A day with the Gringos

After 8 long days of not conversing in English, I braved the buses, to ride into Lima central and have an afternoon with the other volunteers in Lima. This was my first real solo bus ride without a note from my parents, and I did fine. I was planning on coming home with my host dad, but we stayed out for dinner and I made it home too! I was greeted first by Emily who I did not expect to see. She was in town getting a new passport, having being robbed of her original one on first arriving at her placement site. It was actually weird to me to speak to her in English. I was so used to processing what I was going to say, to dumb it down enough to where I might be able to say a word or 2 in spanish, that it took me a second to realize that I could speak without thinking (which isn't really a good idea for me either!) But the weirdness quickly went away and I spent the next 7 hours happily conversing in my native tounge. The 5 of us had lunch and then walked around a bit, hitting all the DVD stands looking for 24 season 3. We also had dinner at a relatively "American" place. They wanted to try and speak English to us, so we let them, trying to respond in Spanish. After dinner, we headed our separate ways, them back to their houses and me back on the bus for an hour to get home. It was really good to see the people who were sharing this experience with me here in Peru, even if we are all having slightly different experiences...Santiago.

Remember how I said I survived the weekend? That required a little more than I had thought. Tuesday night, I started feeling a little sick. I slept horribly and woke up with a sore throat and a stopped up head. Not being sick enough to not go to work, I went, even though I wasn't good for much. By lunch, my head was killing me and I just wanted to leave. But since I didn't know how to get home, I had to stay. When I finally got home, I got in the bed and stayed. Mama Flor brought me my dinner in bed and Eduardo brought me some super drugs when he got home. They were pretty concerned about me. Sometimes, I think they forget that I am 26 and have been living on my own for more than a few years now. I didn't have anywhere to be until the next afternoon, so I slept it off and felt much better by the time I had to go to my guitar lesson. It is not much fun to be sick away from home, especially when you can't call your mom and complain to her, or better yet have her take care of you, so I am glad that it was over in a day!

Things here seem to be becoming a little more routine, so I don't feel that I have that much to say, but I think that is because there is so much that is different and so much going on, that I don't really know what to write about. It is all part of a great experience that has just begun. It is hard for me to believe that it was only one month ago that I was saying goodbye to my family. It already seems like a lifetime ago. I know that they are praying for me and that is all I can ask. I am praying for all of you as you read this in hopes that God is doing great things in your lives as well!

Another side note to end things, today I had to eat something that was not easy for me. There are people who eat this in the US, lots of people in fact. But it was something that I had not had before and if I have to eat it again, it will be too soon. What was it? Liver. Maybe it was because of the fact that with every bite, every time I chewed it I thought about the thousands of mice livers that I worked with over the past 5 years, but it was hard to eat. I just thought I would share that with you all!