Week of January 23

This week has gone by so fast, I can't believe that it's already Saturday. With that being said, I don't feel like a lot has happened since last week. Haha
One thing that probably stands out to me the most is my deathly encounter with the biggest beetles I've ever seen in my life!! Often times, when the kids find some sort of bug or something they think is so cool, they end up knocking on our door and it usually ends up being at like 8:30 AM. So we get the knock and then to our surprise we open the door to two boys holding the most gigantic beetles ever!

The kids told us they are called unicorn beetles or something like that. they are ubber scary looking too! You have to keep them seperated because if you put them down together, they start to fight with each others, which amused the boys to no end. They also found it funny to try and sneak up behind us and put them in our hair. Even though they didn't actually get them that close, it was still not funny! I however was extremely brave, for I actually held one....

As you can tell by my face, I was totally calm and collected during the whole experience...

After "playing" with these beetles for about an hour, my friend Jayde decided to get a good picture of her trying to kiss it. But, when she leaned down, the beetle suddenly sprouted wings and flew away. You have never seen 3 girls scream so loud and run so fast in your entire life. We had no idea that they could fly, I truly saw my life flash before my eyes....

During the week, we have art with some of the younger kids 3 times a week, so sometimes it's difficult to come up with ideas that a 3-4 year old can do. But, we did end up playing with play-dough. We had a ton of fun, and us interns felt like little kids again. My roommate Jayde made a cute little pig that on of the kids, Luis Fernando, fell in love with and wanted to keep. But unfortunately, we had to put everything back in the end. One thing that did surprise us was that one of the kids, Daybis was scared of the play-dough. We kept trying to get him to play with it, but every time he would start crying and run away. This is one of the first times, I have ever heard of anyone having a fear of play-dough!! If Oprah had a show, we could take him on  it and she could cure him. haha

Also during the week, we teach English to some of the older kids. They are so smart and catch on really quick. Right now, we are just doing basics like the alphabet, colors, numbers, and we added fruit this week. You can tell that some are much more interested in it than other kids, but that's how it is with any type of class kids take. Like I said though, the kids can pick up it quite quickly and soon they will probably now more English than I know Spanish...

Before I finish, there is one more story that must be told. Here at the Aldea, the government is doing an inventory of something like that. So there are like 4-5 guys walking around the Aldea doing stuff this past week. On Thursday, one of the other interns, Frances, was asked by this creepy guy kept staring at us this whole time he was there, to take her picture. Then, he gets some of the tia's (the women who basically run each casa and take care of the kids) to ask Frances to take a picture of the two of them together! Creepy, right? Well, the three of us are watching all of this happen and laughing hysterically but then one of the other guys, who is much older, asks if he can take a picture with all four of us. That definitely stopped our laughter. I don't really understand why people want pictures of us when they don't even know who we are, but it will probably happen again in the future unfortunately. 

Hello to everyone in the good ole' U.S. of A.
Well, I can't believe that I've almost been here in Peru for 2 weeks. It feels like so much longer, to tell you the truth. haha It would be a lie to say that I have enjoyed every second of it, but I have enjoyed most of it.
My adventure got off to a rough start by having my luggage get lost in the Peru airport. This may have not been so frustrating if I had to wait for someone who actually spoke English so they actually understood what I was trying to tell them. However, I did finally get my luggage, even though it ended up being a week later.

Even though it took us three days to actually get to the Aldea, when we finally got there, it was worth it. Again, I'm not going to say that it's been sunshine and rainbows the whole time, but it's been pretty darn close. When we first arrive at the Aldea, the security guard almost wouldn't let us in, because I don't actually think they were expecting us. haha but when he finally did, the kids just basically swarmed us. They started talking and wanting to take our suitcases. The hardest part was at this point not to get frustrated with the fact that I couldn't really understand what they were saying at all. That was pretty difficult.

After talking to Tia Blanca, who is the director of the Aldea, we head to our casa. We unpack a little bit then head out to play with the kids for a bit before dinner that night. We played tag, which is fun in any country because you don't really have to understand what they are saying.

My Madre said that I have to make sure I don't loose to much weight while I'm here, but I can assure you that if anything, I'm going to gain weight. They feed us so much food!! We usually have chicken or fish (which I am learning to like), tons of rice, salad, and a bowl of soup that has rice and vegetables in it. We also tend to have potatoes a lot too. Also I have learned to adjust to is that they just pile everything on top of each other. My Aunt Suzzy would have such a hard time here, because the salad goes on the rice and the chicken/fish goes on top of the rice and if there is some sort of sauce, it's all mixed into the concoction.

My first weekend here in Peru was also fun. We went to the beach with the Castillo's who are a family that have been kind enough to let us stay with them at their house on the weekends. They only live about 30 minutes away from the Aldea in the city of Trujillo so we take what is called a combi. A combi is basically just a van that people ride in and you want to ride early because it gets full at night. For example, last night was so full that people were on top of each other and standing up. It was crazy!!! But the beach was way fun and I don't think I will be able to go back to Utah and no longer have a beach only 10 minutes away...

Also last week, we got the opportunity to go to this sweet action restaurant. It had traditional Peruvian Dancing that we got to watch and a live band that everyone would get up and dance to. It's to bad that people back in the states don't really dance anymore. Another thing I learned is that for birthday's its a tradition to shove cake at people. haha When asked if we do that, I told them no and if we did, it was usually only at weddings. But apparently here, it's custom to start shouting "Bite! Bite!" and for the  person to try to take a bit out of their cake, even though they most likely know that they will get it shoved in their face in the end. 

This week at the Aldea however has also been eventful. A note of advice to anyone: if someone asks you question in a language that you don't understand, don't say yes. I had a girl ask me a question one day and I had absolutely no idea what she was saying, so I just said yes. When her eyes got really wide, I knew that I had done something wrong. I quickly looked up the word that she had used, and come to find out that I had just told her that I knew Justin Bieber. haha I quickly told her that I did not know him. My friend Jayde who is over here with me has convinced the whole Aldea that she is Justin Bieber's ex-girlfriend and that she broke up with him because he was a bad kisser. So, our goal for this weekend is to come up with pictures we can show the kids that have her and Justin together. hehe

Use girls now how to spend our down time....by making bracelets of course!

Another thing that I have learned while here in Peru is that things hardly EVER start on time. It was one of the girl's birthday this week and since she was turning 18, she has to leave the Aldea. So, we threw her a birthday/going away party. This party was suppose to start at 3:00 PM but didn't actually even being to start  until almost 5:00 PM. I was going crazy, but eventually I was told that this is very normal and we don't really even need to actually show up until close to 4:00 PM because there was no point. This makes the phrase "better late than never" have a whole knew meaning.

Sorry it's taken me so long to finally get this blog going. Since I only have internet on the weekends, I will hopefully update on a weekly basis...at least that is the plan. :D How all is well with everyone else and remember that I miss you all!!!!