From Minnesota to Peru (and back again)

Nobody told me to do it but I've decided to do this blog. Not sure how I feel about it. I like to give the minute details of my day sometimes and that's impossible in email, so maybe I can do that here. I have a little of my grandfather in me, I like to tell stories. This is a good way to tell lots of my stories from in Peru. This is not as fun as telling them face to face but it will have to do. It may not be just restricted to Peru either. It will be restricted to Peru and the Gophers. The Gophers may make me jump around (eat it Kohl center) or they may make me frustrated (NW really and Penn State?), in which case I'll be looking for comments from people who watched a particular game. I do not promise perfect grammar (maybe I'll send each post to you first J?) but luckily I can't mispronounce words because it is not a video log.

Onto this story, I decided to come down to Peru to volunteer on a water distribution project. This project is tied in with an orphanage that is near the city of Trujillo. So far I'm really glad I'm doing this. I am lucky that I didn't think about how hard it would be to leave my two new nephews, their mothers and fathers, my mother, and the rest of my family and friends or else I would have stayed probably. It was tough to leave. The work has been very rewarding and challenging so far. Obviously, the fact that I don't know Spanish makes it even more challenging. I soon hope to be typing some of this in Spanish.

I've been here over a month now so I'll give a quick recap of the exciting events in number style followed by a way to long post of the volunteers weekend in Peru:
(1) I don't know the language very well but the locals still ask me questions and I tend to be agreeable even if I don't know the details of the question. No more! Although this isn't that bad but I apparently agreed to buy shoes as a price for a festival in the small community which may include me being featured as well in the festival.
(2) I made a local friend. This 16 year old kid worked with us for the first week and enjoyed learning English words from me and teaching me Spanish words. At the end of the week he gave me a necklace and a note in his best English telling me we were BFFs. Okay maybe BFFs is a little advanced for a Spanish speaking 16 year old but you get the idea.
(3) Went surfing in Huanchacho. Even got up a few times and my nipples made it through unscathed (wet suits are good for that).
(4) Some of the kids are excited about my beard. Although their love is fickle. There are a few days when I have to go around the table 4 or 5 times letting them rub their cheeks against the beard so they can act like it hurts. Then there are days where they act like the beard isn't even there.
(5) I wouldn't say that I've solved any major problems so far with the water project. Just basic stuff but I think I have added some value with ideas which I hope will prevent any future problems.
(6) Este fin de semana en Cajamarca fue muy divertido. It was awesome.

We left on Friday night at 10 pm and took a bus that normally would take 6 hours but was expected to take 8 and ended up taking 10.5 hours which is unusual for this bus company. Being back in green and cooler temperatures was an immediate joy. It was 50 to low 70s the whole time we were there. It was the beginning of Carnaval this weekend, the celebration for the beginning of lent. 4 of us checked into a hotel while the others stayed at a church with people they knew. We went to some hot springs and I envisioned the ones that we went into near Arenal. Not quite as nice but they still had the ancient baths (it was called Los banos del Inca and was there baths for their kings) that looked quite nice. Back in the Plaza de Armas, the barrage of water balloons started. The entire weekend, water balloons were flying from balconies, from the back of trucks, through the windows of cars, and from pedestrians on the street. They enjoyed hitting the gringos but it was all a part of their celebration. We walked up to a church that sits on top of a hill in the middle of the city. They had some traditional dancing going on by young girls. They then invited the public to join. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't the first in line. I sat down at the bottom of some stairs and one of the little dancers started pointing at me and whispering something to her father. She came over and asked me to dance, at least I assume that because we danced but who knows it was loud and it was in Espanol. My roommate Anthony took a long video of me dancing with this girl and you can see another volunteer, Sarah, get dragged out to dance as well. Then Anthony got dragged out, so it was three gringos and three ninos. Then I got passed around and was given some shoulder decoration to wear. It was awesome, really awesome. Like I can't describe how fun it was, the dancing combined with the view combined with something called awesome. Then a couple of kids wanted to give us a tour of the rest of the hill which had some history to it as well; it was a sacrificial spot according to these two boys who are in the pictures as well. Dinner with all the volunteers and saw some more dancing in the plaza. Oh and I tried guinea pig at lunch, for the first time ever I had to get over the thought of what I was eating and try to enjoy it because it tasted just fine actually.

Up early on Sunday to do some hiking which turned out to be walking which made it better. We went out of town to the ventanillas de Otuzco which were some burial spots dug into a rocky hillside. We (Sarah, Anthony, and I) got there well before the spot opened so we walked around the countryside for a few hours. We met multiple locals, saw great scenery, and had a little kid try to hide behind a giant aloe plant to sneak attack us with a water balloon. We stopped in a place where a woman was sewing skirts that Sarah was interested in. We ended up chatting with the family (by we I mean Anthony and Sarah and I smiled a nodded and said a few words) for 30 minutes while the woman fixed the skirt. Plus they sold us water balloons so we would have ammo back in the city which they let us fill up in their home. We kept walking and ran into some guys who may or may not have still been drunk from the night before. They were sitting in a circle with a guitar and a violin and empty beer bottles, singing. We joined in (maybe not the best idea but we were feeling friendly), shared some food and song. We got back to the ventanillas, looked at them and had some more kids want to talk to us. We shared some food with them and they shared some of the fresh wild raspberries that were growing right there. They were delicious. We went back into the city to see all of the beautiful churches and the markets. This was the best afternoon to be there if you wanted to be hit with multiple water balloons and buckets of water. They enjoyed hitting Sarah the most it seemed like. We were also getting a lot more looks than normal because Sarah was wearing her traditional skirt and the locals loved it. I bet she got 50 "muy bonita", and "hermosa" comments throughout the afternoon. So we got soaked, went through the markets, and bought a massive amount of cheese because Cajamarca makes delicious cheese. We got some wine and bread to go with that and went back to the plaza where I made my first friend on my own in the city. A group of teenagers were standing in a circle singing and banging on a drum. They invited me in and handed me some of their coke/alcohol mixture and talked to me in their best English. That was my personal success of the weekend. I'm guessing the beard helped. We had our wine, cheese, and bread and watched more water fights and listened to more chanting ("We sing in English/ because there are Gringos"). Had a delicious lamb meal and got back on the bus at 10 and made it back in time for work this morning.

It was just an overall fantastic weekend. We met lots of friendly people. I mean, you can't go wrong when dancing and cheese are combined in the same weekend.

I hope there were enough side bits in there to break up the monotony of the list structure.

Longest first blog ever.