The Day the Music Died

It has been a great week in Peru! I don´t have a whole lot of interesting stories to write about, but I do want to share some milestones I have achieved this week.

1) In recent memory (aka the past 4 days) there have been no incidents with the combi and I´ve even traveled by myself.
2) I enjoyed my first cold shower.
3) I shaved both legs entirely for the first time.
4) I received my first package (thanks Mom and Dad).
5) I brushed my hair with a real brush (not a comb) and it was amazing.
6) I got palta (avocado) with my bread at breakfast 4 out of the past 5 days. Luxury.
7) I rode in a taxi with 10 other people.

On Tuesday my family picked me up in a taxi (all 10 of them) and we went to Jockey Plaza which is about 30 minutes towards Lima. We were going to see Transformers there at the cine, but they didn´t have it in Spanish and some of the little boys can´t read subtitles quick enough so we just went into the mall. The mall is wayyyy nicer than any mall in Columbia (that´s a given) and maybe better even than Kenwood. Inside we went to ¨Happyland¨where the boys played games and rode the bumper cars. I felt like I was back in the States! Afterwards we went to get dinner and had chicken, salad and french fries! I couldn´t believe it!

We´ve had some interesting business training this week which has been a nice change of pace. We went to a colegio nearby called Estenos a couple days ago to get a feel for it since we´re going to be facilitating an activity there on July 1st. There were about 20 of us and I have never felt more stared at in my entire life. The students had their noses pressed to classroom windows and were hanging over railings to see us. Then we started playing volleyball against some of them and we probably had 100 people just staring at us. It was so bizarre! Today we went to an instituto for a charla that Kevin and Kathrin (our business trainers) were giving to the students there so we actually got to see a little of what we´ll be doing. We just went over some basic business skills with them and came up business ideas. All of them chose to work with food and I couldn´t believe how long it took for them to answer simple questions like ¨Why do you want to start this business?¨and ¨What need in the community does it fufill?¨ I think we´ll all have to get used to working at a much slower pace here.

Also, I cannot believe that Michael Jackson died! I felt really far away when I found out because I know that most of you probably found out within an hour of it happening. If I hadn´t come to the internet cafe tonight I wouldn´t have figured it out for days. My hermano Cesar loves MJ and I gave him the Michael Jackson songs I have on my iTunes for his MP3 player so I´ll have to let him know when I get home.

I´m heading to Lima on Saturday again for some agricultural training and also hopefully to see a bit more of the city. Monday is a Feriada (national holiday) so we´re not going to be having classes. Hopefully I´ll be able to post some pictures then.

Thank you for the emails and snailmail!

Buenas Noches,

Steph