midterms and I am planning on just relaxing and enjoying my weekend!

Two weeks ago, the week that we returned from Trujillo, the HC girls, our friend Guillermo, and I got together to watch the movie Máncora, which is a fairly recent Peruvian film. It was really cool to see the movie because a lot of the scenes took place in familiar places in Lima and a lot of the scenes portrayed certain things specific to Peruvian culture and language. On that Friday, Meredith and I decided to stay in for the night to finally get some homework done because we knew we would have a busy day on Saturday.

On Saturday, I went into school early to finish up printing some photos for my midterm and then in the afternoon Guillermo´s family invited us over for lunch. All of the Holy Cross girls and all of the girls who live in my house went to his house and his mom cooked us a feast! It included a bunch of my favorite Peruvian foods: causa, ceviche, ají de gallina, and more. When we thought we we couldn´t possibly eat more, his mom brought out deserts and cake! I felt like I had just eaten Thanksgiving dinner but it was all so tasty and it was so nice of his family to have us all over. On Saturday night we all met up with Fernando, Juan Pa, and some other friends to go to a Peña. A Peña is a place that is kind of like a discoteca and a show combined. Everyone gets to dance and in between you go back to your table and watch the show. There is a live band that plays typical música criolla like Afro-peruvian music. In the middle of the show, some of our friend tricked Meredith, Ana Maria, and I into voluteering to go up onto the stage when they asked if there were any foreigners there. We ended up each having to go in the middle of the dance floor alone, answer questions, and then dance by ourselves while everyone was watching! It was one of the most embarrasing things I´ve ever had to do, but it certainly made for an interesting night!

Besides just studying for exams, last week I got to go see a few different performances. On Monday night Meg, Guillermo, and I went to a modern dance show that was recommended by Meg´s Modern Dance class teacher. I have never seen this type of dance, but the show was a very interesting portrayal of feminism. On Wednesday, I went to an improv show which was really funny. I was a little nervous before going that I wouldn´t be able to understand enough of such a fast-speaking comedy, but I understood enough to really enjoy the show which is a good sign! On Friday we went to a show by the Afro-peruvian music group Peru Negro. The performance was a mix of Afro-peruvian singing and dance, and it really amazes me at how the dancers can move their bodies in so many ways! I have been taking an Afro-Peruvian dance class every Thursday and it certainly has been a challenge!

This past Saturday, I invited Meredith and my friend from photography class Karen to come with me to an event at one of my volunteer sights. At the shelter for children with HIV, there was a theater performance that a bunch of the kids that I work with had been planning for a while. It was so cute to see them all perform their little skits and they were all dressed up in costumes. After, Karen, Meredith, and I went back to our favorite Gastronomic Festival to share a wonderful lunch of ceviche, pollo enrollado, and sopa seca. On Saturday night, we went to Meg and Jen´s house for a mini-fiesta because Jen has a friend from the US visiting and after we went out to a discoteca called Drama.

I spent the days Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday preparing for and taking my Peruvian Social Reality and Ecology midterms. I was so happy to finally be finished and to be able to relax on Tuesday. We had another movie night on Tuesday and I went to the movies on Wednesday in Lince. Since the department of General Studies (where I have Ecology and Social Reality) does not have classes this week due to midterms, I was able to go into the hospital to volunteer this morning as well as tomorrow. I absolutely love working at the hospital, and I am going to write more about the hospital in my next entry.

Thats all for now! This weekend should be fun since I don´t have a lot of homework. We are planning on going to the market Gamarra on Saturday which is a huge market with tons of items for very low prices. Of course we will be well-accompanied by our male Peruvian friends, because it´s smart to go to Gamarra with someone who knows what they are doing since it is not in the best area.

Nos vemos!
Michelle

El show de Peru Negro

Los niños en su show de teatro

Después del show


Meredith y Karen en el festival gastronómico

Nuestra familia celebrando el cumpleaños de Mari Luki

Viaje Número 2 - Trujillo

Our second weekend trip, which we took this past weekend, was off to Trujillo. Trujillo is a big city about 9 hours north of Lima by bus. It is also on the coast. Although the overnight busride on Friday was long, we all rested and were ready to go when we arrived on Saturday morning. I took the bus with Peter, Megan, and our Peruvian friend Rumi, and we met up with Jen and Meredith in Trujillo.

Instead of choosing a hostal in Trujillo, we went to the small beach town right next to Trujillo called Huanchaco. Huanchaco was a cool little surfing town with hostals, markets, restaurants, and of course, the beach. After we dropped our bags off in the hostal we walked up to see the old church on top of the hill and then returned to Trujillo to start a tour. The tour started in a restaurant for lunch, where I enjoyed a plate of ceviche and we watched a show of the dance marinera, which is the typical dance of Trujillo.

La ciudad de Huanchaco

El templo de Arco Iris

Las ruinas de Chan Chan

After we went with our tour guide to the Chimú temple called Arco Iris. We then went to see the Chimú ruins of Chan Chan, which was a city made out of adobe for the Chimú culture. The Chimú culture existed between the years 1200 and 1500, coming before and then alongside the years of the Incas. The city was really amazing, as it is fascinating to get a glimpse of what life was like in that time. That night we had dinner near the Plaza de Armas, watched a little bit of a performance for the Spring Festival, and went out to dance.

On Sunday we decided to stay in Huanchaco and try surfing! It was my first time ever trying, but it was so much fun! Our two instructors were so nice and instead of the original plan of a an hour and a half lesson, we were out there for three or four hours. Although I was pretty tired by the end of the day, I loved trying to surf and I was able to stand up on the board a few times. The waves were not too huge and were very long, which was perfect for learning. We all agreed that we definitely want to try surfing again sometime in Lima.

Con nuestros wetsuits antes de surf!

After surfing, we grabbed some dinner and headed back to the bus station to take the overnight bus back to Lima. Although the bus arrived late and I was late for class, it was definitely worth it. All in all the trip was pretty relaxing, and a fun break from normal life in Lima to see some interesting ruins and to get some sun.

Caballitos en la playa de Huanchaco

Viaje Número 1 - Huaraz

So, since I last wrote I went on a trip this past weekend to Trujillo, a city on the coast north of Lima. Before I talk about my trip to Trujillo, however, I am going to backtrack a little bit and talk about my amazing trip to Huaraz that we took two weekends ago. I traveled to Huaraz with some of the Holy Cross girls (Megan and Jen), two girls who live in my house, and another exchange student from Germany.

Huaraz is a beautiful city surrounded by nature, and it has beautiful lakes, mountains, and glaciers to visit. Since we took the bus overnight on Thursday, we got there by Friday morning. On Friday we took a bus tour so that we could let our bodies adjust to the high altitude, and we saw the beautiful cristal-blue-green Lake Llanganuko as well as the towns of Caraz, Carhuaz, and Yungay. Caraz is famous for its fresh ice creams, Carhuaz is famous for its famous caramel-like sweet manjar blanco (both of which we tried), and Yungay is the site of a horrific earthquake that launched an avalanche in the 1970´s. The avalanche killed about 22,000 people, and it was eery to be at visiting the site on September 11th.

Lago Llanganuko

On Saturday we left for a two day trek into the mountains. When we started the trek we took a taxi to the top of a hill in a small village, where all the village-people speak the native Quechua and dress in traditional clothing. We met our guide and the two other guides who would be following us with the donkeys and our cooking/camping supplies. We left for the trek and went walking through the mountains for the day. We stopped for lunch along the way next to a stream and then continued climbing up the hills getting closer and closer to the Urus Mountain. When we reached the mountain we reached two lagoons with bright green water, which were so pretty!

En camino durante el trek con los burros y el guía

La laguna urus

We set up our tents and campsite next to the first lagoon and then went walking around the other. Our guide Leodardo ended up taking some of us up the mountain so that we could get a clearer view of both lagoons. After I stopped to rest on a rock halfway up the mountain, Leanardo disappeared climbing with a few of the other girls. They ended up climbing literally to the top of the mountain, and had the most amazing views of the opposite side of the mountain range. Despite the amazing experience that some of the girls had, we were left a little skeptical of our guide´s abilities because he pushed those girls to their physical limit and left the rest of us behind, not returning until after the sun had set! Despite the interesting events of the day and the fact that some of the girls got sick during the night of camping due to altitude sickness, we managed to survive the night to wake up to a new day of trekking.

Las chicas, listas a subir

On Sunday we started out backtracking our initial path and then we started a new one until we came across a beautiful waterfall hidden in the woods, called Cascada de Agua Blanca. It was such a beautiful piece of nature and we got to climb a tree close to the water to take pictures. After a strenuous climb back to the village where we started, we were finally done our trek and were proud of ourselves for doing it! When we got back to Huaraz, we had time to relax a little and have dinner before our 8 hour bus ride home overnight. We made it back just in time for me to stop back at home before my 8am class on Monday!

La Cascada

Anyways, overall it was a really fun trip. I got a little more in tune with my adventurous nature side, and I saw some absolutely breathtaking views! I will write more soon about Trujillo, the second weekend adventure.

Hasta luego!

Divirtiendo, Trabajando, Viajando - La Vida Diaria

Wow! Time has certainly flown by since I last wrote. The week after the marathon was pretty calm, just the usual classes and activities. I really am enjoying all of my classes. Ecology is fun, and we´ve started our practicum/lab sessions where we´ve been walking around the campus observing ecosystems and birds. Photography is a lot of work, but it´s really fun and I get to strengthen my old passion for photo. I really enjoy the class Peruvian Social Reality because it is so interesting to get an analysis of the sociology of Peru along with an overview of recent history and politics. For that class, we have a group project that we will be working on throughout the year.

For the group project, my group and I chose to study the topic of commercial centers in Lima. We are going to compare two malls in two different areas of the city. One is in a nice, wealthy part of town while the other is in the middle of a fairly poor section of the city in the northern part. We went that Sunday to the northern mall to start getting ideas for the project and to start noting differences. The two malls we had to choose between in this area were very interesting because they were very fancy and had a bunch of nice stores, but as soon as you looked next to the mall you could see the hills on the ourskirts of Lima that house some of Lima´s greatest poverty.

Besides schoolwork I've been having a lot of fun in Lima as well as traveling. The weekend following the marathon was fun, and we attended a Peruvian national soccer team game and later went out to celebrate our friend Carlos's birthday. Although all of our Peruvian friends gave us trouble for wanting to go to the national team's game and assured us that they would certainly lose, Peru won for the first time in over a year! What luck we bring! We were all decked out is our Peru shirts with our "te amo Peru" headbands. Meredith, Meg, and I were also very excited when we saw our picture in the newpaper from the marathon! We were sitting in the grass stretching after the race, and our picture ended up in that week's newpaper in a section about the marathon! Señora and Dante (my Peruvian parents) joked with us that we are now famous!

Las mejores hinchas en el partido del Peru!

El partido

The following week was pretty usual in terms of school, as every week is getting a little more busy with work. Although I wasn´t feeling all that well later on in the week, we had been planning a weekend trip and I still decided to go on it. We traveled to the beautiful city of Huaraz, taking an 8-hour overnight busride north of Lima through the Andes mountains. I will write more about the trip to Huaraz in the following days and I'll make sure to post some pictures of the beautiful nature too! I will also write more later about my volunteer experience, as I have continued to volunteer in both the children's hospital on Fridays and the orphanage for children with HIV on Thursdays.

The week afer Huaraz, last week, was pretty busy with schoolwork and other activities. We spent this past weekend in Lima, and it was very fun as usual. On Saturday I spent the day in Miraflores with my friends Guillermo, my friend from school who I help with English homework sometimes, and Ana Maria, the Finish girl living in my house. I had to take two rolls of film for my photography class and I got some interesting shots of street vendors, the parks along the ocean, and of course of my two models! On Saturday night, the girls and I met up with Guillermo and some of his friends from high school to celebrate one of his friend's birthday.

On Sunday morning, Meredith and I had to wake up very early to go to La Isla San Lorenzo, a small island not far from Callao - the district just north of Lima on the coast. My Peruvian friend Karen from Photography class knew that I am taking an Ecology course here and invited me to go on the trip with her. It was a field trip for her Ecology and Communication course, and we met up with the other students and her professor. The island was so cool and we took a boat for about a half hour to get to it and then we rode around it to observe all the nature on it. It reminded me of Las Islas Ballestas in Paracas - there were seals, penguins, little caves, and tons of birds.

At first we got excited when we saw a few seals swimming nearby, but when the boat turned a corner we approached a separate island that was completely covered with seals!! I couldn't believe my eyes - there were probably about ten thousand seals all sitting on the island! The odor was pretty strong as we approached the island we could hear all of them making noises. Then, the man driving the boat asked us who wanted to jump in the water! Meredith and I were a little hesitant at first but after some enthusiastic encouraging from Karen we put on the wet suits and jumped in! We were literally swimming in the middle of the ocean in a huge colony of seals! We couldn't get too close to the seals because they get scared if humans approach aggressively, but one of them appeared right next to me out of nowhere and it was so cool to be swimming among the seals.

La colonia de los lobos!!

Karen, Meredith, y yo con nuestros wetsuits, listas a nadar!

Millones de lobos en la isla!

After our amazing trip around the islands, Karen took Meredith and I to a little outdoor food festival for lunch. Every weekend they set up a bunch of tables under tents and chefs come to cook the traditional Peruvian dishes. It was so yummy and so cheap! We each bought one plate and shared them between all of us, and in total we tried ceviche, arroz con pollo, and lomo saltado - all of which were wonderful! I was so glad that Karen was nice enough to invite us to come with her for such a fun experience visiting the island. I have been unbelievably fortunate to have met such amazingly friendly and kind people in my time here so far.

This week has been another busy one with schoolwork as well. We are going to travel for a mini-trip this weekend to a city in the northern coast of Peru called Trujillo. It is the festival of the beginning of spring this weekend, so it should be fun to see the celebration. I will leave on Friday by bus through the night and return on Sunday through the night as well. This week was a little rough for me because I got some news from home that we had to put my dog to sleep which was quite sad for me to hear. It was pretty difficult to get the news abroad, but we had been expecting it for a while since she suffered from cancer.

Well, that is all for now since I need to finish up some homework for my classes tomorrow. I will post something soon about Huaraz along with an update about my volunteer work.

Nos vemos,

Michelle

Las Clases Empiezan

Since last time I updated, I've been very busy with the start of the semester! During the week that I last updated, I went to some extra classes to try out different courses and professors before we had to officially matriculate as exchange students. The week was very interesting, and I ran into a few problems along the way! For example, I knew that Ecology was the one class I really needed to take to get credit for my major, so I was hoping that everything would go well when I tried it out. Little did I know, my professor is from Brasil and talks with a very thick portuguese accent! I could barely understand even the basics of what she was saying, and neither could the Peruvian students! To make matters worse, I ended up leaving class thinking that it was over and not realizing that we were having a 10 minute break in between the two hours of class! I realized what time it was and what had happened when it was too late to go back!

Nevertheless, I still decided to sign up for the Ecology class, because I think I will be able to work with the professor after class for extra help if I don't understand something and the other students are very helpful too. Other than Ecology, I decided to officially sign up for Photography and Peruvian Social Reality (along with the Spanish language class of course). I'm really excited, because I find all of my classes very interesting and I think I will be able to learn a lot from them.

During the first week of classes, we also went with our friends Rey and Jonna to a bar on Thursday night to see a band called Tavarra play. Jonna had grown up with all the members of the band, and they reminded me of a Peruvian version of Sublime. I absolutely loved the music! On Saturday night we went to Meg and Jen's house to meet a bunch of our friends. We had a little fiesta on the roof patio of their house, and Rey, Fernando, and Rumi gave us some brief festejo lessons. After, we all went out to dance at a discoteca. On Sunday, Meg, Meredith, and I woke up early to go for a long run along the coast to train for the half marathon. We went for a two hour run and got some beautiful views of the sea and the huge cliffs on the coast in Lima.

This past week was a very busy one! All the foreign students officially matriculated on Monday, and I got into all of the classes I needed. On Monday when I was standing outside of the classroom for Peruvian Social Reality waiting for class to begin, a boy named Guillermo approached me and started a conversation. He asked me where I was from and when he confirmed that I speak English, he told me he really needed help with his homework for English class and asked me if I could help him understand some of his readings. I sat with him for 10 minutes before my class started, and then ended up meeting with him for a few hours later that day to help him out. I figured I might as well take advantage of an opportunity to finally help someone here, since I feel like for the past two months everyone has been helping me! It was also a nice chance to make a friend, and I got to know a little more about my new friend.

Other than classes this past week, I decided to try out a few new activities. I tried out the chapel choir that sings at mass on campus at La Católica, since I sing for the chapel choir at Holy Cross. All of the kids were really nice and I really enjoyed it, but I think the rehearsals conflict with my schedule so I may not have the chance to do it. I also went to my first class of Afro-peruvian dance, which meets every Thurday evening to practice. It definitely put me out of my comfort zone, but it was so much fun to learn such a uniquely Peruvian dance! On Thursday, my new friend from Peruvian Social Reality class invited me to come play basketball with her. She plays every week on Thursdays as part of a 2-credit class, and she said it would not be a problem for her to bring a friend. It was so much fun to play, even though I haven´t really played much basketball since I graduated from High School, and I got to meet a lot of really nice girls on the team.

The other activity I started last week was my volunteer work. Every Friday from 9am to 12 I will go and volunteer at the public Children´s Hospital in Lima with Evelyn. This past Friday, Evelyn and I went for the first time and got to meet the Católica professor who runs the program Aprendo Contigo in various hospitals throughout Lima and will be there during the times we volunteer. I absolutely loved it, and I am so excited to start volunteering. The program is through the education department at La Católica, and the volunteers visit with the kids and help teach them since most of the kids cannot make it to school.

We got to meet some of the kids, and saw one wing with HIV patients and another with cronically ill patients. I met a 16-year-old girl named Leidi who has basically lost all physical use of her body and had bandages covering sores on her head. Despite her heartbreaking condition, she had the most positive attitude and was talking to me about how she likes helping foreign volunteers improve their Spanish. The maturity and positive attitude of a little girl placed with such suffering was truly enlightening for me to see. I have a feeling that I will be learning more from these children than they will be learning from me, but I do hope that I can make some sort of impact in their lives.

After the first day of volunteering, I was so happy with my preview of the kind of work I will get to do this semester. This volunteer work is exactly what I´ve been hoping to do for quite some time now. I have also been in touch with the same professor and am going to go try out a second hospital location on Thursday afternoons for children with HIV. Lima is full of opportunities to volunteer, and I am excited to get started.

Besides all my new activities, we had a pretty busy weekend as well! On Friday, the HC kids and I went to a dance performance put on by students from La Católica in a local museum. All of the student perfomers were extremelly talented and we saw typical dances from all over Peru. Rey danced in the Afro-peruvian festejo dance and Jonna sang the music for many of the mountain-region dances. They both have so much talent, and it was fun to go and cheer them on! On Saturday we had a mini fiesta in Sean and Peter´s house to celebrate Sean´s birthday.

El viernes - un baile de la sierra

Los chicos con Rey y Jonna despúes del show

On Sunday, it was the big half marathon day! We woke up at 6am to get to the center of Lima for the start of the race at 8am. Meredith, Meg, Peter, and I all ran together, along with our Peruvian friend Hugo. It was an amazing experience, and although I definitely got tired at times, we all finished the 21 kilometers/13 miles without having to stop at all along the way - and we crossed the finish line hand in hand! The weather for the race was perfect - the typical Lima weather of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit and cloudy - and the race was almost totally flat. The route went all through Lima, from downtown to Miraflores to the coastal views, and there were different bands playing music along the way to cheer us on! It was a great feeling to finish the race, and we were all so glad we got to participate.

Los corredores con éxito despúes de la media maraton

Con nuestras "hinchas" dedicadas

After resting a lot yesterday, I have to start catching up on some of my homework and readings for classes! I will write more again soon!

Nos vemos,

Michelle