And like that, I'm home.

Okay so I probably should have written down the things that I did my last week in Peru. Now that I have been home for a week and a half, I will attempt to remember them for the sake of remembering.

Tuesday I went with Amber to El Museo de la Nacion. The first floor was all pre-Incan artifacts, Incan artifacts, and colonial art. Also a little modern art. We had kind of seen most of these things before so we went through quickly since we had gotten pretty lost on the way there and had much less time than we had hoped. The sixth floor of this museum is the most talked about. It is dedicated to the years of terrorism experienced in Peru from the 60s to the early 2000s. It was really interesting and very powerful. There are bare concrete floors and white walls. Most of the pictures are in black and white. Thankfully, the captions on the pictures were in Spanish and English, or else we would have been there all day. When you get off the elevator, you are greeted by a guard who asks you to sign in. They want to keep track of who has seen this exhibit. Then you see a timeline of the terrorism that takes up two walls. There are so many events, that it is hard to take them all in. Then you proceed through room after room, detailing each major terrorist event. There are pictures, video, and voice recordings. It was striking to learn so much about events that had barely been mentioned to us before this. My host family spoke a lot about insecurity in Venezuela, but never about the terrorism in Peru. Later, they asked me what I thought was most interesting about the museum and I told them this exhibit. My host dad basically was like, "Oh, terrorism and it's effects?" and I said, "Si." and that's it. No one wants to talk about it. I don't think we even talked about it in my socioeconomic realities of Peru class. It's still very real to them. And kind of taboo. So it's cool that there is this museum. Parents and grandparents were there with their kids, whispering their own experiences into their ears. I tried to eavesdrop a few times, but my spanish isn't good enough for that yet.

Thursday was our last day at the biblioteca. We had to leave early for an elap meeting, but the promotoras didn't want us to go. When they realized it was our last day, they said we couldn't leave. Then they sent all the kids home and closed the door and brought out a cake, mini empanadas, and coffee. We put a candle in the cake and sang Happy Birthday to no one in particular in French, English, Bulgarian (I think), Finnish, and finally, Spanish. Talk about a cultural experience. I miss those girls already. They were so sweet.

Friday Amber and I visited la Iglesia Santo Domingo downtown. They have the skulls of two saints on display there and the bones of another. I found it strange. I don't really understand the veneration of saints, but it's probably because I'm not Catholic. The church was beyond beautiful, though. Then we went to Saint Rose's house. We saw the well that she made and the prayers that people throw in there. That was cool. Then we got ice cream at 4D for the 4th and last time. Sad face. We were supposed to meet Andrew there, but he caught up to us while we were walking. He came up behind Amber and I and put his arms around us, like a surprise hello, and I was 100% sure I was being robbed again. Later, Maria tried to grab my arm and I freaked again. I was a little more startled by my run-in with crime than I had thought. I'm better now that I'm back in the states.

My host mom was really sad to see me go. She cried. Apparently I was just what she needed. The girl before me had been a little high-maintenance and then I showed up and didn't ask for anything. It was nice to be appreciated for that weird quality. I guess I don't like to be a bother. I'll just blend in to this wall over here. Don't mind me.

The flight home wasn't bad. I hardly slept, but my bags weren't searched, so that's great. My suitcase was 88 lbs which is way over the limit, but the guy let it go this time. I don't know what he will do next time I see him. I had to lug this and two other bags around the Newark airport after doing something to my back while getting off the plane. Don't worry, I'm tough, and I heal.

Basically, I didn't sleep again until 4 in the afternoon when I took a 20 minute nap. My first meal back was an oriental chicken salad and turkey avocado sandwich from Applebee's. Nothing glamorous, but that's fine. I guess I eat at Applebee's a lot. I think it's been 3 times since I got home.

Since I have been home I have been on a boat once, I have been in Ft. Wayne, I have been in Columbus, I have been in charge, and for the last 3ish days I have been quietly at home. Also I went to a vineyard. And watched all of season 7 of The Office. I'm processing. I can tell you about it later.

Hang Ten Failures

Today is Monday of my last week in Peru. WHAT?! I will be getting on a plane in just 5 short days. That seems pretty crazy. This trip has had its ups and downs with homesickness and tiredness and crazy schedules and that one time when I got robbed and also the beauty and history and adventure that exists in Peru. As incredibly happy as I will be to go home, I will also be sad. I like you, Peru. Let's stay friends.

Okay, so I got robbed. I didn't really want to post about it because I know that other people read this sometimes and I didn't want you to get nervous for me. Here's the thing. I was in a bad part of Lima because that's where I work. There are poor people there. It was scary and a little violent, but no one was hurt or even threatened. I was waiting for a bus with one of my fellow volunteers when three guys ran up to me, broke the strap on my purse, and ran off. My wallet was lost, but the only valuable thing in there was some cash and my debit card, which was set to expire at the end of the month anyway. The thing that makes me the most sad is that the book that I bought at the book fair and had signed by Daniel Alarcon was in my bag. It's not of any value to those guys, just to me. So that's sad. I still have my cheap Peruvian cell phone and my credit card was at home in my desk drawer, so everything is fine. It's just annoying and it happens all the time. I was in shock for about 15 minutes but as soon as I had to talk to someone about it I cried for about 40 minutes. Anyway, the important thing is that I'm fine and I have money to get me through the rest of my time here.

That was on Wednesday before work. After work, we had to go straight to our elap meeting with all the other volunteers in our program. I got free Starbucks! Afterwards, we went to get dinner at a little place right outside La Plaza San Miguel. They had anticucho which is barbecued cow heart for 12 soles. It was super cheap and a lot of food. Super good.

Friday I finally got my credit card figured out and went to Miraflores and wandered around Parque Kennedy by myself. It was nice. I ride through there on a bus everyday but never get out, so it was good to get to do that. I bought a book and a couple shirts to wear when I get home and a new wallet. It was good (cheap) retail therapy.

On Saturday I went surfing! Michelle, Danielle and I met in the morning and took the bus to Larcomar in Miraflores. We made our way down to the beach, not really knowing what to expect. We took our swimsuits with us in our bags so we ended up having to change in a porta potty. Gross. As soon as we stepped foot on the beach a guy was asking us if we wanted to learn to surf. He was going to offer us a great deal. We told him we would come back after we checked out the other companies. We made our way to the Pukana surf tent. This was the company recommended by our program. One of the girls who worked there is from Cincinnati! Small world. So we got an even better deal with them. It was cold so we had to wear wetsuits which is cool except that they are super hard to put on. We had a quick lesson on land about how to stand up on your board. The instructor made me do it extra. I was pretty sure that was a bad sign. Then we got our boards and got in the water. Somehow I ended up in front of my friends even though I got in last. Maybe the instructor was pushing me. I don't remember. But I had to go first. On my first try I was able to get up on my knees. It was exciting and fun! Much easier than expected. However, getting on your knees is not one of the steps to standing. Even after the instructor reminded me many many times that I was not supposed to get on my knees, I still did it every time. I don't know what was happening in my brain, but it was not correct. Between the near constant paddling and getting knocked off my board a few times, I was really really tired by the end. They never told us how to get out. The beach was really rocky so we weren't supposed to ride our boards all the way there. I got knocked off my board right by the shore so I just tried swimming it and had a wave crash right on top of me. Not a great experience. I was ready to be done. But I would do it again. Just maybe next time in the sand. And when it's warmer. And after my muscles stop being sore.

After we finished, Michelle's dad met us at the beach and drove us to Parque Kennedy where we got hot chocolate and churros rellenos from Manolo. SO GOOD. We also got sandwiches in the park. Later that night, I got ice cream at 4D for the third time with some other friends. It was a sugary day. 

July 28 is the independence day of Peru. Basically, people take off work for the whole weekend. I don't have to work today (Monday) or tomorrow (Tuesday). Honestly, I'm a little bored because most things are closed and I don't really want to go to a 3 hour long military parade. Tomorrow should be better. I have plans to go to a museum and a church. And then I will only be 4 days away from coming home.

Just things in my life right now...

So I was thinking about the classic picture that every girl takes on her mission trips abroad. You know, the one where she is surrounded by native children? It's like, "Look at me! I like babies in other countries too!" I don't know. Maybe that's not the motivation. I'm probably being rude. Anyway, it bothers me so I wanted to make sure I didn't do that while I was in the Dominican Republic. I was younger then and didn't know what I was getting into. Hahaha. Let's just let the weight of that sentence sink in.

My journey through the photos took me back to that hot and humid July when I first left the country and subsequently fell in love with the Latin American culture. Gosh, I really didn't know what I was doing. I got thrown into what life is like for the vast amount of people in this world who live below the poverty line.

There are very few times in a person's life where they can say, "That decision is what changed the course of my life. That steered the choices I made from that point forward." I can honestly say that the Dominican Republic changed my life. Because no one in my family speaks Spanish, hardly anyone in my community speaks Spanish, yet here I am in Peru, trying to fit in and learn the language.

More than that, now that I am well into my internship I am looking poverty straight in the eyes. Yeah, it's not like the poverty I saw in the mountains of Haiti, or the garbage dumps in Guatemala, but it's still  poverty. I'm translating a book about child domestic work for my internship. Did you know that of the 10 million minors living in Peru, 45% live in conditions of poverty? Only 57% percent are in school and of those who are in secondary school, 37% are behind a few grades. And that percentage is not for areas of poverty or extreme poverty. SHOOOT.

You probably can't tell, but that hill in the background is covered in houses.

This is a picture of where I work. San Juan de Miraflores is about an hour's bus ride away from where I live in Lima. During the financial crises starting around the 60s, people began flocking to the city for work. Many of them ended up living in barrios just outside the city. They grew and now the city is huge. San Juan de Miraflores is one of these barrios. This is one of the most populous parts of the city. And one of the poorest.

A lot of the kids that we work with are child domestic workers. Most of them don't realize that what they are doing is work and they aren't getting paid for it. Usually it's stuff like taking care of baby siblings while their parents are at work or cooking or cleaning. Maybe they do those things for a neighbor or an aunt or uncle. Unfortunately, it is more than what we would consider "chores" in the US. On Sunday, Lizbeth asked our room full of 9-13 year old girls how many of them did the cooking at home and almost all of them raised their hands. Some of them aren't even tall enough to reach the stove.

One of the beautiful girls I get to hang out with, Daniela.

Today I have a lot of hope, though. La Casa de Panchita is doing a lot of work. They are educating women and children on the rights they have as domestic workers. These workers are now asking their employers to pay them fair wages, give them time off, and let them go to school. My favorite part of all of this, though, is that most of the women who are in charge at La Casa de Panchita used to be domestic workers or are currently domestic workers. Their current campaign is called "Child Domestic Workers Supporting Child Domestic Workers." I think this makes a big difference in the work at La Casa de Panchita because those in charge know intimately the issues that these women and children are dealing with. They know how to make the biggest impact because they know the issues. Because of that I am proud and very blessed to have had the opportunity to work with this organization.

Warning: This Post Contains Anthropology Terms

I'm having a lazy Saturday! After last month's constant busyness it is strange to have days like today. I changed things around on here a bit the other day. How do you like it? I took that picture in the background. Yeah, the sacred valley is pretty marvelous.

Yesterday (Friday) I went to the Museo de antropología, arqueología e historia. I was supposed to meet a friend there but he ended up coming later than expected and I forgot my phone across town. So I went in by myself. The museum is located in what used to be Simon Bolivar's home. You know, the liberator of Colombia and Peru. It has two gardens with rooms surrounding them. That's the basic layout of the house. It's beautiful, or I'm sure it was when it was actually a house. Now there are display cases everywhere instead of furniture and a bit of construction that makes the whole place smell like paint. But I enjoyed it nonetheless.

The museum basically starts as far back as it can, with the evolution of humans in Africa. They have some (replica?) australopithecus, H. habilius and H. erectus skulls and then they have a little model of humans interacting with megafauna. It was small and simple. Then we got into the actual cultures in Peru. There are a lot and they all had their own pottery styles. So a good majority of the rest of the pre-Incan culture area was ceramics. They had some pipes like what we find from indigenous populations in the US, only in the shapes of things like cuy, llamas, and owls. It was cool. 

In the Incan section they had a giant model of Machu Picchu. I had been following some groups of students from local elementary schools all morning, but somehow I ended up in this room alone. So I saw everything that I saw a few weeks ago on a smaller scale. It seems smaller when you are there. Like, when we walked from one side of the complex to the other, I didn't feel like we were going terribly far. But the model made it seem huge. So that brought a different appreciation to the experience.

After the Incan section began the Spanish conquest and on section. You go through a room about the Amazons and then Francisco Pizzaro is staring at you. I was mad that my camera died at this point. How often do you get to see a portrait of the guy who changed everything for South America? So the rest of the museum from this point on is mostly portraits of important people and small artifacts. They did have shackles in the same section as crosses which bothered me. Not because they chose to place them there, but because it made sense to place them there. For the tens of portraits of Europeans there were about 5 portraits of Incan leaders which was pretty cool. Atahualpa had his portrait there. He was the last king of the Incas.

Eventually the museum moved into more modern history, up until the 1960s. By this point my brain was fairly saturated and I couldn't take much else in. But I managed the learn a little about economics and the revolution against Spain. That was good of me, since next weekend is independence day. How festive.

So I was getting close to the exit and the kids were all about gone when one last room caught my eye. Tuberculosis through prehistory. Interesante! I can still remember the first time I learned about tuberculosis. I don't know why, but it was in 4th grade when we learned about Ellis Island. So anyway, I was excited about this one. 

When a person is suffering from tuberculosis, they often develop a hunchback. There is a buildup of fluids on the spine so that there is a visible ridge behind the shoulders. In these two rooms, there were all kinds of ceramic and lithic figures with this ridge behind their shoulders. Some of them were from 1100 BC. CRAZY! Also, people here in Peru still die from tuberculosis. Also crazy.

But the craziest part of this tuberculosis display was the mummy. When I came in, the guy told me there was a mummy, but I thought it was supposed to be with the Inca stuff. I didn't see it so I thought they were probably restoring it or something. But no! I found it. So I was looking at the little statues and the guard says, "mumifera?" and I was like oh yeah! and he opened a little door and let me into this room with like 3 humidifiers, 3 informational signs on the wall, and a mummy in a glass case and then shut the door behind me. It was just me and the mummy. I think we all deserve a little one on one time with a mummy. It makes you remember your humanity a little. The guard kept peeking at me through a window to let me out when I was done. Weird, but cool.

After I got back we had pizza for lunch because it was my host mom's birthday and we decided she shouldn't have to cook. Then I went to my friend Becca's apartment. We each bought 2 desserts (8 in total) and ordered more pizza and drank pop. We had a little dinner/movie party and laughed for a few hours straight about giant crickets (I told them about Scratchy), guinea pigs, and just felt like Americans again for a bit. We watched Enchanted on Netflix and shared our desserts. It was great. I think I would be able to manage living here longer if I had more nights like that.

Also, they found out that I'm funny. Now the pressure is on.

Unas Sorpresas

This week has had a couple of small surprises. I will tell you about them here.

I have been on time to work everyday this week. This would be great news if everyone else wasn’t late. I have had to wait for someone to come with the keys everyday by myself or with some random kids. I have only been a little nervous, but I think I’m pretty safe since it is in a park and there are kids and other people running around everywhere.

First surprise: Monday, I got to the library on time and no one was there. A little girl ran up to me and said hi and let me know that it was still closed. Yeah, thanks. Hahaha. So I went up to the steps and noticed that there were a lot of people gathered in the street about a block away. I hoped that it wasn’t something bad, like an accident, but one guy had a little kid on his shoulders to see better, so I figured it wasn’t too bad. Then I was worried that it was a holiday and we were actually closed and Naomi was trying to tell me that the library wasn’t opening. But Adele said she would see me there on Monday, so I kept waiting. In a few minutes it became very clear that it was a funeral. A big private bus showed up to take the mourners to the cemetery and two guys were carrying big flower arrangements around. The funeral procession eventually made its way out of the house down the street, with a few men carrying the blue casket and those following tossing flower petals on it. There wasn’t a lot of crying or anything as far as I could see, but they were on the other side of the park. Everyone not involved stood and watched and the dogs ran over to see what was happening. They turned a corner and got in the bus. Just like that, it was over.

Monday night I woke up around 1 or 2 am to the sound of very loud popping. There are a lot of sounds here, but explosions are not one of the normal ones. At first I thought gunshots, then bombs (because I am rational), and then I realized it was fireworks! I looked out my window and got to watch a few fireworks go off in the middle of the night, in the middle of a huge city, before I fell back to sleep.

Tuesday I was on time for work again, which again meant I was the first to arrive. This time, instead of a funeral, I got to see a pet monkey! A little girl was in the park and just running around with a little monkey on a leash. It looked like Marcel from Friends. Sometimes when she would stop, the monkey would climb up her leg and just hang around her neck, like little American kids always hope for in their wildest exotic pet dreams. She came over to ask me a question and I could not take her seriously. I just couldn’t give her my complete attention when she had a monkey in her arms. I wanted to ask her its name and if I could pet it, but she ran off with Gianfranco before I could say anything. That might be one of my biggest regrets.

Today is Wednesday and I just finished eating lunch. When I left the table, my host family was watching a show about all the fun you can have in Ecuador. Then I heard The Today Show come on. With Matt Lauer. It was in English. I knew that they had the Today Show here because I see it on the guide on our television every morning, but I didn’t realized it was the exact same thing as what they broadcast from New York every morning. Surprise!

Final surprise that I will tell you about is this. For our school credit we have to do a few reflection papers and group discussions. This week we had to do something creative that we could use to show people at home what things are like here, and to help us remember when we get back. So I decided I would take pictures of the kids and make a photo collage using an app that I found. Easy peasy lemon squeazy. The only problem was that it was due Sunday, I started it Sunday, and I didn’t have any pictures of the kids. Really all that was due was the explanation of it, so I explained it before I did it. The next morning I got an email from the ISA offices in Texas saying that they wanted to see my collage because it sounded like the kind of visual representation that they would like to use to promote elap. Awesome. So I had to make this collage great. Haha. It did it. Don’t worry. But surprise! They liked it! They really liked it!

Additionally, it is the middle of July and I am wearing long sleeved shirts under sweatshirts under jackets. It’s cold and I just want summer.

P.S. I saw a man holding a guitar kick a bus yesterday as it was pulling away. I thought it was funny, but I don’t know why.

PPS There is a group here from OSU but I don’t think any of them actually go to OSU. And the professor isn’t from there. I don’t understand grad school. But they are all Spanish teachers and I got to work with some of them on Sunday at La Casa de Panchita. What fun.

Lots of love in Lima

This week has been relatively uneventful. I mean, in comparison to a week of classes in Columbus, it was exciting. In comparison to last month, uneventful. But I guess there were a few events.

Monday I got lost, as you may have read. It made me a little nervous the rest of the week, but it was actually a good thing because I studied a map and now I am the master of the buses. Kind of. Tuesday went a lot better. I also figured out a better way to get there than taking four buses. Now I only have to take 3!

On Tuesday we worked with a girl from Finland. She is super cool. She is an elementary school teacher and basically has been everywhere. She has visited 6 of the 7 continents! (You have to really try in order to get to Antarctica.) She works at Mi espacio para crecer every Tuesday and Thursday. Yay new friends! She helped me figure out the bus situation.

Also on Tuesday I had to make another phone call in Spanish. We didn't know exactly how to get there because the whole bus situation is very complicated, as I'm sure you are aware by now. So I had to call someone, but she ended up giving the phone to Adele, who speaks english, so things worked out. 

Wednesday I went with Clayton and we took the newer route for the first time. The second bus we got on had a ticket collector who spent a lot of time in New York. So he was very excited to talk to us in English. And a very old woman asked me all about where I'm from, in English but with a very heavy accent. She had been to Miami, so she knew about the US. Basically, it was a fun bus ride (and I'm not being sarcastic, I know I do that sometimes). We got there really early (15 minutes) and had to wait for a while. While we were waiting, a drunk, older gentleman started talking to Clayton. He left and came back and when he came back I was sitting next to Clayton on the curb. The man took my hand and looked directly in my eyes and told me that I am very beautiful. Latin men. They are so direct. He said that he could see I have a big heart. He saw it! Lo veo! Lo veo! Haha. Maybe I should get that checked out? So that was strange, but I'm used to it after living at Jacob's Porch for a year. The homeless men were always complimenting me on my straight teeth.

Also on Wednesday, I got to help a 6th grader with his english homework. He had to write 10 "will not" sentences. "Claudia will not eat chicken." I also helped a girl with her english homework, but it was harder because she had to write out the time under pictures of clocks. Why do we say "o'clock"? It seems super old-timey and weird. That was a kind of surreal experience, though, because I sat down and easily started talking to her in Spanish about English words. Our brains are so cool.

Thursday I had to ride the bus there by myself for the first time. I had a hard time finding the right bus, but I figured it out eventually. When I got there, the library still wasn't open. So we waited for Anali to show up. She never came, but Kati came and opened it for us. The kids got some time to play outside before doing their homework which is good sometimes. I also got to talk to Leidy about music and food. She recommended some Peruvian singers for me to check out, so that's cool. I also got lots of little kid hugs. Always good.

On my way home, I was having a difficult time catching a bus that would take me to my last stop. I decided to just walk, because it was only like 6-10 blocks and I had been really cramped on the last bus and wanted to stretch my legs. So it was dark and I was walking fast. I noticed that there was someone behind me and they were walking really fast too. I thought, "Okay, this person is either in a huge hurry, or they are going to kill me." Neither of those assumptions were true. This person wanted to ask me on a date. Ugh.

So it turns out to be this younger guy and he says, "Excuse me. Where I am?" in English. Obviously, this guy doesn't know English well, so I answer in Spanish that we are on Canevaro and Arequipa is that way and Salaverry is that way. He says he needs to get to Canada (that's a street name here, he wasn't that crazy) and that he came from a play in Jesús María. I said, "No sé, lo siento." He responded, "You aren't from around here?" Obviously. 
"No." 
"Where are you from?"
"Los Estados Unidos"
"What part?" (Notice that I am speaking Spanish and he is speaking English)
"Ohio"
"Oh I would like to go there." *red flag*
"Yeah it's great."I start to walk away. He starts to follow. I stop.
"So, uh, do you want to go out with me?" Again, so direct.
"I don't know you."
"Come on. I'm playing Rafiki in a play. You know The Lion King? I can get you tickets!" Cool!
"Can my friends come?"
"Of course!" Free tickets to see The Lion King for me and my friends?! Wow, this is great.
Basically I ended up giving him my info so we could be facebook friends. At the very least, it would be cool to see The Lion King performed in Spanish, right? So I went home, and realized he seemed kind of young. Maybe I should wait to get my hopes up. But we talked about how I went to OSU. He wouldn't think...

Yeah, he's in high school. It was a high school production of The Lion King. Sorry, high school boys, but I don't want to go out with you. That goes for you, too, old drunk men. We had a super fun facebook messaging convo about how I would be his friend but that's it and he would not give up, so I defriended him. What an adventure. 

This, my friends, is a good example of a brinchero. A brinchero or brinchera is a local who only wants to hang out with foreigners because they are foreigners. They usually get you to pay for things for them by being in some sort of relationship with you. The ultimate brinchero/brinchera move is to get pregnant so that you have to stick around. Yeah. Traveling is scary. The fact that he stopped me on the street tells me that he only talked to me because I look different. He said that he wants to go to the States, which makes me wary that he wants me to get him there. Maybe I'm wrong, but we have to be careful.

Today I was less adventurous as it was my day off, and I laid in bed and watched The Office with Spanish subtitles until 4. Then I went to Starbucks and read this great story by Daniel Alarcón about Lima called "The City of Clowns." It's kind of long, so I suggest you only read it if you have time. But you are reading this, so I assume you do. It was crazy weird to read this story that takes place on the same streets that I then walked home on. Whoa. It mentions places that I have seen and events that we learned about in class. And the part about people getting on buses to sell you stuff? Still true. Yesterday a woman just sang us a song and expected us to pay her. It's like a more straightforward street performance. 

Starbucks here has a really great orange chocolate chip muffin. They heat it up in a microwave for you. It's great. Starbucks Peru: great job, keep it up. Starbucks USA: sorry guys, you're slacking.

Lost in Lima

Don't worry. It wasn't that bad. I just wanted to cry most of the time. 

Yesterday was my first day of my internship with La Casa de Panchita. They work with domestic workers to help ensure that their rights are being protected, etc. They also are working to fight child labor in the domestic sector. So I am helping out four days a week at Mi espacio para crecer, where we help kids with their homework and give them a space to play. It is in San Juan de Miraflores, which is really far away from me. 

I emailed my contact on Saturday about where how to get to Mi espacio para crecer. She said she would meet me at Ricardo Palma University and we could go together. Great. I replied right away that it was far away, but I would be there.

Yesterday, my coworker and I got on a bus on Salaverry and were supposed to get off in Miraflores at the Wong, which is a grocery store, and then get on another bus that went all along Benevides avenue. We didn't see the Wong so we got off in Barranco and took a taxi. We were 15 minutes late and there was no one at the university to meet us. We thought we had messed up. So I called the ISA office and Kelly and Cedric got things straightened out. Lady was going to come meet us at the university in 10 minutes. It turns out my contact didn't have Internet the night before and didn't know we were coming. From the University we had to take two more buses. So we were about 40 minutes late.

Anyways, the actual tutoring was fun. Some of the kids just wanted us to do the homework for them, which I'm sure will get really annoying. One girl had to draw 4 different landscapes. She literally had the pictures in front of her and knew which one went in each spot, but she wanted me to draw them. I was like, "No, you can definitely do that."

We met another worker who is from France. She is really nice, and likes to try to break the French stereotype while she is abroad. You know, the one where they are rude and think only French things are the best. We rode the bus with her back down the hill and she got us on a bus that goes all the way down Arequipa. Now I will give you a map.

I have underlined Arequipa in blue. This is what we are dealing with here, people. It is not easy to know where you are at any given moment. Add to that the fact that the road names change with each new government, and you have a very complicated system. My friends were going to a different part of Lima, so they left me to figure out my way home on my own. So I was going to get off at Javier Prado. I ended up getting off at Canevaro (underlined in green). I'm pretty sure I was going North. I didn't know that Canevaro was an awesome place to get off. I thought I was totally wrong. So I asked a really nice lady how to get to the Universidad del Pacifico (my university, circled in purple). She told me to take a bus down Canvero and it would cross with Salaverry (underlined in red) and I could get off there. I thought she meant Salaverry would cross with Arequipa. So I got back on a bus on Arequipa and ended up downtown. Luckily I have been there enough to know how to get home from there. I was waiting for my purple bus to take me down Salaverry, and thought I would ask one of the other buses if they were going all the way down Salaverry. He said no, but a girl then decided to help me out. She put me on a combi and told the guy where to let me off. It was nice, but it made me want to cry a little. This combi dropped me off a few blocks from the University (at the red dot). Then I walked the rest of the way.

This whole ordeal took an hour and a half. I have studied Google maps most of the night, so I think I'm ready for today. But I'm still nervous.

I think everyone needs to have an experience like this. It's terrifying, sure. But it forces you to learn. And ask people for help. It reminded me that there are people in the US feeling the same way I did last night. I have to be one of the nice people who help out when I get home. Because it is really stressful to be the new kid on the block who has no idea how things work or where she is. Everyone should know how that feels, just to know. To be aware. And I guess, to be ready to help out.