Peru Journal Entry 1

I am in a different country! Here are some lengthy journal entries Dale and I wrote along with some photographs.

Wednesday, July 15, 2008

Eden

When we arrived in Lima I quickly realized we were not in the U.S. anymore as I asked someone a question in English and was answered with a blank stare. I quickly made a switch to a grammatically incorrect phrase in Spanish and was able to receive the information I needed. We went through customs, got our luggage, and saw signs which said ICS Lima on them. We soon met the people attached to the signs – the principal and the secretary – and then met others who had decided to stay up late to greet us. We sat around the airport for one hour, waiting for three other girls to arrive, threw our luggage on a teacher’s van, and drove to our lovely home. Our home is spacious. It is a two story building and we also have a roof as well (so if Joel comes to visit he can sleep on it with me). I will post a video of my home on my blog later. There are a lot of things we’ll need to learn to get used to. Particularly, we will need to get accustomed to dealing with hired help – we have a guard, a maid, and we may end up with a gardener. The principal says that we are providing these people with jobs, so I am trying to stop assuming that by having these people work for me I become a wealthy and snobbish American.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Dale

What a long day it’s been! After going to a nearby gym with Sue, we went grocery shopping at Metro, a nearby supermarket (or “supermercado”). That was quite an adventure, taking two hours. Eden and I got every type of fruit that we hadn’t tried. Oh, and star fruit, even though we’ve had it before (they were only something like four cents each).

In the afternoon we went to Doug and Sue’s house to utilize their Internet access (or their neighbor’s, rather). We had a lot of online-catching up to do

This evening we picked up Melinda at her apartment on the way over to “Eidle Wies”, a nearby panaderia. Eden ordered a variety of empanadas for supper, and for desert, some devilishly-good chocolate cake, kind of like a ding dong. After walking Melinda home, we came back here. Right now Amanda’s walking around with her camera, narrating an apartment tour to send home. We’ll make our own tour pretty soon, so keep checking Eden’s blog.

Eden

Here are a few stories I took from the day. At the gym, one of the workers sat down with us and tried to sell us membership for 15 months. Just wanting to be guests at the gym, at least at first, we politely turned him down – saying we still need to think about it, but he took our number and will call us. On the way out, he gave us each our first Peruvian side-of-face kiss. As we walked to Sue’s car, Dale turned to me and said sorrowfully, “But I wanted to save my first kiss for my husband!”

The reason we spent two hours at Metro (the “supermercado”) was because:

1. It took time to find out where everything is.

2. When we went to the counter, we realized that we should not just take everything we buy up to the cashier to pay for it and call it good - certain items need to be weighed in a different section of the store and others need to be weighed in a more different section of the store. So after waiting in a line for a long time, we had to get out of line, go to the balance, and weigh some items, get a sticker put on them, and go back to wait in line for a long time again.

3. We had to walk 7 minutes to and from our home each way. It would have been more like a 5 minute walk each way, but we had to cross two busy streets and driving is so different here – drivers are very aggressive but also very defensive (which means everybody pulls out in front of everybody else aggressively, knowing that the other person will respond defensively and stop). We are praying none of us get hit by a car while here – even if we do have insurance – though don’t worry about us as we are all still to chicken to cross the road (at least when traffic isn’t yet clear).

Speaking of chicken, we bought a whole one today at Metro. It looked just like a whole chicken you would buy from the states (and it only cost us <$2.50). When we got home, Dale began chopping up and found something inside the chicken. Inside the chicken was a package (read this like I am whispering in a low voice) and … inside the package … was …

...a chicken head

…two chicken feet

…a chicken heart

…other nasty chicken things which I won’t even mention

(Ok, now you can go back to reading this normal)

At Doug and Sue’s house, I was able to chat with Joel, Grace, Tim, and my father online. The younger ones gave me some interesting ideas on how we could make use of extra chicken parts. Here are some of the ideas:

1. make a doll
2. make a delicious dessert
3. give the delicious dessert to someone you don't like
4. make chicken foot candles for a creepy room effect

Oh yes, one more thing. Being 10 blocks from the ocean does things to my hair. Dale says I look like Richard Simmons. Lord have mercy on me.