All The Miles

"I looked to my right and took this last picture of the trip--
a beautiful way to end a beautiful experience."

-Quote from July 4, 2009 post

As I sit here reflecting on the miles I have traveled this year, I am reminded of my fortuitous birth. Simply by being born to two wonderful parents in Austin, Texas rather than in a place like, say, Ayacucho, Peru or San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, I was given opportunities that millions of people will never see. I am lucky. I am so very lucky. Not that I, nor my parents, have not worked hard for what we have, but simply by location of birth, I was given a lot.

However, also as a result of my birth, and perhaps as equally fortuitous, I am charged with responsibilities to these less fortunate people.

Shortly after returning to the United States, I was wondering to myself how I could best address these vast needs. As if on some cosmic cue, I received a phone call from a friend of 16 years, Pat. Another friend we had grown up with started a foundation to help promote education in Latin America and they wanted me to be a part of it! Noah set up the Rockway Foundation to raise funds, create programs, and sponsor projects based on mutual interest and mutual respect for education. What a perfect project for me to be involved in! It has been fun to work with them and I am looking forward to seeing the foundation grow.

I also reflect on the warm people and wonderful experiences I had in Peru this last summer. I think about the Cross Cultural Solutions Ayacucho staff. Marisol and Pancho. Rudy, Paulina and Alejandro. I think about the women and children in the prison I visited every Friday. What about the girls of Mercedes school? I wonder too, if they ever think of me. It doesn't really matter though. While I was trying to do good for them, mostly, they did good for me...without even know it.

All The Miles, Django Walker

4th of July

Somehow I was actually able to sleep late on my last day here. I made it all the way to 8:30 am, which is a full hour longer than I have been able to sleep all the days I have been here. I can't believe today is my last day here. I was catching a flight back to Lima at 5:00 pm, so I had much of the day to pack and celebrate the 4th of July.

I ate my favorite breakfast one last time (honey cornflakes and then a bowl of coconut yogurt) and then updated the blog a little. I picked up one last thing from the sandal lady at the prison market and made the mistake of wearing a tank top and shorts out of the house. I had packed everything else, so I had no choice. I got some loud yells and immediately regretted my outfit decision. Oh well, made it back to the house safely.

At about 10:30 am, it was time to start getting ready for the 4th of July cookout. We had asked Paulina, the cook, to get all the necessary food to properly celebrate the 4th. Hamburgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, watermelon, and potato chips...all with a Peruvian flare of course. The corn was choclo, which has huge kernels. The hamburg meat was fried in little patties, like they fry everything else. The hot dogs were more of a reddish sausage and the potato chips were homemade. It was as good of 4th of July meal anywhere! We were excited.

Pictures-Frank cooking the hot dogs, no, not on a grill (none to be found),but fried in a pan. Elizabeth in charge of boiling the choclo. My favorite homemade potato chips being fried. Some gals getting ready to eat lunch right before I made everyone sing the "Star-Spangled Banner."

As Frank, Elizabeth and I "helped" Paulina get everything ready, we tried to fry some bananas. I say "helped" because it soon turned into us trying to fry anything we could find while she continued to work hard cooking. We decided to make it a real American (pronounced Uuh-muur-ii-cun) celebration and fry everything. I even got inspiration from the Texas State Fair and decided we should fry a candy bar. Sublime was the candy bar of choice, as it provided the Peruvian flare we needed (a popular candy bar here that is a chocolate bar with peanuts in it). We experimented with battering it and putting it in the pan of hot oil to fry. Somehow, it worked. Not the most beautiful presentation ever, but delicious none the less.

As we were sitting down to dine on the great American meal, the fireworks tower arrived. Amy and Danielle had gone to pick up the 7 foot tower that Frank had ordered for the celebration they would have tonight. It was so large that it would not fit in the front door, so we had to figure out another solution for keeping it safe until tonight. Thus, the sheet rope idea was born. In true old summer camp movie style, Amy and Frank tied a bunch of sheets together to make a rope to hoist the tower up off the ground (see above). On the ground, Danielle tied the "rope" to the tower and on the roof Frank and Amy pulled the end of the rope to hoist spinning tower of firework fun off the ground. I took pictures and laughed the whole time. It actually worked though. Feeling quite proud of the solution, we went back inside and ate our marvelous meal.

I enjoyed my last few hours of Peru by basking in the warm sun on the roof and reading, like I had done so many times before. Finally, I gathered my things and said my goodbyes. I tried to pretend I was just walking out of the room soon to return, but knew that I probably would never see these great people ever again. Instead of dwelling on that, I focused on the amazing experience we had shared.

Alejandro drove me to the airport and I enjoyed speaking my last conversation in Spanish (for a while anyway). Alejandro asked me about my past travels and if I would be coming back to Peru. He is interested in learning about and seeing the world, but confessed that he probably would never have the money to make the travels that he wanted. We arrived at the airport and he chatted with me as I waited for my flight. Near the end of our conversation, he told me my Spanish has improved over my stay here and that I am speaking much more. I smiled and felt proud as he unknowingly told me I had accomplished one of my goals for this trip.

He departed and I went through security to wait at one of the two gates in the Ayacucho airport. I silently basked in a sense of pride and accomplishment as I waited to board.

Soon the woman who checked me in (who was also the gate agent and the ground crew) came in rapidly speaking Spanish, clearly asking us something important. I quickly snapped out of my new found pride for my Spanish skills, as I didn't understand one word she had said, and looked at the closest person to me and pitifully said, "no entiendo." My neighbor explained to me that because of the temperature the plane won't be able to carry all of the weight, so we have to leave the bags here....Ugh, what?

This was going to be a problem for two reasons:
1)I am leaving the country tonight, so that was not OK.(No problem, turns out we can bring my one bag.)
2)I am not sure I want to put my body on a tiny plane that can't carry our bags too. (Oh well, I am sure these other people don't want to die either, so I guess I'll go for it)

Pictures-My view inside the plane (notice:one seat on either side of aisle, no overhead bins, and shadow of captain on the curtain.) View of my seat. There was a cute little snack box waiting for us in our seats with a sandwich and a juice box (no in-flight service on this one). Also,as a result of no overhead bins, my carry on is under my feet, so that explains the smushed, cross-legged position. My view out of the plane looking to the left.

I enjoyed the beautiful flight and reflecting on my last five and a half weeks. What an experience! No words can describe all I got from this once and a life time adventure.

I looked to my right and took this last picture of the trip--
a beautiful way to end a beautiful experience.

4th of July, Shooter Jennings

Adios Days

Tomorrow I will have to say "adios" to my days Peru, so I tried to soak up all that I could today. For placement this morning, I went to the prison again to take the kids to the plaza. This has become a favorite thing here. This is the front of the prison.This is me and Milagros (they call her Chinita). The kids were as cute as ever. We were supposed to watch a parade to celebrate the university's anniversary, but they must have been running on Peruvian time because it never did happen the whole time we were waiting in the plaza.

Lunch was another good meal made by Paulina. Afterward, I walked into town with Brittney and Jenna and we took a few last minute pictures....the main streets we always walk on, the bakery that makes beautiful cakes, the pedestrian walkway we always go on, our favorite ice cream store, the favorite ice cream cones (zambitos-chocolate cover ice cream cones that are pre-made so it is always a surprise what flavor you will get--which is part of the excitement).

We continued on around to the plaza and I waved adios. As we walked passed one of the colonial mansions, we noticed a big celebration going on in its courtyard...so we stepped right in. Passed the nicely dress Peruvians, still carrying our ice cream cones, we emerged to the courtyard and saw several men and women dressed in bright traditional outfits performing a traditional dance. Lining the courtyard were rows, and rows of chairs filled with important and dignified looking people. The onlookers were wearing suits and the ones in the front row had some sort of medals tied with wide pretty ribbon. I wondered who they were??

We watched the dancers and noticed their "dance" looked more like the men assaulting the women than it did any type of dance I had ever seen. The dancers moved to the music. The men sauntered up to the women and pick them up to carry them away while others would be rolling around with each other on the ground. The women would playfully hit the men with their scarfs to "try" to keep them away. It was quite interesting. Kiley and I saw a "dance" like this when we were in Puno and thought the dancers were just goofing off. Turns out, I actually read about this traditional "dance" in a book about the region and confirmed that it was actually legitimate.

More Ayacucho to soak up, so on to my new favorite bakery, the one we visited on Tuesday with Pancho. I wanted to get another fresh chapla still warm from the oven. When we arrived at the bakery, there were two guys working quickly baking the chapla. However, they would not sell us any. They wouldn't even sell a cute old Peruvian woman any. I'm not sure what what going on, but we decided to head to another bakery. It was interesting though to watch them slide the raw dough into the big oven, then watch it bake quickly and rise, and then see the guy (above) slide them out of the oven into huge baskets.

Next bakery, I got some delicious sweet bread with cinnamon and sugar on top. I just discovered this bread this week, which is probably good because I really could have eaten a lot of it.

One last stop at the old prison market for a final look around at all of the handmade goods. This market was once a prison, but now each cell has been converted into a little stand for each merchant to have a place to sell their goods. We frequent this venue. I got some great custom made sandals and moccasins from a woman who works here. I also got some beautiful alabaster dishes. This stone seems to be abundant here because there are many stalls that sell all sorts of alabaster things. Various textiles also made their way into my possession.

For dinner tonight, I went out to eat at a nice (well, by Ayacucho standards for sure) restaurant named Nino to celebrate the last night here (this was really only the 3rd time I had been out to eat in Ayacucho). Logan, Amy, Sope, Danielle, Jenna, Frank and I dined on a balcony table and I enjoyed the last supper...I'll have in Peru. I had a big plate of papas fritas and an avocado salad. They have the best avocados here! I tried a bite of Jenna's llama steak. It was quite tasty. Like mild beef I guess and pretty lean. I tried a bite of Frank's cow heart kabobs and they were shockingly good (though I just didn't think about what it was I was eating). (Really sounding like the "vegetarian" that I am tonight, huh!) I made everyone go around the table saying there favorite and least favorite moments of the trip. We sat there talking for a long time.

After dinner we came back to the house and got excited to play Catch Phrase. Charades was such a hit earlier this week, we decided the games must go on. This is one of my favorite games, as it was a lot of peoples, but we didn't actually have the game at the house. Instead, being the smart people that we are, we made our own game of Catch Phrase. Everyone had been working throughout the day to write down little phrases or random words on little white pieces of paper. The object of the game is to get your teammates to guess what is on the paper by giving them any kind of clues you want (besides saying rhymes with or starts with, or the word in a different language..etc). We passed the little jar of papers around the circle, alternating teams, and the team left with the jar when the buzzer (Elizabeth's watch timer set to count down different lengths of time) went off, lost that round. The other team would receive a point. We had another fun night of screaming, laughing, panicking competition. By the end, all of us were exhausted and ready to go to bed.

Can't believe I leave tomorrow! How the time has flown!

Adios Days, Pat Green

Take Me Out to the Dancehall

Today started out like any other. Woke up. Ate my delicious breakfast (honey cornflakes called Gold). Went to placement at Mercedes School. I spoke with the assistant director of the school for over an hour about educational theories. He wanted to know my opinions and it was slightly difficult to express them in Spanish. But I tried.

I got a marriage proposal, ugh, rather plea, from an old Peruvian man. Ugh. He told me I wasn't too young (that was fine with him, I guessed probably even preferable). However, I insisted that it was NOT OK with me. Ugh. Then, I walked away. Luckily, Alejandro came early to pick us up today.

Lunch and some laying out. Spanish lessons--last one of the trip. Took pictures with Gustavo, the teacher. Dinner, a new one and my favorite one of the trip. It was a traditional Peruvian dish. Papas Rellenas-Mashed potatoes are formed in a ball about the size of a regular potato around marinated meat, part of a boiled egg, and an olive (I picked that little guy out though). Then, the whole thing is lightly fried (not breaded, but still fried). Scrumptious!

After dinner the real adventures began! There were 9 of us--8 girls and 1 Frank. Being the one guy, he became the bodyguard/"keeper" (as one Peruvian man later told him) of our group. He lived up to the title well. We set out for one of the two bars we've been to, the one we call Tortellini's (certainly not the name, but something with a T that sounds long like that...I never actually know the names of the places we go here, just how to walk there).

As we walked down the street, we heard loud music and soon ran into a parade! The street was filled with college-aged Peruvians and they were celebrating the University's anniversary. We ran down the street to catch up and I broke into one of the circles of people running down the street. Holding hands with a young Peruvian guy on my left and a Peruvian girl on my right, I ran and followed the line down the street. Our line snaked down the street and I saw the other girls I was with later down the line. As I danced around, I passed other familiar American faces and saw that everyone from our group had joined the celebration. We were running, yelling, laughing, smiling and holding on tight to the hands next to us. Another line wound around and danced by us and I saw three more faces from our group flash by. They were having a blast too. We ran like this for several minutes and I thought about how this was one of the most fun moments I have had on the trip. I tried to keep my eyes on the people in my group and felt safe if we were all together. Soon we became out of breath and decided to break out of the crowd and continue on our way. We broke out of our lines, yelled a thanks and gave a wave. The Peruvians waved and smiled back. I think they were happy to have us as part of their celebration.

Our group of gringos pushed our way down the crowded street. There were hundreds of young Peruvians filling the street, more there than I had ever seen in one place. The majority guys. We received more whistling and yelling in these next few moments than we had the whole trip combined. We raised our arms up and cheered back.

The street proved too crowded to make it all the way to Tortellini's, so we stopped at the much closer other favorite, Black Magic Tavern. The bartender, that Frank knows well by now, gave us a last night of the trip celebratory drink. We talked in the back room of the bar that had long wooden tables, big flat baskets covering the ceiling, and warm yellow walls. We got a little loud, as big groups of Americans tend to do, and had a great time.

Next stop, the new hottest dance club in all of Ayacucho--"Killa." It would be a 4 sol (about $1.30) taxi ride up to the top of the city....you know that is far away because taxi rides here are usually about 1 or 2 soles. We piled into two different taxis and proceed to wait it traffic from the parade for a least 10 minutes. Honking, somehow, didn't help the traffic move faster, though all the taxi drivers thought it would.

Finally, our taxi sped up the hill into a darker, quieter neighborhood. We pulled up to a dark, huge two-story warehouse looking building. Frank informed us this was it. Clearly, it was not open. Amy poked her head out of the other taxi (that had somehow arrived before us though left after us) and yelled, "it's not open" as their cab realized the same thing we did. All of our faces slowly went from a smile to a frown of disappointment. We sat in quiet shock for a minute, not really expecting this, so not sure what to do. It was only a minute though, and a new plan was made. Frank asked the taxi driver and he confirmed that "Killa" was closed on Thursdays. "Why didn't you tell us that before you took us here??!," was of course Frank's next question. Supposedly, it is sometimes open on Thursday, but not today...duh.

Our taxi coasted back down the dark hill and we decided to go to the next best club-"Hot." (yes, it is called "Hot," not "Caliente") Prior to tonight, I had walked by this place and decided I probably never wanted to go there, but since this was a night for celebration-why not! The taxi driver told us a much too high fee for the drive (like many prices people here tell gringos--I call it the gringo surcharge), so we quickly gave him a more appropriate amount and got out of the car. That was fine with him.

When we arrived at "Hot," Frank bribed the guy at the door with a group of gringas, and we got to cut the long line. We paid our 3 sol ($1) cover charge (they have cover charges here?) and walked inside. Oh, wow, it was an experience. The room was dark and the music was loud (just like any other club). I didn't recognize any of the songs, but the base was turned up so high you could feel the beat in your chest. There was a green and red laser light show flashing on the crowd. Little circles of light would shine on us and then break apart in to hundreds more little lights. There were also, of course, some flashing white strobe lights.

The real shocker was the smell. It was utterly overpowering and unlike anything I have smelled before. It was sort of a stale combination of old sweat and rotten parmesan cheese. Eww. I crinkled my nose. Didn't help. Sope had to cover her nose with my green scarf as we walked. We pushed our way through the crown of dancing Peruvians to the second floor balcony that lined and overlooked the whole first floor. Somehow we were able to go to the DJ booth/VIP area on a balcony above the main dance floor. It was a great perch from which to watch the crowd. We danced and had a ball.

Soon, it was getting close to 11:00pm--curfew at the house. So Elizabeth, Sope, Sarah, Bri and I walked back to the home laughing about the fun time we had. Amy, Danielle, Frank and Jenna stayed to have more adventures which we would hear about the next day.

Check Peruvian nightclub off my list of things to do in my life!

Take Me Out to the Dancehall, Pat Green

We went to a Peruvian dance club-whoa!

Who's to Say

Happy Canada Day! Turns out today is a very important holiday for our Northern neighbors. I learned about this holiday from the several Canadians in the house, one being my roommate. I coincidentally put on a red shirt this morning and Amy told me that it was great that I was wearing red for Canada Day. Exactly why I had planned to wear it. I made all the Canadians sing their national anthem at breakfast. Oh Canada!

I found this map online showing Ayacucho and thought it would be great to show where I actually am in Peru.

School today was great. Logan and I planned a game of Jeopardy to help the older classes review some English topics they have studied. Fruits, Vegetables, Adjectives (and adverbs), Important Questions, and Forms of To Be were the categories. This was a new game for the students and teacher and they actually understood my Spanish directions! The girls liked it and we all had a lot of fun playing.

This afternoon we visited the traditional medicine garden at the university. Traditional medicine is a class and topic that nursing students at the university must take. Because most people here visit a traditional healer before they seek modern medical attention, the nursing students must learn about these beliefs. We walked around to the back of the nursing school building to the small garden. Each plant was labeled with a big white sign. Marisol, our volunteer placement director, showed us around and told us about the different plants.

She told us how her mother used to put these trumpet shaped white flowers under her pillow when she was a kid to help her sleep better. She said it worked very well. Marisol pointed out several different plants that help with cramps. Apparently, there are lots of plants that help with various women problems. She mushed up some leaves from a tree and told us how it is natural bug repellent. Marisol is allergic to repellent with DEET so she has to use these leaves. Some girls tried it and we could smell it from several feet away. We saw a eucalyptus tree, some oregano, rosemary, prickly pear cactus and many other plants I didn't recognize. It was quite interesting. Marisol said it was important to know how to use these various plants because if prepared incorrectly, then some can be poisonous or hallucinogenic. Yikes!

After the garden, me and 4 fun girls who are in college went to aerobics again. Different instructor this time. Not quite as exciting as Monday (see that entry if not already!), but still a good workout. After dinner, we were out of movies to watch and were all eager to do something, so we started a game a charades. Yes, we played charades. So fun! The first round we played acting out movies and TV shows. One team was considerably better than the other. My team was on the losing end (despite my extreme enthusiasm and Amy's tremendous charades skills).

The next round we switched up the teams to make is somewhat fair. There were about 10 people playing and we each got two small pieces of white paper and had to write names of different people on them. We wrote famous people as well as people we know in the house. Each round each team got 30 seconds to get their teammates to guess as many names as possible. The first round you could talk and say whatever you want (except the name, obviously). We got quite into it. As soon as someone on your team guessed the name, the person giving the clues would throw down that paper and scramble to open a new one. It was intense.

The next round we put the same names back in the jar and when we drew the little papers we couldn't talk and only do charades to get our teammates to guess. It was hilarious. By the third and final round you could only do one motion. This was even more funny. The names had been repeated each round so we were able to guess what our teammates were acting out surprisingly quickly. We were screaming the names and laughing so hard. It was a very fun night!

Who's to Say, Pat Green

Let Me

..have some more of this delicious bread!"

This afternoon we visited a bakery where they make the traditional bread from this region called chapla. The bread is round with about a 6-inch diameter. It is about 4 inches high and hollow. It is light tan with darker brown on the top and is a tougher, crusty bread. We have this bread in baskets every morning for breakfast.

The walkway to the bakery was lined with huge piles of firewood for the oven. We saw the three- hundred-year-old wood-burning oven and huge baskets filled with the big rolls. The biggest baskets I have ever seen. We are talking round baskets with a diameter as big as my arms spread wide. There was a little old man in charge of the money and a young woman in charge of filling the orders. We walked passed the giant oven to the back room where four Peruvian men were rolling out balls of dough. The mint green colored room had stacks (piled higher than my head) of huge bags of flour. I started craving fresh bread when I smelled the great smell of baking bread.

.

After hearing about the process of making the bread, I treated the group to fresh baked chapla. One nuevo sol (30 cents) for 5 big rolls. Great price. We all savored the flavor of the warm bread and agreed that this was a good outing.

Let Me, Pat Green

Here We Go

Today is another holiday in Peru. I think it is the Pope's Day, so we are not going to placement.

Funny side note story--When Logan and I were talking to a teacher about this on Friday, she told us it was "Dia del Papa." We asked her about Fathers' Day, but then we realized that had already passed. Then, we asked her if it was the "Day of the Potato" (because papa means potato too)...thinking that there are a lot of potatoes in Peru, so it could be possible. She said no. Finally, Logan remembered that Papa also means Pope. When we realized what had happened, we all laughed really hard.

Anyway, it was nice to eat breakfast slowly and enjoy a second cup of tea. I spoke with Ann, a woman who is from Scotland but lives in California and is in the importing and exporting business. I discussed the business opportunity for exporting my new favorite chocolate treats from Peru to the States. She helped Elizabeth and me formulate our plan of attack.

We headed down to the plaza about 10 am to watch a procession. We weren't exactly sure what kind, but assumed it was something religious to do with Pope's Day. Upon our arrival to the little plaza closest to our house, there were no signs of a procession. Thus, we decided on a trip further into town to the big plaza. I wanted to stock up on Kiwilocos (my new favorite chocolate treat), so we went to the grocery store. I bought 10 packs, and would have bought more but didn't want to clean the store out.

The doors of the big cathedral were open, which I have yet to see in all of my trips to the plaza, so I insisted we go in. The pews were filled with students in their school uniforms which look slightly military-esque. Lining the full pews were students standing holding various school flags. There were hundreds of small triangular flags around the nave. The priest was speaking in Spanish and we quietly walked around to the right side of the church. I looked at the huge gold altars to various saints along the wall. Two women were praying and pleading in front of one of the saints. I wondered what was happening in their lives. We stood respectfully for a few minutes and looked around at the cathedral and the ceremony. After we were satisfied, we walked back to the small plaza. I was happy to have finally seen the inside of the cathedral.

We arrived back at the small plaza just in time. The small church there had its doors open too and we peeked inside. Mass was going on and we saw a huge white altar/shrine for St. Peter and St. Paul. There were lights and flowers all over the big white rectangular box. There was also a ceviche festival going on in the plaza. Lime green and blue tents were set up all over the plaza and several stands were full of people clambering to get some ceviche. It definitely looked good, but I wasn't about to risk trying any. Delicious, I'm sure, but raw fish in rural Peru didn't sound like the best idea.

Soon about 10 men started carrying the gigantic altar out of the church and I was amazed they could even lift it. Little figures of Peter and Paul rode proudly on top. Five men made up a brass band and played some slow music as they followed behind the procession.

After a busy morning of sight seeing, we walked back to the house for lunch. A few hours of laying out in the warm sun made for a lovely afternoon.

About 4:45pm, I and about 5 other girls set out for the gym. We were going to aerobics and I was hoping it would be as exciting as spinning had been last week. And it was!! Aerobics in Peru is my new favorite thing!

Power Gym was the place and we paid our two soles (60 cents). The aerobics room was an enormous room, probably big enough to hold a basketball court in both directions and the ceiling was at least 20 feet up. The walls were covered with mirrors and there was big cement platform at the front of the room that was as high as my shoulders. I got the feeling that this place could turn into a night club later because there was a long winding bar on one side of the room. We each found a spot facing the platform and put our old red aerobics steps in front of us. The instructor was an average looking Peruvian woman with a gray and orange tank top and matching orange tights. She took her place on the platform and started leading us in some stretches. She moved slowly through the stretches and added a dancer´s touch so I felt we were doing more interpretive dance than we were stretching. My muscles were cold so the stretching didn´t do that much good.

Just as I thought we were warming up slowly, she turned on some really fast music and all of the sudden broke into the fastest grapevine I have ever seen...and I have been to a lot of aerobics classes over the years. I mean this came out of nowhere and I did not think it was humanly possible to keep up (come to find out this will be the theme for the class). I was worried I was going to pull something in the first two minutes into the class. I did my best to keep up and looked around at the other girls--they were struggling as much as I was-- and we could hardly contain our laughter and kept exchanging looks that said, "here we go." The rest of the class followed this same trend.

The dance remix of We Will Rock You came on next, but it was THE CHIPMUNKS SINGING IT!! Oh, wow! For the first fifteen minutes of the class at least, we could hardly workout because we were laughing so hard. We continued to do a variety of moves that proved to be impossible to keep up with...but we tried hard. My years of aerobics, kick boxing, and hip hop dance (well, actually only 8 classes of hip hop) training aided a little. Squat down, shimmy up, squat down, shimmy up, faster, faster. We were pouring with sweat.

The instructor kept yelling at us to keep up. We were breathing hard and trying to keep moving. She would show us a move a few times, then take a break to come down off her platform to walk around the room, so of course she was having no trouble with this workout. It seemed impossible for her to believe we couldn´t keep moving at warp speed...which we could have, had we taken as many breaks as she did. At one point she walked by me and yelled, ¨mas rapido¨(faster) like I was the laziest person in the world. Elizabeth later describe the instructor as looking at us with ¨hateful eyes,¨ and I laughed because that is exactly what it was.

One of the most impossible moves she showed us (which is quite a title considering how many difficult moves she had) was the "crossing her foot over the step" move. Standing on one side of the box, crossing one foot over it, touching the ground on the other side and back. Sounds easy right? No. Try doing this after 45 minutes of this tiring class at a speed that wouldn´t have even been possible at the start of the class or ever really.

Oh, but this was a good workout and so fun. Yelling and cheers came from various girls in our group at many moments of this class. I am not sure the other Peruvians appreciated it (nor the instructor), but we sure did. Though, it looked like the Peruvian women were having just as tough time (if not tougher) keeping up, which vainly made me feel better.

Toward the end of the class (what I thought would be the cool down, but proved not to be) another familiar song came on. It was the dance remix of Stand by Me. We did a twisting motion and all had lots of fun singing along. I could hear Elizabeth´s voice behind me belting out the words and my laughter spurred me on. There were some slower moves--which is what led me to believe this was the cool down--but then Peruvian Superwoman would kick it into high gear again every few moves. Couldn´t figure her out. Also toward the end, we flapped our arms like birds to a song with some Andean flute music (dance remix of course) and I enjoyed the Peruvian influence. Our arms flapped lower and lower the more tired they got.

We were still going strong at 6:15 (after an hour of this), and we had to make it back to the house so as not to be late to dinner. Making Paulina, the cook, mad was never something any of us wanted to do. We rounded up our group of gringas in a military style move of one arm circling in the air and then pointing to the door and put our steps away. We were at the front of the room, so when I turned around to go I realized how full the room had become. I also noticed the Peruvian men watching this aerobics class. Creepy.

We gulped our water and enjoyed the walk back to the house recounting our hilarious experience. I knew I wanted to come back later this week and I couldn´t believe I just discovered this fantastic workout on my last week here! I have been missing out on so much!

After dinner and freezing shower, the movie of the night was Transformers 2 (the first Transformers movie was the matinee showing, but I missed that and as a result had a hard time knowing what was going on). This was by far the worst quality bootlegged movie we have seen. The sound quality was bad and the screen went dark a few times or people stood up in the theater where it had been filmed...all of which just added to the real bootlegged movie experience. Several people left the living room because they couldn´t follow, but I stuck it out to the end. Though I did have to keep asking Sopé to pause it and have her and Frank fill me in on what was going on. I was amazed at the plot details they were able to catch when I had heard/understood nothing. The movie filming cut off several minutes before the real ending, and we all yelled with the frustration of having watched the whole movie only to be deprived of seeing the final minutes.

Can´t believe this is my last week here! The time has flown by as will the rest of this week, I´m sure.

Here We Go, Pat Green