day 121: a bday and huanchaco

Howdy everyone!

So yesterday was Britt's birthday! She's a 17er and absolutely amazing :) Yesterday, I went to her site to go visit her and do a bit of celebrating. I was just super lucky that day! To get to her site, I have to take a bus to Trujillo. However, about halfway there, I need to get off the bus and travel by car. I get off the bus, call Britt who tells me to take one of the cars there directly, only to chat with some of the people and find that there are no cars going directly there because today is a Peruvian holiday. I get into a colectivo to go to another place, and got to chatting with an older gentleman sitting next to me. We talked about the Perú/Paraguay game from yesterday (Perú won! 2-0! woo!) and discussed how insane the Perú/Chile game this coming Tuesday will be (there's a bit of bad blood between Chile and Perú, what with that war and all...). As I got off the car, the grandpa paid for my trip and told me that he really enjoyed talking. I was super thankful, of course, but had to leave and find a car to get to Britt's site! I ask the driver where to go and he points me in a direction. I follow, only to get lost because we're at a paradero or bus stop, and there are at least 25 cars just sitting around. I ask one of the men around where to go and a whole bunch of them point to 3 cars and tell me to take one. I'm ushered into and sit next to 2 women, who I get to talking to. The woman sitting next to me tells me that she knows Britt! "Ah, sí, sí! La gringita! siempre está corriendo!" After a few minutes, lady gets off and I get to talking to the other lady who tells me that she's from Cajamarca, and then leaves me with her name and number, telling me that I simply must visit the department because it's so beautiful and when I do, I should know that she can help me with anything that I need. Are people fantastic or what? Anyway, I meet up with Britt, get a tour of her site (which is super sunny and cool) and then we head to her place for the party! It was tons of fun- we danced, had some drinks, a lot of food, fun and CAKE!

birthday girl knows whats gonna happen next...

BOOM! cake in the faaaace!

such a good sport :)

Yea, so one of the many traditions that exists here is to have the birthday girl or boy take a bite out of their cake. The only reason for this, however, is to shove either his/her head into the cake or the cake into him/her. 

It makes me part worried, part excited for when I celebrate my birthday here.

But the party was great! I had to leave early, sadly, to go back to my site and work with my youth group! My little ones learned about South America and North America that day, and we practiced a bit on how to draw using the quadrant method. There is definitely problems with this youth groups, specifically that they are just all very, very young and their attention spans cannot process anything for longer than 5 minutes. It's not just the age, though. A lot of these kids grow up around constant distractions in the homes and out. They watch television that is rarely intellectual, but action packed - more explosion than story, super dramatic - the kind where they legit do the closeup of someone's eyes than someone else's eyes then back to that person's eyes and so forth, and basically, crap. Well, IMHO. Plus, a lot of the girls are at that age where they're on the top of the pecking order of their schools, like being in 8th grade in middle school. They have a very elevated sense of themselves and are more interested in doing what they believe is chévere or cool, like listening to popular music or gossiping. BLURGHHHHHHHHHHH so I'm gonna have to work around that. Still, there are about 3 or 4 kids in this group who are actually interested in learning, so I'm doing this for them mostly. They're my favorites (shhhh don't tell the others) and I'm going to try my best, for them.

After that, I got on a bus and headed to Trujillo! October 8th is the Battle of Angamos, which I'm not exactly sure what that is, but it's a holiday here and if it's a holiday for Perú, it's a holiday for me too! I went to continue the celebrations in Huanchaco, which is located just a few minutes drive from Trujillo. When I was on the bus, I got a phone call telling me to get off at Monciche, or something like that. Now, I'm thinking to myself... what? where? how? I'm separated from the bus driver and there's no worker on the bus (I was on the second level). Turns out, the woman sitting next to me is going to the same place! She's the only person on the entire second level going to Monciche (or whatever) and I happened to sit directly next to her.

Awesome.

So I get off, thank the lady, and I met up with some volunteers, we ate and hung out all night and it was just really, really nice. I didn't realize how much my brain needed a break. I think the idea of being a representative of the US to everyone at my site, 24/7, really takes a strain that I just didn't realize until I'm away from it and find myself relaxing.

Anyway, we woke up this morning, had a great breakfast, checked out of the hostal, chilled out at Starbucks and I left to go to my site. The same thing- I was on this bus and wanted to get off at San Pedro, but couldn't remember exactly when we'd be there. Turns out the lady I was sitting next to was ALSO going to San Pedro and again, she was the only one on the entire bus! How does that happen the two times I'm on a bus?? It's insane and just makes me feel even luckier than I already am! We get off the bus, and I walked back to my site with her. We talked about my work here and I explained what I was doing, she takes me to where she works and tells me to visit anytime, and I go home.

Now I'm sitting in front of my computer, exhausted, and thinking of how to prepare for my tutoría class tomorrow. Week one of this class is going to be dedicated to developing confianza or trust between the students and between the students/teacher. It'll hopefully be a lot of fun, and I think we're going to be doing things like trust falls and the like. I'm not too sure yet, so I'm gonna go prepare that. Anyway, thanks for reading and hopefully I'll make these more interesting. Yea, it's kind of text-heavy but... ah well. It is what it is!

Love and Peace.



edit: I just found out one of the La Libertad 17ers is heading back to the states due to personal events :((( I am super unhappy right now... You don't know this person, but please send good thoughts and prayers of support? Being a volunteer can be tough, but I think having to leave because of things that are out of your control... well, that just sucks... Good luck, my new and dear friend. Volunteers, especially 17ers and La Libertadians (What do we call ourselves?), are like family to me, and like family- I'll always be there for you. Best of luck <3