crazy cabs and ancient ruins

hola from peru! I've been here almost a week and everyday has been a new adventure. If you check facebook you can see all the pictures i've taken so far. it's actually not safe to bring my camera around (you're just asking someone to rob you) so the pictures might be somewhat limited.

I arrived in Lima at about 11 p.m. monday night. I had met up with 6 other SALI interns at the atlanta airport so that made traveling more pleasant. I didn't get motion sickness too bad at all!! (unfortunately the medicine that made that possible made me really sick wednesday and thursday). we stayed at a hotel in lima (where they were selling a book about Chuck Norris) and took a tour of lima during the day Tuesday. We saw the major plazas, some museums of artifacts of pre-Incan civilization, and even the Love Park (which has a giant sculpture of a man and a woman embracing and kissing). Apparently every year on valentines day they have a contest there for the longest kiss; last year's winners went over two hours or something extraordinary like that. we also chilled at Larco Mar, a really fancy shopping plaza, where we ate at a really nice restaurant called Mangos and got our last starbucks for a long time. the only american chain in trujillo is radio shack.

tuesday night we took the short flight home to trujillo and moved into our lodgings. for about two weeks (one of which has now just about passed) ill be living with two other interns at the house of Amelia, a lady from the Larco church. We each have our own rooms with huge windows. They tell me my mattress is made of sawdust- which means that since the first time i slept in it there has been and will continue to be a large dent where i sleep. i'm used to a hard mattress tho so it hasn't bothered me too much. Amelia is so nice and makes us breakfast every morning.

Wednesday we got the tour of SALI and downtown trujillo. the major part of the city is encircled by Espana Av. which used to be the site of the wall around the city. SALI is on a major corner, the intersection of Larco, Pizarro, and Espana. To get to our house we go away from downtown down Larco, and to get to downtown we walk up Pizzaro. From where i now sit in the SALI intern room that one of the students named 'Gringolandia' I can hear the constant beeping of horns. The first time I rode in a taxi i feared for my life, actually more like the first 3 days. I've gotten more used to it now and understand that there is a method to their madness, tho this type of driving would never be acceptable in the US. there are very few lights or stop signs, its all about whoever has the most speed and who sticks the nose of their taxi out far enough to stop the flow of traffic. the taxis themselves are tiny and there are very few private cars. I spend an average of 7 soles a day on taxi rides (1 dollar roughly equals 3 soles).

wednesday night i started feeling really sick while we were out at the fanciest bar in trujillo, Hops. the drinking age is like 16 or something tho no one cares but peru mission has a rule that you can't drink if you're under 21 so i will be ordering lots of coca-colas at bars this summer. I continued feeling really sick (i'm pretty sure it was a side effect of the motion sickness medicine i took to get down here) thursday but went on with our activities anyway. we visited the 3 churches peru mission works with- 2 of which they planted. I went back out to Wichanzao, a barrio on the outskirts of greater trujillo and location of one of these churches, to observe a microcredit orientation meeting. i'll be heading back out there as soon as i finish this entry to meet with the same ladies again. right now we have 2 groups that are considering taking out loans. Charlie and Lawson have been working on this project for a long time now, tho charlie is going back to the states in a few weeks. John just arrived and will be working on this project too.

thursday night we had game night at one of the longterm missionaries' houses, the fergusons. Heather Ferguson actually let me borrow anna karenina which i had been reading at home. she said its one of her favorite books and we should discuss it when i finish. all the missionaries and interns were there and we had some great food. stepping into their house was like walking back into america. that's definitely the place to go if i get frustrated or start missing home.

yesterday morning, friday, we visted the Huaca de la Luna in Moche. It was so amazing to see how the adobe bricks have been so perfectly preserved since the early first millenium. The Moche were the dominant civilization in northern coastal peru from about 100 to 800 a.d. The temple we visited had been expanded 5 different times. they said that when a certain very high official/leader died they buried him in the temple and then built a new temple on top. Since they just covered the old walls with adobe, archeologists have been able to scrape away the newer mud to reveal perfectly preserved colored frescos. it's really amazing the entent to which the artwork remains in such good condition considering its age. of course all this is made possible by the fact that we're in the desert and it hardly ever rains. the city really can't handle it when it does; theres no drainage system and many houses and buildings have openings in their roofs.

after moche we went to a nice restaurant that serves very authentic peruvian food. i had tacu taca with lomo saltado romano (steak with peppers, onions, and french fries served on a platform of fried rice and beans) and ceviche (raw seafood "cooked" in the acid of lemon juice). Everything was really good except i didn't like the fried rice/bean stuff. Next time I'll just get the lomo saltado romano alone. Friday night we went to their RUF meeting and afterward I went with a few other interns to watch Pirates of the Carribbean 3. It cost me 7 soles. We got out pretty late and i saw trujillo like ive never seen it before: quiet with almost empty streets.

One thing i'm pretty excited about is having some clothes made. apparently it's pretty cheap to have a tailor sew clothes if you bring them fabric and say what you want. i've also been told that one of the pastors' wives likes to make skirts so I might ask her too.

today we can do whatever we like so that's a nice break from the hectic pace of the last week. if anyone wants to send me mail my address is:

100 Larco Av.
Trujillo, Peru
South America

Apparently there are no zip codes down here. I think i'm adjusting pretty well so far. we couldn't flush the toilet paper in brazil either so i've been doing alright with that. it's a pain that we can't drink the water (only bottled) or eat fresh food from street vendors because it looks so good! I am understanding a surprisingly large amount of spanish so that's encouraging. I'll be taking spanish lessons twice a week and meeting with a conversation partner another 2 days a week so hopefully that will help me improve. When I figure out how to post pictures i will but all the buttons on blogspot are now in spanish so it's making it more difficult to figure things out. All my pictures are on facebook anyway. To those who are, thanks for your prayers! Stay tuned for more adventures and musings...