Amazing sunsets...

So last weekend was my first opportunity to view one amazing sunset...my first over the Pacific Ocean from the coast of Perú! The other volunteer and I headed up the Panamericana Highway a bit further north of Mancora via combi (see previous entry for description) to the town of Punta Sal, a beach resort much less travelled to and thus a whole lot quieter and less crowded than Mancora. After mesquines saltado, a native seafood dish, for lunch, we hit the beach just as the sun broke through the heavy clouds that had been hanging around all morning. It just kept getting better, too, and the sunset, which we had all to ourselves, was absolutely amazing!! You ask how it could get any better? Well, how about watching humpback whales jumping and breaching only about 200 yards off-shore?! It was absolutely incredible and we couldn´t believe our eyes, or our luck, at seeing these magnificent creatures at play as the sun sank over the water and created the most beautiful sky ever! Wow is all I have to describe it!

Last weekend was also the last few days for donations to be collected for the earthquake victims of Pisco and Ica. It´s absolutely amazing seeing bags full of things for these people that have lost everything, but it´s even more humbling when I realize where these donations are coming from, in a town that is on the brink of poverty itself. Giving when you have next to nothing to give, but then again, that has been a recurrent theme that I have been blessed to witness everywhere I´ve travelled to this past year.

So this blog entry is going to be a sort of hodgepodge of updates on the past week and the 2 weeks that I`ve been here. I don`t know if it`s me or just coincidence, but I have now realized that the television show American Idol has infected the entire world it seems. The competition of picking the best singer in the country over and over again appears to have caught on in every place I`ve been this year (excluding Africa thank goodness), as it had completely swept up India when I was there, and now that I`m here in Perù, I am able to follow the Latin American Idol competition! Lucky me! It`s amazing to me how they can find a Simon, Paula, and Randy in each country as well! Ok, that`s enough space devoted to something that should only get 2 lines.

Work at the center has been wonderful!! I still can`t believe I get to live at the beach and play with kids all day for the next 4 weeks!! Home visits are still my favorite, including the journey to get to each place! The adventures of foreign public transportation continue...I even have my top taxi and combi drivers, winners in each category earn the title by going the extra mile, for example, playing a Michael Jackson CD AND doing the dance moves to `Thriller` while driving and still controlling the vehicle! That`s quite a fete of achievement in my book. Bus rides hold no less of a thrill, as the road to the one town I travel to is uphill and very windy in one long section. To make up time, as the driver has to go slower on this stretch, I have come to look forward to the high speed and careening that occurs around corners for the stretches of road before and after the uphill section. If they ever wanted to make a roller coaster out of a bus ride, this would be it. I`ve attached a picture of the landscape that is pretty much typical of the coastal areas here.

Alas, the other volunteer that was here for my first 2 weeks has left now, and I`m all by myself. It was absolutely wonderful to have her orient me, as her enthusiasm and giving 110% were great to work with. I am completely immersed now, having no one around to retreat to using English with, so I figure the Spanish should start coming more rapidly now that I`m forced to use it all the time! So for her last afternoon at the center, we made lemonade and chocolate-marshmallow cookies with the kids...who absolutely loved it! (Probably not so much as the parents though who had to deal with the sugar highs when their children came home). I`ve attached some pictures of the kids hard at work on their treats.

OK, one last picture...this is the dog of the family that owns the hostel where I`m staying. Her name is Queenie and she`s quite cute, but a bit of a beggar at the table. I took this picture last night at dinner, as she was keeping me company. Does anyone else have the phrase, `Yo quiero Taco Bell` pop into their head when you look at this dog? I can`t help it, every time I see her, that`s what I think of, because she looks exactly like the chihuahua from the Taco Bell commercials!! So that`s been the happenings of my 2 weeks so far in Mancora. Had a bit of a worry this week with the leg, which was a little achy, and I was completely paranoid after the very long bus ride, but no worries...I`m completely and totally fine...surfing and salsa lessons here I come!!

El Sismo...

I`m ok...for those of you that have been watching the news, Peru experienced a severe earthquake this week. News on how bad the destruction was was really delayed in getting to me up here...the death toll continues to climb, although they found 2 women alive in the ruins of a collapsed church yesterday. They have determined the magnitude to be an 8.0, which is quite significant as earlier reports had it in the 7`s. The epicenter was apparently in Ica, which is near Pisco. They´re both just over 100 miles south of Lima. It was a holy day for the Catholics, so a lot of people were killed because churches crumbled during the evening services, as the quake hit just before 7 pm. There were two i-to-i volunteers placed in Pisco at the time, who have both been safely evacuated to Lima. Hauntingly enough, the coffee shop they had been in just an hour before the quake completely crumbled to the ground. Another volunteer that I had orientation with who was still in Lima at the time of the quake said that the section of the city she was in was really rockin´and rolling...she was pretty scared, but ok. I guess we had a tsunami warning along the coastal areas as well, which I didn´t know about until later in the week, but that was just put that out there in the event that there was another earthquake or because the aftershocks got to be really high in magnitude...I guess some of the aftershocks actually got up into the 6´s. But I´m completely ok up here, no worries. Thanks for all the emails and people checking in though...I guess when you just hear about there being an earthquake in Peru, and then remember that I´m in Peru...but I´m too far north to have been affected. Read on for my first week in Peru update...

¡Bienvenidos a Peru!

Well, I made it safe and sound! After just under 4 wonderful weeks at home, and the absolutely fantastic news that I don´t have to take blood thinning medication anymore (!!!!!!!!!!), I am now in Peru!! My flights down here were pretty uneventful, even though there were about 20 people on standby for the flight from Philly to Atlanta, and then I had the special treat of practically walking onto my flight in Atlanta with hardly any layover at all--fantastic!! I arrived in Lima around 11 pm last Friday night, baggage intact and all accounted for! Was picked up and spent the weekend in a lovely house with my host family that I will stay with when I return to Lima for my second project, which I am sure to be fluent in Spanish by the time I leave there as they don´t speak any English (my four years in high school that was a distant memory came rushing back!). I also apologize now if there are any typos in my blog entries for Peru, as the keyboards here are completely different...for example, every time I go to type a colon, I end up with a ´ñ´as that´s the key that is there. Lima is a HUGE city, very modern, and home to about 7 million people. As with any big city though, there are the obvious divisions, and as I travelled on the bus out of the city, the slums were quite visible, as they´re built up into the hillsides. Quite a contrast to the city center, which has numerous shopping centers and businesses...the short time I was there I counted 3 McDonalds, at least the same number of Starbucks, and the KFC´s actually deliver!! Lima was quite overcast and cold--only getting up into the 50´s most days but the humidity was so high that it left a chill that settled into the bones--hopefully they will be well into spring and a little warmer when I go back. Orientation was great and I got to meet the other volunteers who are in the country working: 4 going to Cusco, some of who signed up for a new project called Eco Tour and will be working on conservation around the Inca Trail, and one going to Trujillo, teaching English there. Lunch was definitely the highlight as I got to try some Peruvian dishes for the first time such as ceviche, which is marinated fish, and lomo saltado, which is a sort of beef stir fry--both yummy! I left Lima Sunday evening, enduring a 16 1-2 hour bus ride up to Mancora, a small fishing village on Peru´s northern coast, arriving Monday morning. Definitely rode in style, as the seats were very comfy and reclined...there was even a ´stewardess´...if you thought being a flight attendant was hard work, these girls have it all over them, serving 2 meals and drinks while the bus rocked to and fro on some very windy stretches of the highway!! The landscape on the ride up was quite different than I expected...the coastal regions here are very arid and vast sandy deserts with only scrub brush-type vegetation and shanty towns here and there, and sand dunes the size of small mountains that tower right next to the highway...I could easily see how roads would become impassable here...which I tried not to think about as we drove along! So Mancora is right on the Panamericana Highway, the main route along the coast of Peru, so it´s quite busy, and I´m amazed every day at the size of the buses and trucks that roll along through town on a street that´s smaller than most main streets back home. It´s definitely a beach town, and the surf shops are aplenty!! I´m staying at a hostel/guesthouse (hospedaje) run by a local and his wife, who have 2 grown daughters that study and work nearby. The staff is very nice as well, and the food great so far (breakfast and dinner provided)! No one speaks any English though, so after the other volunteer that is here (from Scotland) leaves next week, I will be completely immersed!! I have a cozy room upstairs, with an ocean view from the open air terrace on the second floor. Bathroom is obviously Western-style, as I´m still in the Western hemisphere this trip. There is no hot water though, so I´m learning the joys of a cold shower at the end of the day--I figure I must be setting a new record for speed showering each time! The hostel is located across from the police station, and is right on the main strip (refer to above description of huge buses and trucks rolling through town), so I have a new appreciation for my ability to sleep through most things...but with the size of the horns on those big rigs, it often sounds like they´re right by my head. It´s about a 5-minute walk to the beach, which is absolutely beautiful with soft sand and the aquamarine Pacific lapping at the shores!! I enjoy some time there every day during my 3-hour siesta in the middle of the day!! The waves are absolutely perfect for learning to surf I hear, so I´m excited to start working on my next goal while I´m here! Mancora is not only far removed from Lima distance-wise, but also concerning the weather, as it´s in the 70-80 degree range each day, with a whole lot of sunshine! The sun can be quite intense from noon to mid-afternoon, so sunscreen es mas importante...and the shops here know it! I´ve already spotted the same brand I bought at home, for a little less than 5 USD, on the shelves here at the price of 60 Soles, which is the equivalent of 20 USD!!

Now on to my project here, which is at Divino Niño Jesus. It is a center for kids with special needs, founded in 2003, for the children of Mancora and surrounding towns (those less than an hour´s drive away) and I have already finished my first week with them, hard to believe! Most children are developmentally delayed, due to Downs Syndrome, autism, traumatic brain injury, or are deaf/hearing impaired and have speech impediments. The center is run by the most amazing woman...I`ve only known her a week and she is my new hero. She is the most enthusiastic and compassionate woman, and the work she does with the children is absolutely amazing. She is a physical therapist, and in addition to running the center, she does PT on the side for adult clients. The center receives no government funding, so the only income is the money generated from these clients. She is the glue that holds the center together, but unfortunately, she was in a horrific accident in January and was hospitalized in Lima for several months, just returning about a month and a half ago. She almost died, her injuries were so severe, as she was hit by a bus, and she is still working on getting full use of her right side back. In her absence, many families strayed away from the center, and some of the clients that were receiving home visits fell through the cracks. So she is still in the process of building the center back up to where it was before her accident. She was thrilled when she found out my background is in occupational therapy, and she said she was excited to learn from ME, believe it or not...so far I`ve learned so much more from her than I could ever imagine. I´m so looking forward to working with her over the next few weeks. My schedule for the week is as follows: Monday and Wednesday mornings I do home visits to 2 families in the town of Cancas, about a 1/2 drive north of Mancora (using the ´colectivo`, a sort of taxi that packs as many fares possible into a car the size of a small station wagon, or the ´combi´, a tamer version of the matatu or daladala from my Africa experiences). Tuesday and Friday mornings I do home visits to 2 more families in the town of El Alto, which is south of Mancora, about a 45-minute to 1 hour bus ride away, and way up into the hills. Thursday morning and every afternoon I spend at the center itself, doing outdoor activities as well as a wrap-up activity at the end of each day (some examples from this week that we did: Pin the Tail on the Llama, and a homemade version of Twister--see picture--they loved it!) I usually am on my way by 9:30 every morning, then break for lunch at 12:30, although sometimes I get back later from the home visits. Lunch is a 3-hour siesta (!!!!!) and then I`m at the center each afternoon from 3:30 to 6 or 6:30 pm. I`m still getting used to the concept of the siesta, and so far it`s really tough to get going again that late in the afternoon, as that is when I`m used to finishing up for the day. But it is nice getting to explore all the little cafés and luncheonettes along the strip, and then hanging out on the beach for a bit before going back to work! Going on the home visits is really the best thing about this placement, although I love all aspects of it, but I feel that they are the most rewarding so far...I`m stretching my comfort zones beyond belief, as pediatrics is not my forté and my Spanish is still nowhere near fluent, so I find myself exhausted at the end of each day just trying to communicate with the families as well as remember treatment protocols and activities! It is truly a learning experience, but the children are amazing and I love working with each and every one of them.

So that has been my first week in Perú...

p.s. For those who know and love the game of Nutsy...it continues to spread...instructions now available in Spanish, as I have taught the staff here how to play!