meet maracuya ...and cynthia

meet cynthia: [one of my awesome friends here in Peru]

she's a really cool girl, thats really all you need to know about her. haha... we started our friendship in Intermediate 7 at SALI... her being one of my first students.. and me not being her first teacher. ha. now cynthia has passed through Advanced 2 in our program and is well on her way to graduating (SALI's program goes through Advanced 8) we became good friends outside of class as well [she witnessed my first attempt at dancing... poor thing] and we spend a good bit of time together. this lovely photo you get to view is from a photobooth experience we spent about 30 minutes in. literally... we took more photos than i would like to admit. :D although this was the night after the final exam for her... so maybe... we were celebrating? yeah, thats it.. we were celebrating. 

Also meet: maracuya 

a juicy slimy citrusy fruit here in peru that is one of bascially all fruits that get made into a juice. peruvians really know how to make their juices. usually with lunch we have some kind of fresh juice, and also on the street at most times of the day you can find someone with a juice cart making fresh squeezed orange juice. maracuya... is awesome. i think it might be one of my favorites. you open it up, scrape out the seeds into a blender with some water and sugar... blend it up... strain it out... and wa lah! youve got fresh maracuya juice. i learned this thanks to my friend maresa's ever so awesome mom who taught me how to make it. 

today is a day of fresh maracuya juice, to help kick off the week long break from SALI that we just entered.  a lot of the interns are taking trips (like one group to Macchu Picchu) but i am sticking in Trujillo for the break. and it has been quite a wonderful break so far... today gillian and i caught a bus to the beach for the morning... and it was magnificent. at first we were satisfied jumping at or in the waves.. but it wasn't long until we decided to tackle boogie boarding. which... ive never been boogie boarding before.... but... a surf shop had some to rent.. so we rented some and took ourselves out into the ocean. okay not THAT far, but farther than i usually go. and well you can call us pros now, or you know, whatever. we really had so much fun. although i learned very quickly to teach myself to shut my mouth. ...and not breathe, duh right? you can tell i dont spend too much time in water. i wish that i had had my camera this morning, but you will just have to be okay with knowing that i am sure it was quite funny for bystanders. the waves started to get a little fierce toward the end... one knocking the board from me.. water into my mouth... and the cord from the board around my neck. that was.. interesting. but really, not as bad as it sounds. ...so, anyone up for coming to visit this week? ;)

the drums the guys the voices the girls the choir

In Trujillo, our mission has three churches. I  go to the one we refer to as Larco church, a lot of our students come to this church, or if they visit a church, this is usually the one that they visit. We have a large and growing youth group that meets every Saturday night at 8... okay or later.. and we also have quite the awesome choir. Recently I started helping out with them, doing secretaryish work although I will not deny that i might prefer the name 'queen of the choir' to 'secretary' haha. I get the music together for the musicians/singers...which actually is quite the battle, trying to coordinate with those in charge and find the songs that they decide on each week. I also work with another guy in the church to put together the transparencies each week. We use transparencies for the songs each Sunday instead of books or a projector. So... you know... you can just refer to me as the queen from now on, that will suffice. ;) 

Here are some pictures from one Saturday practice... 

Our drum set, an interchanging Carlos, Benjamin, and Lenin:

Lenin, also the sound guy? Please take note of the floor, and how utterly slippery it looks... and imagine me in the background at a youth group event, my first one I might just add, flying across the floor in a very embarrassing superman pose after I fell in a game we were playing. In front of more than 20 people. ..yeah.
Josue and Dennys:
Bruno
Ivan, Elva, and Katy (Ivan usually plays the guitar, but he was helping out the girls, usually theres about.. 4-6 on Sunday mornings)


The twins, Benjamin and Josue, two of my most favorite people, ever. And yes it did and has been taking me forever to tell them apart, until I devised a trick of memorizing which one wears the silver glasses and which one wears the black ones. They are very musically gifted, and just awesome teenagers to hang out with. Conversations with them usually end up with one of us having some kind of nickname for a band or type of music.

Lastly, a photo... sorry for the quality.. of the form of transportation I usually take. We have taxis.. micros... combis... this is a micro which is basically a big bus. They run their set routes and we just hop on and off as we like for 1 sol. There are good and bad micro experiences, the crowded to the empty, the smelly to the full of fresh air, the ones that rock out to music so that you cant hear yourself thinking to the ones that are virtually silent... but one thing they all have in common is jarring and swerving enough to convince you to cling to your seat (which is why I couldnt get a clear picture). Occasionally there's a musician that will hop on the bus and play a song to see if they can make some money. Kind of like someone sitting on the street with an open guitar case. My favorite is this guy that plays this charanga (sorry if the spellings horrible..but its like a small guitar) while at the same time he plays a flute, and sings, while standing firmly planted on the bus. It's impressive. 

some sushi... some music

if i am not remembered for anything else.. i think i might be remembered as the intern that brought sushi to trujillo. right before i came to Peru some friends and i ventured into exploring how to make sushi.. and it was much more fun than we imagined. so.. i brought my skill to Peru. hehe. since i have been here we've made sushi on many different occasions, ive done it with friends in our house, and students both, ive made sushi two or three times with students. if you have found yourself out of ideas for your friday night, i highly suggest that you venture into the sushi making extravaganzaness. the best part is, it doesnt matter if your sushi falls apart or not.. good news! it still tastes the same! (yes, we've found that out by experience..) there are two sushi restaurants in trujillo, and one just recently opened up, i haven't been there yet but i have heard that it is pretty awesome so apparently i have some competition... however i am pretty sure that at the actual restaurant you cant get your hands into the seaweed rolling process, maybe that gives me an advantage. ive had mixed reviews from my students about sushi...  a lot of them start it with the mindset that it is going to be like the peruvian dish cebiche... which is well, nothing like sushi. cebiche is quite awesome, but i dont think it will ever be put in the same cook book as sushi. this past wednesday night one of my classes and i made sushi together. these are some pictures from that night... it was more fun than i can tell you, and it was a great opportunity for us to get to know each other better. especially since this is my first month with the majority of this class. i can tell, after that night, that the class seems closer and the class is more relaxed over all and they each seem like they feel freer to participate in class. im excited to see the way that evolves this month. i hope you enjoy the photos! and i hope it inspires you to try it at home yourself ;)

advanced 2: pre sushi... see the scared look on their faces? they asked me that night if i was going to show these pictures at their memorial if they didnt live after the sushi. 

little rice, little seawee, little inka cola... nothing out of the normal..
leilan dressed for the occasion ... and her sushi was quite artistic...
carlos probably blames his unclean cut rolls on the dull knife... i dont blame him... i would do the same. 

however wendy was quite the pro:
also, with the same class but in another direction...

each week our classes have a different kind of test, this week we have a listening test... and as a way of sharpening their listening skills, some of the activities we do is to listen to music. for the activity in the following picture, i take a song in English, cut up the lyrics then scatter them out and let each student put the song back together as they listen to it. the students usually enjoy it, they are learning but also having fun listening to music at the same time. usually afterward we discuss the meaning of the song, and the words within the song, and compare the music with others. this week i used the music of a friend, who just recently created an album, that is quite beautiful in all honesty, and you should check it out at well, this is the Itunes link for her music: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=306287820&s=143441

Esther, my students love your music!!!!!! (seriously you should come to Peru)

...and so's the weather

the weather here has been hot... well, not unbearably unbearable hot.. but hot enough that you sweat then you can't get rid of it all day. put on the sun screen before you walk across the street or you will come back with a sun burn. okay maybe its not that extreme.. at least for everyone. the past week or so it has been a little cooler in the evenings... but not anywhere near the weather in Cajamarca. Two weekends ago I took my first trip within Peru since I came here in August. Usually at the end of a month of classes there is an extended weekend of a break. And, usually interns take that time to travel to different places in Peru. It's very interesting that there are so many different kinds of places within the boundaries of one country. We live on the coast, but there is also the mountain region, and a jungle. When we have those breaks usually I stay in Trujillo, but a couple weekends ago two of the girls that I live with, and I went to Cajamarca. It's a town in the mountains on what should have been a six hour bus trip there (which actually took us 10). It's a smaller city than Trujillo, and soooo much more relaxed. We had a lot of fun, relaxing fun, for the weekend. We ate lots of fresh cheese and bread... manjar blanco (which... is kind of like caramel but not..) along with little cookies called rosquitas, fresh blueberry jam (on fresh bread) blueberry juice (who knew there was such a thing?) yogurt.. okay so maybe all we did was eat. maybe. haha we also traveled to Celendin one day which is a town outside of Cajamarca, it took us about five hours to travel there... we spent the day there, visited with a pastor and his family then made the five hour trip back. also, one day we went to visit the Inka baths, the Inka discovered these natural hot springs which they turned into baths, and its popular still to go there and 'take a bath' and.. thats exactly what we did. it sounds a little strange, but its very interesting, especially to see the pool of water in the middle of the grounds... that has steam rising out of it, and you notice to be a little bubbly when you get close. Later that same day we visited something like a farm right outside of Cajamarca where they have the calling of the cows. they have cows, that they have named... which answer by their names, so the guy calls the cows names and they come in to eat in the order that they are called. i don't want to knock tradition.... but it seemed a little shady. As we were watching we noticed that the cows were lining up before they were being called... so... well either the cows knew their order, and they were excited to be in the spotlight ... or well.. well either way it was just a little strange. But the weekend was really so much fun,  even the long bus trip, exploring the city, trying out the food, and visiting the towns nearby. 

This is one view of Cajamarca (unfortunately, photos don't do mountains justice):

Another view (from a top the stairs we climbed fighting the different altitude to see it...actually the design of the stairs was fun within itself) :

One of the markets that we visited, you can see the ladies with their traditional clothing, the skirts and the hat, and what looks like a bag is actually an open cloth acting like a bag that she has tied around herself. 

A church...
A church from the inside...
While in Cajamarca we found this awesome lady that had a shop of nothing but bags... okay and other items.. but mostly bags and fabrics... every kind of fabric that you can imagine. When we were looking around she offered to make us any kind of bag we wanted out of the fabric we chose... so... who can turn down that kind of offer? We picked out fabric and discussed a design and she sewed a bag in about thirty minutes right there in front of us!
Patty and Heather, in a photo war that they turned on me...
We also visited a waterfall in Cajamarca...
And the farm: hehe

these times they are a changin...

Well, for you... not for me. I forgot today that the time was changing (Peru doesn't do the daylight savings thing)... until I told a friend that I would be online to talk with her before five o'clock... so to my suprise she wasn't there at 4:15 my time. Well, a time change for you is a good enough excuse for me to give you some info from Peru. Wouldn't you say? So, mind if I inform you in two parts? Okay ;) 

part one: the students of the four o'clock conversation class.

For January and February for the hour between four and five o'clock I spent time with various students (of various ages... 14 to 40) for... conversation! In January the group was very very large, almost 15 students. It was so much fun getting to know each of them. We played a lot of conversation games, and discussed a wide variety of topics. We also experienced different kinds of food... I regret to say that I do not have pictures of the day we tried sushi.... many of them wanted to "take it home for later..." haha but we also made egg salad sandwiches together, which they loved. One day we made different kinds of cookies, actually one of the students came early to learn exactly how to make them. She is moving to the united states soon, and she didn't know how to cook! Another day we tried cocacola floats... that one... went over well with some students and not so much with others. The majority of the students loved them, but there were a few (see below) that.. well weren't fans. Either way, it was definitely fun to watch them experience foods from the united states. January and February were both a lot of fun for me. Getting to know the story of each student is like a new book, each student at a different chapter of their lives. Many of the students in those conversation classes are on their way out of Peru. One student, Alexandra, I became very good friends with, she helped me a lot with Spanish also outside of class. Alexandra moved in February to Spain where she is going to start studying medicine. There were also other students that were going back to Lima to their universities, or starting school altogether, and a couple that are moving to the united states soon. This month I am teaching a different class, but those two months were so much fun getting to know those students. 

Part of February's class:

Coke float fail:
The girls that 'tried' to improve my Spanish... hehe 
Part of January's class and Egg Salad Sandwich day:
Need there be words? ...Egg Salad... in the making: