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 :)