OK, this is the big entry...and the title is Spanish for surfing, but it literally translates to ¨running the waves¨! So Saturday morning was my first ever surfing lesson, and I have to say it went really well. My instructor and another volunteer and myself headed to Los Organos, a town about 15 minutes south of Màncora, with surfboards piled high on top and me saying a prayer as I slipped my second skin or rash guard (a thick Spandex-type long sleeve t-shirt that protects your upper body from fiberglass splinters from the board as you paddle) over my head. I was also just hoping I would have enough energy for today, as I had been sick all week (see below for further info on that). Now I was also a little apprehensive about having this huge board starting out, as everyone begins surfing by using a long board. Then it was explained to me using the analogy that a long board makes it much easier to stand up on in the water, sort of like a door floating in the water. Anything smaller would be like trying to balance on a cabinet door. The more board you have, the more surface area on the water to spread your weight out over, and thus the easier it is to stand up. Who knew this surfing business was so technical?! So now about my surf teacher...he is a former pro-surfer, and answered with a yeh! when I asked if he had surfed with Kelly Slater, Jack Johnson, and he mentioned a few others. He was born in California, but his father was Peruvian, so after pulling out of the pro scene, he landed in Máncora and now has his own surf shop and only does advertising by word of mouth. When he found out I was volunteering here, he knocked down the price he quoted me by a significant amount, so booyah for me! As I said in an earlier entry, he put me completely at ease and was very reassuring, so I was very relieved of my previously mentioned anxieties! After arriving at the beach and finding no one around--yes!!--except a few fishermen, my instructor had me do some warm-up exercises and stretches, then drew a surfboard in the sand and demonstrated the proper sequence for standing up on the board, then had me practice. I soon discovered that I needed a modified sequence as my upper body is not strong enough to do a jump to standing from laying flat on my stomach, so after practicing another method, we headed out into the water. Average wave size was about 3 feet, and as we entered the water, he went over proper technique for carrying the board, walking past breaking waves with it, getting onto the board, and then paddling. Now when I say paddling, I mean that your arms are stroking away, the only energy source for propelling both you and your board through the water. Well, let me also just say that it`s a good thing you type with your arms down at your sides, because it`s a little difficult to even raise my arms to put a shirt on right now! I also have to interject that my instructor was sans surfboard and instead had on a pair of flippers, hanging onto the back of my board and kicking as I paddled, so it was a whole lot easier this first time out. The fins were also crucial once we turned and were trying to catch a wave, as again, I needed the extra power to keep ahead of the wave until I got into its momentum as my arms were not enough (mental note to self...push-ups are being added to the regimen as soon as my arms don`t shake anymore when I lift them up). As I got into good position relative to the break of the first approaching wave, my instructor started kicking, I started paddling like crazy, the wave caught us up in it`s powerful surge towards the beach ahead, he counted to 3, then told me to stand up...I pushed up onto my knees as he held the board to stabilize it, I turned slightly, and then promptly fell off as I tried to bring my right foot forward and stand up! After making sure I was ok and hadn`t swallowed too much water, we headed back out, got ready, then as the second wave approached, we caught the momentum again, one-two-three, and I was up! I was up!! My instructor let go of the board, and I was off!! Then after what felt like an entire minute, but was probably only 2 seconds, I jumped off as I neared the beach...what a rush!! After high-fiving on that one since I had just surfed on only my second wave, I spent the next hour practicing standing up as we caught the wave and rode it in...however, I must say that it felt like I stood up on most of the waves, even if I only stayed standing for a few seconds before loosing my balance and bailing. We even headed out into the bigger waves (only by a foot or so) halfway through the lesson, since my instructor said it looked like I was ready. Tough work, and I was exhausted as we walked out of the water, carrying my surfboard that had lost a back fin somewhere along the way and the second fin hanging on by a few pieces of tape, me bleeding from several cuts on my feet from some falls onto rocks and a few good bruises already forming, but what an incredible feeling, and I`m already signed up for my second lesson!! Now I just have to work on the upper body strength to be able to paddle myself to catch the wave and be able to read the waves to know when to start paddling and when to stand up, as it was quite easy with someone right behind me in the water doing those things for me! I have attached some pictures that my fellow volunteer took while providing moral support from the beach. Some of them are pretty far away, but if you are able to zoom in on your computer, it`s a better picture. Enjoy!
Particularly now that I have found my oasis...down the beach further south, about a 5-minute mototaxi ride, in the residential section of Máncora, sits paradise! The i-to-i contact here in Máncora is a wonderful woman who owns this hotel/resort with her husband, who moved to Máncora from Lima after returning from Miami where they lived for 17 years. They take all i-to-i volunteers under their wing, making themselves available at a moment´s notice if there is ever a problem, but best of all, offering the hotel´s pool, private beach, and restaurant to the volunteers at no charge, not including what is ordered from the restaurant of course. It´s absolute serenity as soon as I step through the gate, and it´s very easy for me to spend an entire weekend day there...perfect after a hard workout the day before!
In other news, it was bound to happen sooner or later, working with kids, and it being winter here so the warmth of the day quickly evaporates into chillier nights, but I was hit with some sort of bug and have been in bed most of my 5th week here. Which makes another reason I´m glad I´m staying, as I would have hated to miss my last week being in this condition! The past week I had a persistent cough that I thought I was over. And I felt fine Monday morning as I met the new i-to-i volunteer at the bus stop, who was arriving to teach English at the school for the next 3 months. But by Monday night my throat started feeling sore and rather thick, and I woke up Tuesday morning feeling like I had been hit by a truck I was so achy. I went on my assigned home visits, not getting back til 3 in the afternoon as there were 2 new cases for me, which thankfully I was accompanied by the woman that runs the center and was the one who did most of the therapy. I literally crashed when I got back to the hostel, sleeping for over an hour, and dug down deep to make it to the center later in the afternoon. They took one look at me, and asked what was wrong, and fighting back tears because 1) I felt absolutely wretched as at this point was going back and forth between chills and feeling like my face was going to burn off my head followed by the rest of my body, and 2) I always seem to break down at the first, if even slightest, expression of sympathy. To which the kids started swarming around me asking if I was ok, making fighting back the tears even harder. So I just handed off the afternoon´s activity I had planned and came right back to the hostel. My host family, along with a few others, were very sweet, feeling my forehead, then quickly withdrawing like they had touched a hot stove, and basically told me to go to the 24-hour clinic. Now as some of you know, I have a very strong aversion to taking medicine, especially antibiotics, so this was the last thing I wanted to do. But after taking my temperature for about the hundredth time, and realizing it was at its highest of 102 even after taking Tylenol, I realized I couldn´t fight this one off on my own and another volunteer offered to accompany me to the clinic. I was examined, and after hearing the equivalent of ¨Oh my goodness!¨ in Spanish from the doctor as he looked in my throat, he announced I had a throat infection that was severly inflamed and prescribed me, you guessed it, an antibiotic. I no sooner got back to the hostel, and I was met at the door by the woman that runs the center, who had made me some soup and loaded me in her car to go get my prescriptions filled. After stopping at 4 or 5 different pharmacies, who were either closed or didn´t have the right medicine, she brought me home and told me to take as many days off as I needed. The next morning I dragged myself out to go get my prescriptions changed and get them filled. My host mom and her daughters have been very concerned, checking and rechecking my forehead, and zipping up my fleece when I would come down with it half-opened, even checking the temperature of my glass to make sure I wasn´t drinking anything too cold. I have heard, ¨No hielo!¨ (no ice!) more times than I can count on both hands from everyone, as it is an old wives´ tale here that drinking cold beverages makes the illness worse. In the past few days as I was coming close to going out of my mind with boredom ¨resting¨as the doctor prescribed, I realized there have been some positives that come with being sick, as I feel a little closer to my family both here at the hostel and at the center...I am so blessed to be surrounded by such great people that have been looking out for me here! I was able to go in to the center on Friday afternoon, and even though most of the kids weren`t there as it was a meeting on domestic violence for all the mothers, I did get to see some of them that had come with their moms, and as I thought it would be, the kids have been the best medicine so far!!
I felt that since this week marked the 6th year since September 11th, I had to put in this entry my thoughts about this anniversary. It was interesting to me that on Monday the 10th, I was sitting around talking with the other teachers at the center and we realized it was the 11th the next day. They asked me what my reaction had been, to which I explained that my generation now has something that they remember exactly where they were and what they were doing at the time, sort of like JFK´s assassination for the previous generation. I was a senior in college, and I had just gotten off the phone with the person who would be my supervisor for my upcoming fieldwork placement, came downstairs where one of my roommates was watching TV, and initially thinking she was watching a movie at first glance given the screen was filled with buildings exploding and thick clouds of black smoke, but then I saw the look on her face and realized it was actually happening. This explanation made the group quite somber, and for these people that watched the events of that day and the events that followed as mere bystanders, even though they were citizens of another country, the feeling was the same. As I said before, I was already quite miserable by the time Tuesday the 11th actually rolled around, since I was not feeling so well, but I took comfort in a simple verse from Proverbs, chapter 10, verse 30, for those that want to look it up, hopefully it will bring the same reassurance it did for me.
So some of you are probably reading this entry and wondering why I´m not writing about saying goodbye to everyone and packing my bags to head to Lima for my next project, as I was only originally scheduled to be in Máncora for 5 weeks. Unfortunately, this is the low season for volunteers here it seems, and the volunteer that was arriving this month for the center has cancelled, the next volunteer that has signed up to work at the center is not arriving until mid-October. The project in Lima that I was to work on also is without a volunteer until mid-October. So in thinking it over and discussing it with my in-country coordinator, I have decided to extend my stay here in Máncora for the entire 11 weeks that I´m here for my first leg in Perú. It basically came down to either leaving the center without a volunteer, or leaving the project in Lima without a volunteer, and having built up a rapport already with the center and the home visits, I decided I would be more effective here, and really couldn´t possibly leave these kids yet! I also didn´t want the new volunteer arriving without someone familiar with the center here for orientation, especially with the home visits and all the projects going on at the center. And besides, I do have to admit this was a factor, although I´d like to say it was down near the bottom of the list, but closer to the middle in reality, that it also came down to staying for 6 more weeks at the beach, or moving on to cold, dreary, big city Lima. That wasn´t so tough a decision!!
Particularly now that I have found my oasis...down the beach further south, about a 5-minute mototaxi ride, in the residential section of Máncora, sits paradise! The i-to-i contact here in Máncora is a wonderful woman who owns this hotel/resort with her husband, who moved to Máncora from Lima after returning from Miami where they lived for 17 years. They take all i-to-i volunteers under their wing, making themselves available at a moment´s notice if there is ever a problem, but best of all, offering the hotel´s pool, private beach, and restaurant to the volunteers at no charge, not including what is ordered from the restaurant of course. It´s absolute serenity as soon as I step through the gate, and it´s very easy for me to spend an entire weekend day there...perfect after a hard workout the day before!
