Lo Siento!

Dear readers,
I apologize for not posting in an absurdly long amount of time. My time in Huancayo has just flown by. The group and I are headed to Lima tonight and we are catching a plane to Cusco tomorrow afternoon. Machu picchu here we come :) there is a group of six if us that will embark on a four day trek on the inca trail startling on Friday. I have been looking forward to this part of my trip for so long and I cannot believe it is almost here. Since it has been so long since my last post I will try and give a nice and quick synopsis.
The past two weeks I have spend all of my time volunteering at the clinics. I have been in Huancan and Chupaca. I really love Huancan because it was the first clinic I had gone to in Peru but at chupaca I have had many more hands on opportunities. One day I had to show the other volunteers around at the Huancan clinic and we were able to go to a local school to put fluoride on the children's teeth. It was quite the experience. The nurses would call all of the children to the front of the room individually and examine their teeth for cavities and teeth that needed to be pulled. Then heather and I put gloves on and would put a glob of fluoride on our fingers and proceed to rub it on the children's teeth. Keep in mind we kept on the same gloves as we continued to go from child to child. The lack of gloves here is a very prevalent problem. Today I witnessed many doctors and nurses trying to put in an IV into a small baby girl that had fallen out of a two story building. Yes terrible I know. I think she will be alright though. Anyway all of these doctors were working with this baby and none of them had gloves on. They also tried to reuse a needle to insert the IV. I almost had a heart attack. I will be so grateful for the abundance of gloves and medical supplies once I return to the states. Another day I was at chupaca and this really kind doctor let three of us listen in on his patient consultations. The interesting cases that we saw were an old woman with tuberculosis and a little girl that had hepatitis A. She was very jaundice and the sclera of her eyes were yellow. Also the doctor let us palpate her liver to feel how enlarged it was. This was interesting for the doctor because not many people come in for hep a because it is not curable. That weekend we took Friday off of work to head out to the jungle aka la selva. There was a huge group of us that went together. There was a bunch of people from the university of Illinois and the new medical students that had just joined us that week from new York medical college. The med student are all really great and added a new change of pace to our group. The night before we went out to chicharones which is a meal consisting of small pieces of fried pork. It is Netos favorite meal and he took us all to experience it. Wow it was so yummy but I felt the repercussions after I ate it. The whole weekend in the jungle I was very sick. Unlike any stomach flu I had ever had. Ugh it was not fun. I tried my best to enjoy the jungle but it was difficult when I felt terrible most of the time. The first day that we arrived in la selva we went on a hike through waterfalls. Man I wish I had a waterproof camera so I could have shown you what some of these waterfalls looked like that we literally scaled up with a rope. We had some great tour guides that always made sure that we were safe. There was one waterfall that we all ascended then we put on a helmet and slid down it. Watching others go down the slide made it looked very painful but it was actually really fun! All 23 of us hiked the entire day and encouraged each other as some of us concurred our fears. No fears for me though. I waned to hike and climb it all. The day ended up going for so long that we were hiking home in the dark. That night we chilled at our hostel which was more like a hotel. We were living in luxury. We had a bonfire with marshmallows, chocolate and cervesas. The next day we went to a small native village where they dressed us all up in tribal dresses, told us stories and taught us how to dance. It was really fun. Then we went to a coffee factory were people bought a lot of coffee and different kinds of marmalade. I still was not feeling well so I laid low for these activities. The rest of the afternoon we hung out playing volleyball in the pool and some of the others played soccer on the lawn. Everyone except for sick me went out to a really nice discoteka that has been anticipated for a while. From the stories that I heard it sounded like they all had a blast. Boo I was really sad I missed out on it. The last day in the jungle we headed to this really beautiful waterfall. It was not much of a
hike and we were all able to explore and swim in the waterfall. it was a great ending to the trip and that evening we headed back to huancayo. One of the med students introduced the group to a fun game called mafia. We played it on the bus and it took up a big chunk of the four hour ride. The point of the game is that that there is a secret mafia who will kill people off secretly. And the point is for the townspeople to figure out who the mafia members are. It was a funny coincidence that I ended up being the nurse three times that we played. It was a great time. The next
Monday morning I was feeling so sick that I was ready to go see a doctor. I came to Elli and Netos to have someone take me and the med students were all having lunch. They started asking me a million questions and decided to give me an antibiotic that they came prepared with. I popped those pills and I started feeling better almost right away. Thank goodness. That week (last week) I spend the entire week at the chupaca clinic. I was working with Michelle and some of the other med students. We went to schools and gave immunization to the schools kids. At the beginning I was still not a pro at giving shots intra muscularly. But by the end of my first day I had immunized about 40 kids and I was feeling like a champion. We mostly gave tetanus and HPV vaccinations. Some of these poor kids had to get them in both of their arms. They didn't like us very much. When we would walk by a classroom the kids would yell "vaccunas" and run away. One classroom was so cute and they sang us a song before we left. One evening that week it was shona's birthday so we celebrated in style. David and some other volunteers made a very fancy Mac and cheese and mike made guacamole. It was a feast and was so good. Then we had cake and sang Feliz cumpleanos to shona. We went and got calientitos which are a warm peruvian drink at a bar with live music it was lots of fun. For the rest of the
week we continued to go out into the community to vaccinate more children. One classroom even asked us all for our autographs and wanted to take pictures with us. We felt like celebrities by the end of the day. It was surprising they still liked us after we had to literally hold down some children to vaccinate them. One of the medical students name is Matt and all of the little kids absolutely loved him. He is really tall and they were all amazed by his height. The final day of that work week we walked around the town of chupaca and went to peoples doors to vaccinate their children. At one point we were literally in farmlands. There were all sorts of animals along the sides of the road. We saw kittens, bulls, chickens, baby chicks and even a heard of sheep. We were not very successful because many people were not home. We found one of the mothers and her baby in the market at the end of the day. This baby girl was due for many of her vaccines. I was able to give her one of the shots right in her upper thigh. I was literally standing in a very small corridor surrounded by plants giving a baby a shot while she laid in her stroller. It was pretty bizarre. While walking around the town that day Michelle and i scouted out a restutant that had s/5 pollo a la brasa. My favorite Peruvian meal. It is pretty much rotisserie chicken with a huge plate of papas fritas. Yummy. That price was unbeatable also. Almost $2 American dollars. How could you beat it? So we stayed in chupaca after work and ate pollo. While we were devouring our meal an alpaca walked right in front of the restaurant. Michelle and I looked at each other both thinking the same thing... Peru is awesome!! That night we had a send off for Michael because he was leaving us soon. Que triste. :( So of course all of us girl and Michael hit up our favorite club, hecke. It was crazy busy because the next day was a holiday in Peru, popes day. We ended the night at a chifa restutant. Chifa is peru's version of Chinese food. It isn't too far off normal Chinese food either. It is tasty and cheap. Now for the weekend: Friday was a holiday so no one went to work and we ventured to out new favorite town, chupaca, to go to a festival. We were not really sure what to expect because two volunteers had been invited to the festival from mother if a patient in the emergency room. On the way there we had to take a 40 minute cambi ride so we entertained ourselves and the rest of the cambi riders by singing some American classic songs! We arrived and had an absolute BLAST!!! We found the woman who invited us, her name is mari and she was all dressed in a traditional Peruvian outfit. We took part in traditional peruvian dancing and drinking. There were cases of Peruvian beer everywhere you looked. The tradition is that you stand in a circle with a bottle of beer and a plastic cup. You are supposed to pour yourself a small amount of beer into the plastic cup pass the bottle to the person to the right of you, salud the person with the bottle, drink the small amount, shake the cup out of any extras and pass the cup. This could get dangerous because the bottles keep going round and round the circle. Everyone was so incredibly welcoming and we made many new friends. We were the only gringos there so naturally everyone wanted to talk and dance with us... Which was perfectly fine. We of course ended the night with some of the same pollo a la brasa that Michelle and I had the day before. Mari invited all of us to her house the next day to try on some of her traditional peruvian outfits that she has. Again we were not sure what to expect out of this situation. Yet it turned out amazing. She brought us into her very nice home... For Peruvians mari and her family live a pretty well off lifestyle. The family's cook made us soup with cheese and potatoes on the side. Of course it was so good. We all sat around the table for a while talking about the differences between our countries and then the real fun began. All of us girls were able to try on these outfits. They are the most beautiful and and intricate pieces of clothing I have ever worn. The skirts are so beautiful with hand embroidered flowers at the bottom. These skirts go for about $400. We all felt so welcomed into this family's home and the were so excited to have us. We all exchanged advice to each other and they want us to come back and visit as soon as possible. So sweet. That evening we sent Michael off and went out with the med student to taj mahal, another favorite discoteca. Michelle and I decided to be ridiculous and wear our colorful Peruivan pants that we bought at the market to the club. Why not right? What a fun night. And of course we ended up eating chifa and the end of the evening. Sunday was nice and relaxing. We went to a semi fancy restaurant called detras la cathedral and watched the euro cup. We had great seats right in front of the tv. Score! Then for the rest of the day we explored the markets and bought last minute gifts. I fell asleep on the couch watching Bridesmaids. For the last two days in huancayo I have been returning to the chupaca clinic, of course it's my favorite. I joined two other volunteers in the emergency room/ topico. I was able to give an injection in the bottom to a little girl. It was interesting and the poor girl was hurting a lot after. Also an intoxicated man came in with his parents and his face was all bloody. Not really sure what happened to him. The doctor cleaned up his face and said that I could assist him with the stitches. Crazy!!! The stitches went behind the mans ear so that was tricky but over all it went well and I gave him a total of four stitches. So awesome. Today was my last day of work and it was a crazy one at that. It started off so well with a jamming cambi ride. They were playing a mix of American and Spanish music at a loud volume. So naturally heather, Madeline, and I sat in the back seat and rocked out for the entire 40 minute ride. We were convinced after that ride we were going to have the best day at work. Whew we were wrong. Within the first 20 minutes of being there a family came into the ER hysterically crying and holding an old man in a blanket. The man was dead upon arrival. The nurse attempted to do CPR but he had no pulse and was not breathing. I think this was the first dead patient I have seen before. It was pretty devastating. What made it even more difficult was that we don't speak the language. So we weren't sure exactly what happened and I was not able to comfort the family like I would have liked do. After the body was taken away many patients came in to receive injections, unfortunately this nurse didn't trust us and wouldn't let us give any injections. Then the baby came in that I had mentioned before. I don't know much except that she had somehow fallen out of a second story window. The mother and father were an absolute wreck. It was really hard to watch. The team tried for so long to get an IV in and on the third attempt were successful. Whew it was quite the day. Now my bags are packed and we leave on an overnight bus for Lima. My experience in huancayo has been so amazing and i am so grateful for the things and people i have encountered along the way. I want to really thank my parents, family, and friend for supporting me along the way. I am so so blessed. I will most likely be out of touch for the next week. Machu piccu here i come!!

The mayor and a glacier

Well well where did I leave off last?? Thursday: The end of my week at the hospital ended well. I went back into the pediatric unit and was able to assist the main nurse in giving breathing treatments to many children. Like i have said before many of these kids are admitted for respiratory problems or infections. This same day I listened in on rounds with the doctors and I was able to see something interesting I had never seen before. This child had a paralytic ileus. This pretty much means that they child had a bowel that was non functioning. On an x ray you could see that large amounts of air that had been collecting in the abdomen. That was quite the site to see. This same night all of the volunteers were invited over to Eli and Netos house for pisco sours and karaoke. Eli put on a show and taught all of us how to make pisco sours which is the national drink of Peru. Pisco is a type of liquor that is made of grapes... I think. It tastes pretty similar to tequila. Anyway a pisco sour is made up of water, lime juice, sugar, egg whites and of course pisco. Pretty simple if you ask me. I will have to try to bring it back into the states. People were jamming out to karaoke that Eli and Neto set up for us. All of the girls had a pretty great jam session to some Justin Bieber songs and of course I had to end the night with my go to karaoke song.... Sweet Caroline. Neto taught us how to play his very own drinking game at his kitchen table that I had heard a lot about. It consists of rolling a dice and based on which number you roll you either have to drink yourself or the person to the right or left have to drink or you can order someone to drink. If you have to drink twice in a row then you get to make up a rule. It was a blast!! This evening was also a send off party for one of our coordinators Tyler. We have a running joke that Tyler was "dad" and that Michael is "mom". Now that Tyler is gone we say that dad has left on a business trip and we are stuck at home with mom. Hah only love Michael. Tyler was a great coordinator and we miss him mucho. ohh I forgot one crucial part of the evening. Michael was challenged to eat 100 mini picarones which are those delish donuts. This had to be done before Tyler left. It was quite the event. All 15 or so of us headed over to a near by cafe and ordered up 100 picarones. It was quite the challenge... He ended up eating only 50 which was still very impressive.
Friday: After a roudy night we slept in and two of my other friends and i decided to hike torre torre again, which is the hike that the group did when we first arrived in Huancayo. It is a beautiful hike that is not too difficult but gets you out and active. When we came back home we were informed that we would be having dinner with the mayor of Huancayo. Whoa what an honor. We all got in our fanciest outfits that we could put together aka jeans and cardigans and we were off. We ended up in what we think was the mayors office and they served us an intersting meal consisting of potatoes (duh), dried and salted corn, onion salad, and a very tough meat. It was funny to try and keep out composure as we were trying to saw away at this meat that was impossible to eat. Needless to say after the meal we were still hungry. The mayor showed up after we had all eaten. He was dressed very casually and had a hat on that looked like the traditional Peruvian woman's hat. He was very nice and very grateful for all of our work in his town. He recognized all of us individually and gave us gourd like keychains that said sustainable Junin on them. Junin is the state that huancayo is located in. After the dinner we headed over to eli and Netos for banana crepes. Yummy if one dessert wasn't enough we headed to
Archie's for some more postres (pastries) and sent Tyler off to lima. We all packed up our backpacks and went to bed early because the next day we were hiking a glacier!!
Saturday: whew! We were all up early and got on the bus for the hour and a half ride to the glacier. This is one of the most difficult hikes I have ever been on. It wasn't that it was a physically tiring hike but it was extremely hard to breathe. At the end we were almost at 17,000 feet!!!! When we were getting closer to the actual glacier I would hike about 50 feet and have to stop and take a break just to breathe. How do the people hiking mount Everest do it? We were very lucky because we were blessed with a clear and beautiful day. There was not a cloud or any fog in sight. Being on the glacier is now in the top 5 most beautiful places I have ever been. It was pretty amazing. Pictures to come. Once we were on the glacier we attempted to use an icepick to get up some snow covered hills which ended up being very difficult. So we just decided to open up all of our snacks and have a picnic on the glacier as some of the others explored. Then we grabbed our windbreakers and sledded to the bottom of the glacier. After an easier hike back to the bottom of the mountain we enjoyed a well deserved lunch. Some had lamb soup and others such as me had trout. Yum! It really hit the spot. We were all tired and cold and this point. During our meal these young peruvian woman came up to us and asked to take pictures with us. This happens quite often when you are the only white people in town. It was flattering at first but they started going crazy and asking to take individual pictures with some of the guys. We eventually had to politely tell them to leave. It just so happens that the bus of these crazed peruvians happened to leave at the same time as our bus. The entire way back to huancayo they were driving up next to us and still trying to take more pictures and waving at us. One girl even had her head out the window and was screaming. All of us in the bus were very confused. What was all they hype about? We aren't that cool. Haha that night we tried out a new bar (can't remember the name) they had a traditional Peruvian band there that was really fun to listen and dance to.
Sunday: (dooms day) our goal for the day was to get ground beef for the evening because we had big plans to make an authentic Mexican dinner at Eli and Netos house. Around noon we ventured out to get some lunch (chicken, papas fritas, and inca cola =perfection). Then we started walking through the markets headed to the famous meat market. On the way there we stopped at the flower market and as steph and I were admiring the roses a kind woman gave us each a rose. We got to the meat market which I didn't last long in. There were dead animal parts everywhere and even live animals in cages. It was quite the site to see. I didn't like it. They ended up getting the ground beef in the market. We started to head home and in order to do that we need to walk through the market some more. Heather and I decided to stop at a cart for cookies. While I was deciding which one I wanted some crazy man came up to us and started talking nonsense. We ignored him. As I was about to pay my wallet was suddenly swiped out of my hands. I screamed and turned around. There were hundreds of pieces of paper everywhere and I could not tell which direction This robber had gone. I was scared out of my mind... Someone had just stolen my wallet that had everything in it. My Spanish speaking lifesaver and friend michelle found a police officer and the cop tried to help us out was it wasn't of much use. As we started waking home someone threw my wallet at heather. It had everything left in it except for the 40 soles worth of cash that I had in there. Which is about 18 American dollars. I am so so so lucky that some nice person out there decided to throw my wallet back at us. Lesson learned. Don't carry around a lot of cash and be very cautious in the market. After being a bit shaken up for the rest of the afternoon we cooked our Mexican feast. And a feast it was indeed. We all helped out to chop up veggies and prepare the meal. It was so good. We were all so so so happy by the end. Eli and Neto tried our tacos and loved it too. It was their first time eating mexican food.
Monday: today I ventured back to the Huancan clinic with my friends to show them the ropes before I will go to a new clinic tomorrow. The main highlight of my day was that there was a school that came to the clinic so that the children could be weighted and measured to evaluate their nutrition. A lot of the children were with their parents and needed vaccinations. That means us volunteers were able to give shots today. Woo. Some of these kids were crazy like kicking screaming and crying. It took about four of us to hold down some of these kids. I was lucky enough to be able to give five shots to some of these crazy kids. It was a really col experience to be able to vaccinate children today. It was a great day today filled with a lot of learning experiences. Now off to eat some dinner and pick up my laundry at the lavanderia (favorite Spanish word to say)
xoxo

Babies!

This week I have been spending my volunteer rotation at the local hospital aka Hospital de Carmen. We don't have very much direction at the hospital so we kind of just linger around different units looking for things that we can do to help and watch. The first day I was there we spent most of the time in the maternity unit. There is no such thing as individual rooms here. All of the women that are in labor or that have just given birth are in the same room. The women that are in labor stay in the same room right up until they are about to give birth. Then the women either walk over or are wheeled over to the delivery room right next door. I was amazed when I saw a women that was fully dilated get up and walk over to the delivery room... no pain medications at all keep in mind. The first birth that we witnessed was pretty traumatic. I will spare the gory details but this woman was pushing for about a good half an hour and the baby was not coming out. They even had doctors pushing on the woman's stomach to try and help. It literally looked like they were doing CPR on this woman. Things started to get kind of scary when multiple doctors started coming into the room and trying to help. Eventually they moved the patient to surgery so that she could have an emergency cesarean. We heard later on that the mother and baby boy were doing ok, they baby was on oxygen but they think he would turn out to be alright. Shortly after that we saw two births. There were two woman laying right next to each other in the delivery room and one baby came right after the other... two more beautiful baby boys. I immediately went over to the baby nurse and asked if there was any way that I could help. She let me change that baby and put him into his first outfit. I must say he was looking quite dapper in that yellow knitted outfit. I have learned that in order to get a good experience you have to ask what you can do to help and really put your self out there. The next day at the hospital (Tuesday) we ventured into the pediatrics unit. Here the nurses were very nice and they gave us a stethoscope to go around and listen to the heart and lung sounds of the patients. I have the most clinical and hands on experience in the group because I am in nursing school so I was able to help out the other volunteers. This unit is also like the maternity unit.... all of the patients are in the same room. This is kind of scary because some of the patients have contagious infections that could easily be spread from patient to patient. I had my eyes on this baby in the corner that had no mother with her. Her name was Cielo, she is 4 months old and has down syndrome. I have a very special place in my heart for special needs children. I asked the nurse if I could hold the baby and she agreed. It was difficult to hold Cielo because she was very squirmy and flaccid. After holding her for a while I was able to feed her. This was a difficult task that another nurse assisted me in doing. I was given a 10ml syringe and I had to slowly push the milk into her mouth. It took a while but after three syringes of milk she was happy and fell asleep. The doctors in the unit let us listen in on their rounds of all the patients in the unit. Most of the patients are hospitalized for special needs or respiratory infections such as pneumonia or bronchitis. It is kind of difficult to understand what the doctors are saying to us because it is all in spanish but we can make it out for the most part. That night we decided to go to an indoor market that we had yet to explore. My friend/roommate/soulmate Heather and I said earlier in the week how awesome it would be to get hair wraps while in Peru. When we went to this new market that is just what we did. They look so amazing and are unlike any hair wrap i have even seen. Such a cool design and pretty colors. Needless to say we were very happy. This night we had two dinners... first at home with out home stay family (noodles) then we saved some room for these s/3 cheeseburgers that we have been eyeing. Three soles for a cheeseburger and fries, that is about $1.25 in the US. They were delicious. I had been craving some good american food. This morning we went to the hospital and half of us went into the maternity ward again. We were able to see another live birth,  this time a GIRL. She was beautiful and the mother did so well. We cut the day short and went to hang out at the market and at home before our long awaited pachamanca lunch. Pachamanca is a peruvian tradition where they cook the meat and veggies underground with stones. The meat that I decided to have is called cuy and it is very popular in Peru... it is Guinea Pig. I had to try it right? It ended up being pretty dang good. There wasnt much meat to it but the flavoring was yummy. Some of the other people that got the cuy still had the organs and head on it. Thankfully mine didnt! whew. The meal came with potatoes (of course), these large green beans that looked like edamame, and tamales that tasted like a very sweet corn bread. I may have eaten about three of tamales and brought extra home. And of course we washed it all down with INCA COLA. We had a 3L bottle which was the biggest one i have yet to see... it was beautiful. Out good friend Suvan is leaving early tomorrow, so tonight we are going to have a little going away party filled with desserts from our favorite local bakery called Archies and maybe some cervesas on the roof. xoxo

Horses and Trout and Alpaca... Oh my!!

Today was a great day! I am currently fed up with my current crocheting project that I have stated so I will blog a bit. Yesterday I explored the market with heather and I bought some yarn and a crochet hook off the street. The yarn didn't come in a ball which is making like very complicated because I have to roll it myself while tying to untangle this huge mess. I have spent way too much time trying to start this project. Anyway... Today the group went into another town to go horse back riding. Before we mounted our cabellos we went on a small hike where we saw some Incan ruins. There were these stone structures that the incans used to use for sacrifices. It was a quick hike then we were off to the horses. I ended up with the horse that was not so nice. His name was Martin (it sounds a lot cooler if you way it in a Spanish accent). He was trying to bite the other horses and always trying to get in the lead. After about a 40 minute ride. We dismounted and went on another hike. This was unlike any hike I had ever been on. We had to crawl through thick shrubbery, climb up and down the walls of these mud walls and literally scale the mountain holding onto plants to keep us from sliding down. Let's just say we were all a little muddy by the end. It was totally worth it though because we ended up in this beautiful meadow with flowers and plants everywhere. We all sat down to rest and come to find out we were all sitting in these prickly thorns. That was fun. They were in our shoes and I even had some poking my behind. Thank you Kayla for removing them for me hahah some beautiful pictures were taken and the hike was over. For lunch (at two pm... All starving by then) we went to a really amazing outdoor restaurant called El Encantado. I am not really sure about the history behind this place but they are right next to a trout hachery so needless to say we ate trout for lunch. Accompanied by potatoes, rice, and inca cola.. Duh! There was this huge tree house there that had a bridge and even a wooden slide. We decided it would be a great idea to go down the wooden slide. No harm in that right? Well this was a very slick and steep slide. I went down it so fast that i couldn't land on my feet and ended up biffing it on my hands and knees. I have a nice little scrape on my knee now. Yes I am so graceful. After this we visited some local artisans. We saw a woman who makes her own sliver jewelry. The pieces she makes were all really beautiful and I picked out a piece or two. Coming from a family of jewelers I appreciate their hard work. Lastly we went to a local market where they showed us how they spin alpaca and wool and how they use a loom to create all of their blankets. Then it was time for shopping at this market. I bought goodies for friends and family. My favorite purchase was this blanket that I have been eyeing every since i have arrived in Huancayo. These blankets are used for women to carry their babies around on their backs. They are so brightly colored and I know whenever I will use this blanket in the future it will remind me of all the women in Peru. It is still a mystery to me how they can tie their children to their backs with just a simple blanket and they dont fall out. Hmmm The day ended perfectly with all 11 of us volunteers in a van singing to the best of the Beatles album in unison. That was definitely a moment I will never forget.

Me gusta Inca Kola

Please forgive me for being the worst blogger ever! I have been so busy exploring this new beautiful town of Huancayo I haven't really stopped to sit down and blog. I will try and be better about it this week. This morning our group went to a local church and played outdoor games with little kids. They were absolutely adorable. No matter the language barrier we still had a great time. We played soccer and taught them how to play duck duck goose. They really got a kick out of it... it only seemed to last for a few minutes. you know how it is with short attention spans.
Here is a quick synopsis of my week:
I was in a clinic in a nearby town called Huancan. Every morning two other volunteers and I took a Cambi (a bus/taxi) to the clinic. Everyone there is so kind and welcoming. It was great to have my friend sabrina there with me because she is a fluent spanish speaker.
When I was in the clinic the things that I was able to see and do were: breathing treatments, injections, making cotton balls, sitting in on appointments with pregnant women, physical assessments of children, home visits for pregnant women, walking around the town offering vaccinations to children who are not up to date (many parents hide their children when they see us coming because they dont want to vaccinate their kids, they think it will make them sick), organizing medical records, and a home visit to a 22 year old male who had Tuberculosis ( we went to give him his weekly medications, his family dosent think this treatment is working and are searching for other options although he has made significant improvement. It was pretty crazy to see this patient and his family. None of them are well educated on how contagious TB is. We gave them masks to protect themselves.

Things I learned this week:
-Inca Kola is amazing: It is this soda that is yellow and tastes like bubble gum! YUM!!
-Piccarones are a kind of donuts they have here, they are light and served in some kind of molases sause. We went last night to get them for a late night treat. Milo con leche or leche con milo is the perfect beverage to pair with this dessert.
-Try new things: I have had a bite of cow heart and I try what ever is put in front of me. The typical meal consists of rice, potatoes, and some kind of meat. Our home stay is great and they feed us really amazing meals. I havent been disappointed once yet. If i see something on that street that looks good i buy it and eat it. haha There is this candy bar called Sublime that is just delicious.
-My homestay family is great: We live in this huge house and are taken care of by an older couple. Their names are Amel and Idla. They are just like grandparents. We call Amel "abuelo". They force feed us our meals and always want to make sure that we are happy. They dont let us clean our plates and they always make sure we are warm during the night.
- I am taking spanish lessons from a man named Neto at one of the other home stays. I am in the beginners class but i feel like I am able to hold my own. It is a two hour lesson and I enjoy every minute of it. Neto is absolutely hysterical. He tells us the funniest stories during our lessons and he has the best laugh. He told us yesterday that if he could have any other occupation he would want to be a veterinarian. He names all of his dogs that he has owned after alcohol. He used to have a German Shepard named Crystal.
- I am grateful for my life in America. It is really an eye opening experience to see the change in healthcare and the amount of poverty that exists in this country. I am glad i have been given this experience to help and educate the people in Peru.

Today is a rainy day so I think we might hit up the local mall for some American food oops... and a movie. Tomorrow we are supposed to go horse back riding through the valley and check out a local artisan market ( all depending on the weather). The group is planning a trip  to the jungle next weekend ( yay for warmth) and out Macchu Piccu for the end of the trip. I am pretty sure we are going to do a 4 day trek along the inca trail COOL!!!!

The Family is Complete

This post is coming from the couch in on of our home stay families homes. I am getting to know volunteers from my own imaginations group as well as other volunteers that are joining us from various parts of the united states. It is a little bit chilly at night here in Huancayo so I have a hot cup of coca leaf tea in hand. It is so delish :) Since my last post I have moved into my home in Huancayo. It is a lot different here than Lima. Today we went on a three hour hike into the mountains behind our home. It was really neat because on the way up the mountain we trekked up into some parts of the town. There were dogs, cats, cows, and pigs roaming the streets like it was no big deal. We would pass small stores and homes and people would whistle and whisper "ah gringas" to each other. I almost got attacked by some very cute pack of dogs... It was very deceiving and I am never making eye contact with another street dog again. Any way the hike was really amazing and we were able to get an amazing view of the city. Although we were unsure about some directions we explored a bit, slid down some rocks and made it home safely. Guilty confession: after the hike we were all so tired we went to the local mall and has some American food from the food court. Pizza hut yum!! We have been eating peruvian food like crazy so it was time for a little break. With every meal here you get potatoes and some kind of meat. It is all really delicious but I think it might get old pretty quickly. After our escape to American food court land we wondered around the market. It is especially busy on Sundays and there were many sights to see. There are carts on every street corner with fresh fruit. So another volunteer and I decided to start a fruit of the day. Yesterday was pineapple and today we decided to go a bit more exotic. We had two fruits named tuna and chirimoya. They were both so good. Ok time for a meeting because we are starting our work tomorrow. Wish me luck I am really excited.

Getting accustomed

Hello all,
My apologies for the delay in the blog postings. I have been having such an amazing time exploring the city of Lima and getting to know my new friends. Let me sum it up for you by the days:
Day 1-
TRAVEL TRAVEL TRAVEL. I was lucky enough to have some travel buddies so it made the 16 hour day much more bearable. The flight from Phx to Houston went smoothly then after a three hour layover our flight was delayed for another hour or so. Eventually we boarded the plane to Lima. It was a huge plane! I was amazed by how many people were on this flight to Peru. There were people from all sorts of backgrounds. My favorite was the group of Japanese travelers that were all in their 60s. They were all just so cute with their fanny packs and floral bucket hats. The girls and I joked before the flight that they better play a good movie on the plane and none of this sappy stuff for example the movie The Vow. And come to find out the movie they ended up playing on the plane was The Vow. We all shared a giggle at that one. Thank goodness for movies on planes and the new John Mayer CD, it made the time go by much faster. All in all we made it into Lima safely and we were picked up by a very nice driver from the hostel. Once we arrived at The Dragonfly hostel in Mirasflores we were greeted by two studly imaginations coordiantors, Michael and Tyler. The nice guys waited up until 2 am to greet us.

Day 2-
We all took our time this morning. We slept in and decided to just roam the city for a little bit. There was a park that we ended up exploring. There were the cutest cats roaming all over the place. All of us girls were obsessing over taking pictures of these fancy felines. Mirasflores is right on the shore so we took a straight shot right towards the ocean. There is this very large shopping mall right on the ocean. It was a very fancy shopping mall at that too. After walking around the shopping mall for a while I learned some things about my fellow volunteers. 1. Kayla is obsessed with Hello Kitty. We came across a Sanrio store and she screamed unlike anything I have ever seen. 2. Michael is obsessed with arcades. He ended up playing this Gorilla game where you have to hold on for as long as you can while the machine vibrates uncontrollably. We had to leave him there for a while as he enjoyed all of the fun games. We ended up at a cafe over looking the beach and ordered some Pisco Sours, which is the national drink of Peru. So we obviously had to cheers to that. The rest of the night consisted of attempting to go to a salsa dancing lesson (which i was kind of glad the place ended up being closed, shhh),  eating some pizza at a place called ECO pizza that played some very interesting american music, and sitting on the rooftop of the hostel enjoying some drinks and playing spoons. Everyone was able to witness how competitive I can become over a silly card game... sorry!

Day 3-
Today we woke up early and took a tour of Lima. We added two new friends into our group the night before. Slowly but surely our little group is growing into a nice little family. One of the workers from the hostel named Fernando joined us on the tour so he would be able to help translate. He could not stop saying all day how another volunteer, Madeline, and I look like we are sisters. Which is ironic because my real sister's name is Madelyn . We took a bus into the city of Lima. Their bus system is more like an above ground subway system. It has its own lane parallel to the highway and goes super fast. Once we arrived we were able to see many historical sites and I tried to keep up with the spanish as our tour guide introduced us to all the different areas. Today was the five year anniversary of an earthquake occurred in Lima five years ago. So today just so happened to be the day that they "commemorated" this day. They did this by simulating what would happen in the event of another earthquake happening. There were ambulances everywhere and medics that were carrying around fake injured people on stretchers. It was quite the show with the main event being that they tethered a rope from the top of a building and had a few police officers holding it down to the ground. Then people at the top of the building slid down this rope as a way of an evacuation route. Its kind of confusing to explain but it was quite the site to see and we were lucky to experience it.
All in all it has been a great experience so far. I cant believe I am going to be here for six whole weeks. I am so lucky that I have been given this opportunity. Tomorrow night we will be leaving for Huancayo which will be our home base for the rest of the trip. Thanks for reading :)