My Sportscenter Top 5

To repeat once again, I´m fine. Just a cold that doesn´t seem to quit, nothing to be worried about (mom). Okay, I have a lot to catch up on. This probably won´t be as in depth as I would like it because I would like to get back to my newest literary addiction, Eragon. That´s probably selfish of me, but what can I say? That book series has me hooked. I realize that I cannot fill you in on all the details of the last week and a half so I´m going to put this in a highlights format. Picture this ESPN SportsCenter and instead of Top 10, we´re doing Top 5.

#5- Saying goodbye to San Jose
Last friday was my last day at the San Jose clinic. I have to admit, it was a little sad. I didn´t have much work there, but I made a lot of friends. I don´t know why I didn´t introduce you to these characters before but here they are. My German friends: Kehrstin and Korina were my favorite. There were three others, but they didn´t talk to me much. Kehrstin (spelling is something weird like this) and I took a bunch of photos together that she´s going to put on fb in a couple of weeks. These girls were great. We kept each other very entertained during the dull moments. The staff: Sandra, Noella, and a doctor and a nurse whose names have escaped me. Sandra was the insurance manager on the floor I worked and she loved to practice her English with me. She lived in New York for a couple of years, but doesn´t know any of the health vocabulary. Noella was my favorite nurse. Whenever she was working all the interns get excited because she always gives us something to do. She´s probably one of the hardest workers I know, and she didn´t hate us like some of the other nurses did because we didn´t know a lot spanish vocabulary. The doctor whose name I forgot was wonderful. She was pretty young and must have just gotten out of medical school. She always took the time to explain cases to us when we didn´t understand. We got to talking one day about her moving to the U.S. to practice medicine there. I told her that it was a great idea, especially after I found out their salary here. General doctors receive 2000 soles a month. That´s about $700 a month! I understand that it´s cheaper to live here, but still doctors usually have to take up two jobs. At last, the nurse whose name I also forgot. She probably taught me the most. She let me help her in everything she did. She taught me how to administer medicine in the iv and all sorts of other things. My favorite person at the clinic: the elevator man. They have a man that operates the elevator for patients. He was the best. So happy all the time. He loved talking to us and would always fill us in when surgeries were happening. I love all of these people and will miss them. I will be sure to visit again before I leave.

#4- Reunion
On Thursday, we had a reunion of sorts with people from Centro Tinku. There was only one girl with me at Centro Tinku when I was studying, so I was excited to meet the people that came before and after me. We met at someone´s apartment and had a party with LOTS of food, just like the peruanos always do. I met two more Germans (their everywhere, I wish I knew German) and two girls my age from the Washington and Colorado. We had a great time and decided to do some travelling together. We´re planing to go to Arequipa together sometime in mid-October.

#3- Shopping
 The day after the reunion, I called up Anna (the girl from Washington) and asked her if she wanted to do a little shopping with me. She decided to take me to this mercado called Morino. It had everything. It was huge! Every movie, every kind of shoe, every type of clothing, every kind of toy. It was great. I wanted to get something for the institute dance that night, which was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Everything was just a tad short ;) Finally I found a pretty shirt for about $10. I will be sure to return there to get some new things before I come home. I had a great time with Anna. It was really nice to be with someone and be able to speak English. It was nice to express exactly what I want to express in exactly the way I want to express it.

#2- New Clinic in Ttio
Boy, is this clinic different than the last. It´s a free clinic for the poor. People line the hallways waiting to be seen. It´s always busy and there is always something happening. I get to work in the Obstetric Center! My amount of work depends on the doctor that is supervising. My first day, I assisted the doctor with general check ups for women after they have had a baby. I got to take the initial measurements: weight, temperature, and blood pressure. I was really excited because I never could have done all that in the other clinic. Unfortunately my days since haven´t been so exciting, a lot of folding bandages. That´s okay though, someone´s gotta do it and I usually find that people reward you for doing the dirty work. I get to follow the doctors when they´re making their rounds. Everyday there is a whole new batch of about seven young mothers with their newborns. Some of them are just so young. Today, they doctor had me hold one of the babies (only 7 hours old). She was so precious and reminded me of how much I´m missing baby Kathryn. The clinic had about 80 births a month, but I have yet to be there for one. I can´t wait for more experiences there.

#1- Dance
My favorite thing that happened in the last week and a half was the institute dance on Friday. It was so different than what I expected. For some reason, I was expecting something similar to our dances. Wrong. First, they had a karaoke. I decided to pass on singing in front of everyone. I wasn´t scared, there was just a lot of people and they all like to sing karaoke a lot. After an hour of that, they started playing the music. It took a while for everyone to start dancing, but once they did I realized how different our cultures are. Most of the songs were salsa and you aren´t supposed to dance unless you have a partner. Naturally because I´m so tall, I didn´t think I would dance much. Once again, wrong. They were all excited to see the gringa dance. The one guy taller than me asked me to dance, and we danced for quite a while. I think he kind of likes me. He walked me home from church last week and asked for my number. I don´t really feel the same way, but what happens if he continues persuing me? I have a hard time turning down people in English, let alone Spanish! Anyways, then I danced some more with this other guy. He was one of the guy´s that asked to take a picture with me at Piki. We danced for almost an hour together, but once again I´m not interested. He´s pretty short and he has long hair that he pulls back into a ponytail... not really my type. There were a lot of traditional dances from Bolivia and Arequipa that I´d never seen before. It was quite an experience. After the dance, ponytail kid asked me for my number. Luckily, I don´t know the house number by heart and I hadn´t purchased a cellphone yet. Got out of that one! One of my girlfriends turned to me and told me he was my admirer. I rolled my eyes and then she said there are better boys out there. So it looks like Peruanos don´t have a problem with how tall I am. And I thought I would have a vacation from boys.

How to Celebrate a Birthday in Peru

First I must ask you to please watch Jim Gaffigan´s Cake sketch at http://youtu.be/-o-u4IwXkbE if you have never seen it. It´s hilarious and you´ll understand better. Yesterday was the birthday of my host dad, Ivan. Now I´ve celebrated relative´s birthdays with them, but never actually a member of the immediate family. I didn´t realize how much more there is than what I´ve experienced. I will now proceed to give a step by step process of how to celebrate a birthday in peru. It´s a big day, so be prepared.

Step1- Make the cakes the night before:
I caught my host mom staying up late making three different types of cake, little did I know when we would be eating them.

Step 2- Cake for breakfast:
At 6:30 in the morning I wake up to the sound of about 15 peruvians singing Feliz Cumpleanos. My first thought: Hope it´s chocolate for me. I get dressed and go downstairs, thinking that they were just singing over eggs or something. I sit down at the table and am served two huge pieces of cake. Cake for breakfast. That´s interesting. Looks like I´m not taking a shower today, I´ll be digesting these carbs for hours. I felt quite sick afterwards, when Milagros serves me the last piece of cake because she didn´t want to save it. There is no stopping this woman with feeding me. It´s like My Big Fat Greek Wedding or something. It´s always ¨sirvate!¨, which translates into EAT SOMETHING! I practically rolled around the hospital for the rest of the day. I was tempted to use one of the wheelchairs lying around. One of my German intern friends asked me what the matter was. I turned to her and said, ¨Cake for breakfast¨. She laughed and said she had eaten cake for breakfast for a week after a birthday in her family. I couldn´t believe it. I don´t know how these people digest with this kind of diet. I think I´m getting scurvy. If I end up in the hospital, you´ll know why. Luckily, there were a lot of people there, so we finished the cakes. Oh I forgot to mention, not only do they have cake for breakfast, but they drink too. I can´t imagine drinking at all, let alone 6:30 in the morning. Next to the cakes were a couple of bottles of Pisco, which is Cusco´s famous alcoholic beverage. At least they didn´t decide to combine the two and make rum cake.

Step 3- Massive Lunch:
This was my favorite part of the day because I had the best food I´ve eaten yet. Once again a bunch of family came over for lunch. We had peruvian pasta, roasted chicken, and these stuffed peppers full of meat and vegetables. It was SO good! Milagros bought Sprite for me because she knows I don´t drink. They had some sort of cocktail. Everytime someone finds out I don´t drink, it´s like the end of the world. WHAT?!? You don´t drink alcohol! It always ends up the topic of conversation at dinners with the entire family. It´s always, you don´t even drink a little? But Jesus drank wine. But you´re missing out on so much. Ha. That´s quite funny now because of what happened later. Anyways, after lunch we ate more cake. Definitely took a siesta after that one, and definitely had to eat a slice of that cake for breakfast this morning.

Step 4- Drink the Night Away:
After lunch I asked Milagros if there was anymore celebrations later. She told me that there was a little party later with some of Ivan´s friends, but it would just be drinking so I probably wouldn´t enjoy it. While they started their party downstairs, I decided to watch a movie in English. It was really nice to snuggle up in a blanket and sit on the couch. Around 11:00 I went to bed as usual. While I was laying there in bed I realized that the party downstairs was getting louder and louder. They were getting really drunk. Thank goodness I can fall asleep fast because it might have taken a long time. It was a rough night to say the least. I woke up several times to their laughing or yelling. At one point I woke up to the song ¨Eye of the Tiger¨. My first thought: since when was I sleeping in the library? (At midnight the library at BYU plays the same music for closing time, Eye of the Tiger is one of the songs) I looked at my watch and it was 5:30! I could not believe it, they were still awake and probably drinking. This time I knew I wouldn´t be able to go back to sleep as easily because the music was so loud. Then after about 10 mins I hear this pounding on the door. They continued to knock until the party heard them 3 mins later. I´m pretty sure it was a neighbor because they thank goodness turned the music way down. I woke up this morning and stepped out of my room. The whole house except my room reeked of alcohol. Luckily they only drink on birthdays.

It´s a Girl!

Today was my fourth day in the San Jose Clinic. I have been a little disappointed thus yet because there is nothing for me to do. The other volunteers and I sit around waiting for something, anything to do, even if it´s rolling bandages. I told my parents about this on Tuesday and my mom said that she would pray that I would have something to do. I swear that woman has this secret phone to Heavenly Father that he immediately answers, because today was quite exciting. Not only did we have lots of transporting of patients and calls to attend to, but there were two appointments today in the surgery room. Another volunteer and I went down to the room to ask if we could sit in as soon as we found out. The nurse said that we´d have to ask the doctor when he arrived. She also told us that one surgery was a cesarean section and the other was a histerectomy. I have never seen a birth and for those of you who don´t know, I want to be an Obstetrician Gynecologist. So to say the least I was ecstatic. I waited and prayed that the doctor would say yes. After an hour, he arrived and told us only one of us could go in each of the surgeries. We looked at each other and both knew that we wanted to see the birth. After two rounds of an intense game of rock-paper-scissors and lots of praying on my part, I won and got to go in! I scrubed up and waited. I sat there thinking, what if this is not what I think it will be? What if this is a mistake? What if I all of a sudden get queezy from all the blood? What if all my dreams come crashing down because I hate it? In the middle of my panic, a nurse told me that I could come on in. She put me in a place so I could see everything. In the U.S., I definitely could not have been that close. They started right away and used some instruments I´ve never seen before. I won´t go into all the details to spare the readers who get queezy. I was a little nervous because all of a sudden there was so much blood, but then the doctor pulled out the baby. She was so beautiful. I almost cried with the baby right there on the spot. I couldn´t help but think that this little person was just with our Heavenly Father. For that moment alone, it was all worth it. All of it. Sitting around waiting, rolling bandages, four flights, it was all worth it. It was so much more beautiful and spiritual than I thought it would be. It was the greatest thing I have ever seen.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday......

It has been quite an adventuresome few days. I have waited too long to blog and now I have to play catch up. We´re going to take it one day at a time. Here we go..... buckle up.

THURSDAY- Do you want to meet the dead in the cemetery? 

Just like any other day, I was at Centro Tinku learnin some espanol. I had a break and I ended up talking to another teacher about Cusco. There happened to be a fiesta for the Virgen Mary that day and she talked my teacher into taking a little field trip. There is another girl there that studies at the same as me, but Quechua instead of Spanish, so we packed into a taxi and headed over to the party. On the way over, my teacher turns to me and asks me if I want to meet the dead in the cemetery. Of course as any other person would say, I enthusiastically said yes! The fiesta was right next to the cemetary, so they took us on a little tour. When we got there they were having mass outside together for the Virgen Mary in these bright colorful costumes. Instead of joining, we went into the building. It was beautiful. I later learned that the Spaniards built it for a jail. Hah. That´s not too bad, I wouldn´t mind living there. I wonder if anyone committed a crime just to live there? After the jail, we went to the cemetery to meet the dead. I never really thought about how different cultures would have different ways of burying their dead, well in this case it´s not really burying. (see pictures) It was really strange. There was a band singing in the cemetery. Peruvians like to celebrate life, rather than mourn. After the cemetery, we adventured to the food. One of the famous dishes is Peru is this plate full of different types of meat, from all the regions in Peru. I had been planning on trying it, but quickly changed my mind. It wasn´t what was in it (cuy: guinea pig), rather it was how it was prepared. They told me to not eat anything off the streets, so I passed on that one. Maybe I will try it in some restaurant someday..... maybe.

The jail.

For rich families, they have their own plot.

The cemetery. I sat there trying to figure out how you get a body in that small space. Maybe that´s just one of those things everybody wonders about, but you´re not supposed to ask.

FRIDAY- Time for Fiesta Friday

 It was my last day at Centro Tinku. Bittersweet because I´ll miss the people there, but I definitely won´t miss being stuck pounding my head against the table for four hours in a classroom. I come home and Milagros asks me if I want to go to a birthday party for a one year old. I said why not, expecting a little get together with some family where the baby smashes her face into the cake, but boy was I wrong. Picture this: a restaurant (like a nice McDonalds) covered in balloons, balloon arches, balloon animals, balloon flowers, food scattered on every inch of the table, and un paiso (a clown). I happen to detest clowns in the U.S., but this one wasn´t that bad. There must have been 50 people there. Within the first 5 minutes the birthday baby girl ends up crying and has to be taken out for most of the party. I turned to Milagros and asked her if this is kind of production is normal for a baby´s birthday and she told me of course, she´s turning 1! It was a night of dancing, eating, and naturally, more eating. Not only was there a giant cake, but there was treats all over the table, a piñata, and a meal of chicken and french fries at the end. It lasted probably 4 hours. One thing for sure, Peruanos sure know how to party.

Fiesta with Astrid!

SATURDAY- Piquillacta

I was worried. All I knew was that the institute was meeting in front of the hospital somewhere. Too bad I didn´t know anyone. I was determined to find them, so I put on my mormon radar and started searching around the hospital. Luckily, the mormons were spotted. I made friends with the girl that I first talked to, while the other 50 people just stared at me. I´m pretty sure they just thought I was some lost tourist. After the bus ride, I met this guy that had just returned from his mission two days previous from Fresno,CA. He was really excited to talk to me. He said he was having problems with Spanish because he mainly spoke English for two years. We walked around the ruins for two hours. It was amazing! It was built different than other places because they used smaller stones and cement to fill in the extra space. It overlooked a lake, and to the side of the lake were steps going all the way up the mountain. It was truly one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It turns out that I was one of the coolest things that some of the other people in the institute had ever seen too. Several wanted pictures with me, even though I hadn´t even talked to them yet. They´ve probably never seen a girl as tall as me before :) If you ever want to learn a lesson about making new people feel welcome, come down here and learn it from the institute. It was like they all wanted to be my best friend. I don´t think i´ve ever felt so welcome.

They found a new species of animal in Piki. This is rosa and I, she was the first person I talked to.

This was actually a sort of street.

Where´s Waldo?

They thought it was really funny that my wingspan reached all the way across.

SUNDAY- Stick with me we are almost up to date

Sunday wasn´t too much different than the one before, just more people to meet. That night, there was a CES fireside with Elder Oaks. All the YSA met in one chapel to see it via satelite. Let´s just say, that it´s a little different hearing it in Spanish. It was so weird for me because I´m usually there in the building. I kept looking for my friends when they would scan the audience. I tend to forget that everyone else is going on with their life while I´m here in Peru, including BYU. I couldn´t really understand the fireside that well, because there are so many church words I don´t know and the translator was going really fast. I got to talk to a lot of my friends I had made at Piki. They were all trying to talk me into going to multiple days for institute so that I could see everyone. 

MONDAY- San Jose Clinic with the Germans

 I arrived in my white coat and scrubs, really nervous. I was introduced to the doctor once, and never saw him again. It was pretty much what I expected. Not too eventful. My program director told me that I would be in this clinic for two weeks to learn the medical words and procedures and then go to a clinic where they actually need me. There were three other volunteers there. I don´t know how it´s possible, but everyone that I met today, besides the doctors and the nurses, was German. They all speak about 5 different languages, so I could talk with them. I followed the nurse around, helping her move patients, get medication, wash patient´s hair, and run up and down several flights of stairs (there´s seven floors). I guess they don´t really use the elevator, except when moving patients. I´m not too worried about gaining weight anymore. It was enjoyable and I hope I can get into watching a surgery tomorrow.

***Side note: To say that I eat a lot of carbs is an understatement. It´s more than an understatement. I´ll paint you a picture. In the morning, I usually have something with bread, like avacados or eggs. For lunch, there is usually some sort of soup and then rice, potatoes, and chicken. At night, I usually eat bread with some leftovers from lunch. Luckily the girl who is love with carbs came to Peru :)

We say ¿Porque?, Peruanos say ¿Porque No?

My clothes were getting smelly and unfortunatley my family does all their wash by hand. I decided to pass on that cultural experience and took them to a lavanderia right next to Centro Tinku. At 3:30 I left to go back into town to pick them up and oh what a surprise I found. They had just started a parade in La Plaza del Armas. I couldn´t help myself, I had to see it. I ended up staying there for an hour listening to the music and looking at the colorful costumes. It was not a holiday. No one important had come into town. They just decided to have a huge parade for no rhyme or reason. Americans would say Why? Why shut down the main streets and stores for a parade celebrating nothing? Peruanos would say Why not? Why not shut down the main streets and stores for a parade? We´re celebrating LIFE and HERITAGE! Those are the important things. I just love it. They teach me something new everyday. Take the time. Shut down your busy life. Enjoy the important things.

The parade wrapped around the entire plaza and the street after.

I had to take a picture of this. All of a suddent this woman, in a pantsuit, decided to join the parade. She must have learned the dance previously, because she was as good as the rest of them. How many of us would join a parade because we felt like it?

Warning: Not for the weak stomach

For those of you who know me very well, you know that I don´t get queezy easily. Dead things and smells I can handle. The meat section of the mecardo, I cannot. Last Friday as part of my lesson, Viviana took me to the mercado. The only way I can describe it is it´s like a giant farmer´s market. I absolutely love farmer´s markets, and now I absolutely love mercados. Correction: I absolutely love mercados except the meat section. They have everything, and I mean everything. You wanna buy the kidney of a pig? Don´t worry if they don´t have it at Ralphs, you can just come down here and buy it. I was walking down the meat aisle and there were pigs just hanging of the side of tables, and I don´t mean a cute little Wilbur pig, I mean GIANT pigs. Their intestines were just hanging from hooks. It smelled so bad. One hundred times worse than the anatomy lab. All of this, I could have handled, if it had not been for the picture in my mind of people actually eating it. That´s when I got queezy. I took several long strides and found myself in the land of ginormous fruit and bread. The bread was in huge circles twice the size of my head and the papayas were the size of a football. They had every kind of souvenir you could imagine, so put in your orders now! Llamitas, Alpaca sweaters, scarves, hats with llamas on them, and all sorts of incan stuff. On Sunday, I went to church for the first time here. The ward is pretty big and everyone was so welcoming. I met a bunch of young single adults and there is an activity next Saturday with the institute. After church, Ivan´s family had a big get together for a late lunch. There were so many relatives, it was like my family. There must have been thirty people. It was a blast! There was so much laughter and fun, I love the Peruanos. I met a girl that was with one of the relatives, doing a study abroad program with twenty other college kids. She was from Pennsylvania and we got to talking for a long time. I´m sure we´ll be good friends. Love you all! I´m excited to spend another week in my favorite place.

I was walking by the San Francisco Cathedral when I heard music. This is what I found, a festival for no apparent reason. So Peruvian.

I really just loved this guys expression.

I´ve put up a picture of this cathedral before, but it´s do much better with Viva El Peru in the back.

On Saturday, Anabel (my host hermanita) showed me the famous twelve-sided stone. Can you count the sides?

The incans built the beautiful stone walls, and then the Spaniards had to go and ruin it with cement on top.

Football papayas



Poor Wilbur.

The juice section of the mercado

Astrid (mi hermanita) and I. I just love this little girl.