Peru: Day two

Seven AM comes with conversations and sunlight as I roll out of bed, grab my stuff, stumble down the stairs to ask Dimas "puedo duchar?" He points to a bathroom on down the hall on the third floor. Something is really striking, and that is that all of the Peruvians are really, really short, but all of the light switches are all up at my chin hight, so around five feet and ten inches off the ground. How does that work? Also, the showers are something different, they have the only hot water in the house- and the water is not adjustable. Just on or off- and quite hot for a few minutes, and a very little, small single stream of water which makes it difficult to wash. . . (Later, as of this morning- so the 25, day 5, I figured out that there is a small dial on the pipe which which you can control how much hot water mixes with the cold water.) Also, because all of the Peruvians are short, the windows come down pretty low in the bathroom. . . Next Dimas runs to the market and gets some fresh bread and milk. We then head over to the market together and pick out some Edam Cheese and weird looking ham- along with butter. The bread was some of the best bread that I have ever had, with butter and really good cheese and oddly spicy ham. . . The milk was really intiresting, it tasted like un-skimmed milk or half and half. But had a very strong taste. In the words of Daniel "La leche es muy fuerte. . . " (ya, the milk is VERY strong) The next several hours were spent trying to plan our next two weeks. After planning, we went to the roof to help and observe the games at recess. Then we got out a mini green soccer ball and played a little roof top soccer, until we learned that if you kick the ball off of the roof, it does not get retrieved, so after that lesson, we played hacky-sack. Next we went down to join the "marching" band. I played the snare drum, Joel played the cornet and everyone else played tambourines. It was fun and the name of the song was Lima Chorillos. After the band session, we said goodbye to the students as they left for their homes, then we headed down the road for lunch. We went to a restaurant run by a friend of Dimas, the restaurant is called La Rosa. Dimas told us we have to listen to him, and he will tell us whether or not something is safe to eat. He ordered a Peruvian favorite, Lomo Saltado, for all of us. He then instructs us to use napkins to wipe down everything, the plates, cups, silverware, etc. . . as they were washed with Peruvian water. The first course is sopa de sustancia (soup of sustenance), and comes in a huge bowl. We are pretty much full after the soup, when they bring out the Lomo Saltado. It is a bed of rice with pieces of tough beef on top, onion, french fries, tomatoes all with a kind of light cilantro sauce. This is all served with Inca Kola, Peru's coke product, which tastes like a cross between coke and bubble gum. it is weird, and oddly addicting. And bright neon yellow. Best meal I have had for $2.50! Next plan of action is to exchange some of our money into soles. the exchange rate today was 2.64 soles per dollar. the money traders examine each bill very carefully before giving you your soles, which you also should examine very carefully, because sometimes they try to rip you off. To get to the money trader that Dimas likes, we had our first experience on a a Peruvian bus. The buses are, at very best, a ride and a half. Between the hair pin turns and the unexpected use of the brakes combined with the petal hitting the metal, they are certainly exciting. Not holding on is not an option. When we return, we played some card games and had some free time until we left for dinner- a place downtown called Roky's Karaoke. It was a blast! We had fried chicken with a salad and french fries, all while singing karaoke to our hearts content. It was super fun! When we returned- we did more trip planning- then called it a night. Tonight Jacob and myself are going to sleep in a tent on the roof- so that will be exciting. Although I must say that it is very interesting as I sit on the roof of the roof (the fifth floor), writing this at 1:30 AM, the rosters are crowing, the many wild dogs are howling and there is a general din between the constant honking of the cars, and the random noisy animals. The temp is perfect, I am sitting on the roof with athletic shorts and flip-flops, and I am just right. It is very comfortable. Another observation is that although during the winter it is almost always cloudy, and you never can see the sun, during the day it is really bright outside. Tomorrow we will be helping teach in the school, so that should be a lot of fun, also there is a parade for some festival of the kindergardeners, which Dimas wants us to play in. (With the Marching Band) We have also been told to wear a white shirt and blue pants. One final closing remark, even though it is extremely dusty here, Dimas' floors are always shiny clean. (Later I found out from Daniel, that they are actually really dirty, but they use a wax that make is look shiny even though it is dirty.) Also, even though the streets are filled with trash, the people dress very nicely. They also wear a lot of soccer garb. You rarely see tee-shirts down here. En Cristo, Miguel