Waaaay too long!!!

I apologize to all my friends and loved ones who are reading my blog!! I have not been as consistent as I had wished! But, I will remedy that! I am going to Machu Pichu in less than a week!! I am sooooo excited I can hardly wait! I'm staying with my friend Patrick who is also a Fulbright teacher. Yes, everyone, he is my FRIEND, no más! So I'm buying his beer for the week in exchange for free housing!! I'll also be visiting Valle Sagrado (the Sacred Valley of the Incas) and then travel on to Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru! It's called the White City; you'll have to google it to see why! I might tell you when I get back! I'm also heading to Cañon del Colca to see the Andean condor! I'm very pumped!

I am in the midst of grading what is the equivalent of our final exams. Instead of twice a year, like it is in the States, it's 4 times!! Ugh!! Not only do we have to enter our grades into the computer, we also have to recopy all of our grades into the official gradebook to give to the municipality. Talk about a waste of time! I have SEVEN classes!!!! I will survive! I have my trip to motivate me!! 10 days of travel, and in a few short months I will do my tour of South America!!

Las Brisas del Titicaca and La Punta

I'm writing about two different weekends in one post. I cannot believe I've been in Perú for 3 weeks now. In a way I feel like I've done a lot- figured out how to get around, where to buy what, making friends at school and managing 7 classes. In other ways, I feel like a bitof a loser/failure because I've been so sick I've barely traveled around Lima at all!!! I went to a club last night at LarcoMar called XSess, but it was a younger crowd and mainly for drinking. They were playing great music, so it was a waste. Then Pedro and I went to get dessert (tiramisu..mmmm) and by the time he finished telling me about his work, it was already 2 am and I was about to fall over!!! I wanted to check out Aura, another club there, but I was too exhausted to go. It is supposed to be THE place right now, and safe to go to alone as a woman. I am going to suggest it to Lita for her birthday next weekend, since she wants to dance. I'm hoping to go out with some friends from school in the next week or two to go dancing. There are some cute single guys, but I can't date another teacher! It would just be fun!

Speaking of dancing, Lita (my exchange partner's sister) took me to Las Brisas del Titicaca my first real weekend in Perú. If anyone comes to visit me, this is a place I would like to take them. It is a folkloric show that lasts about 4 hours, but in between every two dances or so, the band plays popular music and the whole floor fills up with people dancing! It was really fun! The costumes of the performers are incredible! Some of them are so intricate, and they are the truly typical outfits and dances done all over the country. I have pictures to add to this blog. I can not even begin to explain how beautiful the experience was. I just found out they have dance classes there, so maybe I can enroll. I might join a gym closeby that Elisa is familiar with that has dance classes too. She knows the owner and says he likes to organize outings for his members. I would join to meet people. There's a really nice pool not too far away that I could go to. I want to go to church here to make more connections, but I'm waiting for a response back from the church closeby that I'm interested in. They have weird times and nothing is posted, but it's within walking distance and big!

I went to La Punta today with Elisa and Rodrigo. This is a beach area in Callao not too far away from my school; I could take the bus there easily. The sun came out today so we wanted to be outside by the water! This is the 3rd time I've seen the sun since moving here.I'm lucky because most of the time it is very cloudy here this time of year! Anyway, La Punta is filled with great ceviche, seafood and picarrones places to eat! We couldn't do seafood today because Elisa is having allergy problems, but we hit a little pizza dive. It was good, but the bathroom was crazy!!! I could barely fit in there because on one side was the sink, the other side had a urinal attached (I'm still trying to figure out how the short guys here used that one because it was high!) and then the toilet in the middle. I tried to take a picture cuz I was amused, but I don't think it turned out well. Anyway, La Punta is filled with all these old colonial houses; it reminded me of Viejo San Juan in Puerto Rico. It had antique lighting and an interesting beach. It was made of rocks!!!!! Yes, I sat on a rock beach! Then we all tried to skip rocks, unsuccessfully, I might add. But the water was calm and you can go out in a rowboat to explore. The funniest thing we saw was a woman filing the claws of her giant iguana!!!! Yes, with an electric filer!! I was dying! I have a picture to prove it! It was a very relaxing day!!!

Mazamoro de Membrillo and Ciproline

I am tired of diarrhea. Yep, what a way to start a post, I know. But I got it my first week here (Thurs.), was good for a few days, and it struck again the next Monday. Now I've had it off and on for the past week and a half. I'm currently taking probiotics to get the good bacteria back into my body, to each up all the grossness! Everybody at work keeps telling me "poco a poco, Cheli" like I've eaten the universe! Okay, the first week I did go a little crazy and tried everything at once, but since then, I´ve been stickin' to the grilled or boiled chicken, potatoes and rice diet! And STILL there's a whole lotta shakin' goin' on! I miss some of the good food I tried the first week- lomo saltado, yucca frita con huancaina sauce (the bomb!!!), lucuma (it's this really rich fruit that is featured in many desserts here), and cebiche. Here they spell it with a "b" instead of a "v".

Elisa's mom (Doña Libia) is from the sierra, so they use old time remedies for stomach problems. She helped me make mazamorro de membrillo which is supposed to be soothing and nutricious. My friend Magaly took me to my HUGE grocery store Tottus to help me find the ingredients and gave me the recipe. Mazzamoro can be made of almost any fruit or starch (potatoes, yucca). It has the consistency of pudding and snot! Lol. I know, it sounds gross, but it's really good! Then she made lunch for me the next day, which was very sweet. I felt better, but it hit me again a day later. Again, I continued with my diet, but didn't have energy to do anything! Last Wednesday Doña Libia made me panatela which consists of rice and some other stuff, but it's almost soup-like. I ate that and woke up feeling terrible again. Finally, I arrived at school and said "I give up! I'm going to the doctor!" I tried to make an appointment with a specialist Kathleen had recommended, but I didn't want to wait a week. So, my friend from work, Karin, took me to Clínica San Gabriel, which is pretty close to my house. We met with a gastrologist and he was AWESOME!!!!! According to him, it didn't matter what I ate, because living in my intestines were some funky bacteria that double in population every 20 minutes!! GROSS!!!! Apparently, the only thing to kill the suckers is ciproline, and only 3 doses!! He also told me to drink something very high in potassium that I never would have guessed- regular old Coca Cola! Yep, a doctor prescribed me a two liter! I gave him a big hug, took his cell phone number and my prescription with me, and Karin and I headed out. Currently, I still do not have a huge appetite, and I think I've lost around 10 pounds, but I have some color back in my face and I can eat whatever I want. CIPROLINE ROCKS!!!!!!!!

My first week in Perú (and other stuff)

Oh my goodness! I don´t even know where to begin. I just got home, and the house is deserted and silent, thank God! I need a few minutes of solitude and quiet to myself.

It has been a rollercoaster of a week!!! I am currently living in the house/apartment of my exchange partner. His wife and son are here until the beginning of October and then the whole place is mine!!! I was originally going to stay the whole week or month at a Hostel, Mami Panchita, but it wasn´t quite up to snuff! It was ok, a little old, but then the owner started smoking AND had a cat running around!!! Two big things I´m allergic to. Not gonna happen. I considered staying at the hostel just down the street, but Elisa invited me to stay at their place so I could get used to all the ins and outs of the place, meet the neighbors, etc. So much for quiet!! They just got home! I don´t really mind, most of the time, but after my first week of school, all I want to do is sit on my butt, watch the Olympics (I still am confused about the schedule here), and veg out!!! Not with an 8 year old in the house! He´s a sweetie and well-behaved, but I need quiet sometimes. Walking into the house tonight was like a glimpse into my future. Honestly, right now it´s good because I don´t get as lonely and I think they feel the same way.

Fun observations-

When you take the bus, there is always a guy hanging out at every stop telling you the destination, and sometimes holding a sign! He sounds like an auctioneer!!!

I have some interesting neighbors- about 30 chickens, including a few roosters who NEVER SHUT UP!!! Remind me of my 6th grade students! There are also a few dogs who are worse!! Ugghh..I know I´ll get used to them; it´s only been a week!

Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way!! If you see a car coming, you´d better start runnning because they WILL plow you down! What´s another dent in a crappy car?

All doors are unlocked turning to the right and have quirk about them. It took me 10 freakin' minutes to open the door to my gate last night because it was raining and getting stuck! It was 3am so I couldn´t have Elisa buzz me in; the intercom is broken upstairs anyway. My neighbor across the street heard me and came over to help! Then he tried to kiss me!!! What the hell?? What can I say? I'm a delicacy!!! LOL!!

When in a public shopping area or grocery store, you can say excuse me all you want, but people might not move or even acknowledge you are there!! Yeah, I almost knocked down two people this week because they were pissing me off!!! I´m thinking, hello, I´m here! I know you can see me since I´m at least 6 inches taller than you and BLONDE!!!

Okay, enough of the griping. I do like it here overall, so far! I spent half the day last Saturday trying to find my friend Patrick, fellow Fulbrighter, but I messed up the name of the place and ended up eating at a pretty low end restaurant, but I got my cell phone and then I met some of Elisa's in-laws. They are super nice, and I went to the Jazz Zone in Miraflores with Pedro. He´s the oldest brother (around 47) but he's nice and owns a translation company. He is currently in Cusco working with organizations getting ready for APEC which is here in November. Quite exciting!

My thoughts are running together right now; I´m so tired from lesson planning (a whole other story there!!!). I start a trial period of teaching high school English tomorrow. If anyone i reading this, pray for me!!! I'm excited, to be quite honest, because I had a horrible time trying to manage 6th graders!! Not my forté in any way, shape or form. I guess the stress of that, the change of moving and starting a new job in a new culture, and hearing about the housing situation of my exchange partner constantly from his wife, plus al the new foods I had tried, took their toll. I missed school on Thursday from a bad case of, you know what, diarrhea!!! Woo hoo!! I had to toss out my pajamas!!!! It was awful!!! THEN everyone at school knew I was sick and kept asking me how I was doing all day!! It was very sweet but really embarrassing! The people here are very warm and love meeting Americans, especially at my school. Their big saying is, "Anything you need, the smallest little thing, ask me, I will help you." which is truly nice. Of course there are bad people everywhere, perhaps including my horny neighbor, but everyone at school and Lalo's relatives are great!!! I miss you all and hope to hear from you soon!!! I´m going to figure out skype this week, but we can also use hotmail IM. With both you can use webcam or mics so we can see and hear each other!!!

Moving and Dessert Party

I stink! I really do! I've been in TN for most of the week, and still have had no time to update my blog! I commit to do better once the dust settles upon my arrival to Peru. I have truly enjoyed being home this week. I really needed the rest after packing my apartment up so quickly. But I must say, Alexis is a beast!!!! She was a complete lifesaver when it came to organizing my mess! Not just one, but TWO, Saturday nights in a row she helped me focus my waning energy and attention on the completion of my packing extravaganza!! But let's talk about the fun stuff!

Thursday July 24th was moving day. Instead of the two hours I was quoted, it took closer to 5 1/2. Yeah, I was wiped, especially after driving downtown to the Peruvian consulate (oh yeah, I spoke Spanish the whole time there, thank you very much!), then to El Monte to meet with my accountant, and finally back down to Hollywood to finish setting up my classroom for my exchange partner, all of this, the previous day! Anyway, I was ready to celebrate with my friends that night! My dear friend Angie Lee was gracious enough to host a dessert party in my honor that evening and that was a blast! We all ordered Thai food, rehashed our island experiences in St. John, and enjoyed some amazing desserts and bubbly Martinelli's with kiss ice cubes. I must say, I felt very chic and very blessed. Some of my favorite desserts, along with my favorite gals, made the evening wonderful. There was an incredible strawberry shortcake (my fav!!!) for all of us to sink out teeth into, and Angie also picked out mini-desserts for a sampling, including tiramisu, my other fav! Alexis, Angie, Colleen, Gretchen, Deanne and I had a wonderful time. I was surprised with entertaining and useful gifts ranging from insect repellent socks to pictures of me sleeping! We had an absolute blast. I was sad to see the evening end, but very grateful to Alexis for inviting me to crash at her place until I left for Tennessee. We're both talkers so we probably didn't get as much sleep as we were accustomed to, but it was fun to have a roommate again!

Letting go...

I can't believe it!! With exactly two weeks before I leave, I feel like God is telling me to give up my apartment. Yep, complete with my cute yard!!! :( I LOVE my place, but I know He'll give me an even better place, maybe with an even bigger yard, when I come back. I planned on giving it up originally but listened to too many people (my neighbors) and tried to sublet it. When all the friends I knew who wanted it flaked and after talking with my Godly counsel, I decided yesterday to let it go. Might as well start fresh when I come back, right? Thank God my boyfriend is an expert in that field. He told me how to state everything and what laws CA has in order for me to receive most of my deposit back and to work around paying an extra month's rent. God is GOOD!!! I know He sent Lee into my life to help me with all this.

So, Sunday is moving day!!! I'm determined to sell as much as possible this week, hopefully make a grand or so!!! Keep praying for me anyone who is reading this! I feel much better after just typing it!! :)

Disclaimer

"This website is not an official U.S. Department of State website. The views and information presented are the grantee's own and do not represent the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State."

Stress!!! Stress!! Stress!!!

So I had a fabulous trip to St. John! Super-duper amazing water and beaches, very relaxing minus the bugs and the scorpions! I am now calling myself the scorpion slayer!! Anyway, I will try to post pics as soon as I figure out how! I return home and my inbox is flooded with logistical stuff for my exchange! The person who was going to take over my apartment may change his mind, and the housing I had set up for my partner hasn't quite been established!! I can't get in touch with my usually very dependable friend! Pray for me that I don't kill someone! Then, on top of that, my new "boyfriend" is going through some crisis and went into isolation mode!!! What the crap!!???

It's official!!!!!!!!

I got it!!! My official letter from the Fulbright committee! My exchange is final! I'm definitely, without a doubt, teaching in Lima, Peru in August!!!! Wahoooooo! I'm booking my flight for my training in Washington, D.C. tomorrow. I've never been there either so I'm pretty pumped about that, too! I'm going to fly home to Tennessee for a few days as my layover from L.A. to D.C., head to the capital, and from there, on August 8, I will fly to Lima, Peru, my home for the next year!

Only the beginning...

I just started this blog to chronicle all my adventures leading up to and in Peru! Bear with me; school's not out yet!!!!