Buenas Dias!

—-Written last week, but never posted due to the lack of time—-

Happy FRIDAY!

Yesterday was another bright and early day, which began with bread, pb & jelly, and bread with butter, and really delicious hot cocoa.  Since it was a holiday, I had the entire day off, so I used the extra free time to try my hand at exercising.

Here is a riddle for you:

What is harder than running 20 miles in the winter?

What is harder than running 20 miles on a treadmill?

What is harder than running a half marathon with a knee that is buckeling?

What feels like a 300 lb person is sitting on your chest and has a bag over your head?

Do you know the answer?

Answer:  Running 3000 km above sea level!

I have been here four 5 days now, and feel fine walking, walking up stairs, and walking up hills.  But running is a whole other ball game.  I started out and after about 2 minutes, I had to stop the catch my breath.  It was painful, so I walked about 2 minutes and then tried again, with the same pain.  I figuredits best not to push it because I didnt want to get sick before my trip, so for about 25- 40 ish minutes, I jogged/dragged my feet for one minute at a time, and then walked for 30 seconds.  I felt completely fine doing it that way, so I felt like I could have kept going, but I didnt want to do too, too much.  While it was really cool to see my neighborhood in a way thats different from sitting on the bus smashed against other people, it is SO dusty out there, with the constant smell of exhaust fumes, which also makes it hard to breath.  I did, however, enjoy my little jog and plan to do it again, when I have time. (Edited to add- I ran again on Monday and felt incredible.  It gets easier)

During my run, I passed a food market that is a few blocks away, so I stopped in.  Oh my gosh, I wish I had my camera with me.  This market just has food out in the open, like dead pigs, dead skinned chickens, fruits & vegetables, etc.  I even saw a woman ripping the toenails out of a chicken!  I was wide-eyed and staring at the meat just piled up and the women would be like, ¨Quieres?!¨….no…

Look at the wagon on Barney!

After my run, I lifted a couple two pound weights and then took a shower (my second one!).  After that, I uploaded pictures to the family computer and then waited for the two other volunteers to get home so we could take the bus to town for Corpus Christi, which is a huuuuuge holiday here.

We took the bus to town and walked to the Plaza de Armas where there were thousands and thousands and thousands (and thousands!) of people there to see the 13 Saints being carried in.  I´m not going to lie, I really thought these saints were real people… Haha

It was extremely packed, so we stopped to take pictures and then walked to another Plaza to get some food.  Well…one of the other volunteers wanted food.  On Corpus Christi, they eat a traditional dish (Chiriuchu), that features chicken, fish eggs with some strange webbing between them, Alpaca, cuy (guinea pig), and blood sausage.  No. thanks.  One girl bought an entire plate and liked everything except the fish eggs.  Amber (my roommate) also tried the cuy (she held it by the paw haha) and said it tasted exactly like pork.  

I actually found out that those bags of animals that the woman had on the bus were guinea pigs that were about to meet their fate.  The girls ate their meal right in front of a HUGE pile of dead (whole) guinea pigs.

Once they were finished eating, we stopped for some pastries and I had a flaky something with caramel inside.  Definitely more my speed.  Then we trekked all over town for the famous sweet potato donuts (picaronnes), which were delicious.  We had 4 to split between 3 people (we apparently couldn´t get just 3).  They tasted mostly like funnel cake with some sort of honeyish syrup.  I was full for hours (for the first time in a week!)

We walked back to the center of town, used the computers a bit, and caught the bus home for dinner (which was a hamburger, rice, french fries, and some salad, and banana chocolate chip cake with ice cream).   After dinner, I FaceTimed with Russ and my parents and it was nice to be able to talk to all of them.  FaceTime is amazing, it´s like we were in the next room!

That was the end of my night before hitting the hay.

————————————————————————————————————————–

Friday- Day 7 (I cant find the apostrophe on this computer, please excuse that)

Friday was a lot of fun!  It was a long day (as they all are, but fun, too)

After breakfast, I headed into town to use the computers and do my normal thang before Spanish class. Fridays class was my last one since I decided not to continue with them.  They are wonderful, but I also feel that just speaking with my family and the locals is equally as helpful.  I will be signing up for tandem Spanish sessions, which will help as well.

So…back to class on Friday.  Class ended a bit early, so the 4 of us (including the teacher) went out to lunch at Juanitos, a local burger place that is loved by foreigners and locals.  They even had a Philly Cheesesteak on the menu!  I ordered just a regular burger, which was delicious and FILLING (so rare here) and it came with as many homemade sauces as we wanted.  I had fun being with the other people outside of the classroom.  After lunch, we had some time to kill, so another classmate (Ben) and I walked around and explored San Blas (the hippie quarter) before catching the bus to our placement.

Not many students come to the project on Fridays because maybe they dont have homework?  Since we had less students, we had some time to go outside and jump rope with the girls while the boys played soccer (no girls allowed!).  All these years later, I still cant gracefully jump into the jumping rope.

Two of the volunteers at the project had their last day on Friday, so the students made a big circle and one by one, they came up and said something nice, or sang, or thanked the volunteers for what they had done.  One boy came up and started thanking them for everything they had done and then started crying and was choking out words about how they had brought so much and done so much for the children there.  It just about broke everyones heart…

On Friday night, I took the bus home (no live animals this time) and relaxed before dinner.  Dinner was the best yet- just rice, plantains, and an egg.  Simple is better here 😉  Then, around 8:00, we left for the Plaza to meet some other volunteers for our trip to Puno and Lake Titicaca.  Friday night was the music and lights festival, so it was absolutely packed and took us a looooong time to get where we needed to be, but we got there. By 10:00, we were off on the beginning of our adventure!

This past weekend needs a post or 3 for itself, so stay tuned!