Friday
After waking up a few times, it was finally beginning to be light outside. I like to sleep in all kinds of funky positions, usually keeping my hands underneath me or the pillow, so it was really hard to sleep with an IV in my hand. Not to mention the weird noises and the nurses who care about you enough to check on you a few times during the night as well. So that being said, I think I slept well for where I was.
Marie, my clinic roomie, and I were both super excited to wake up because we thought we could check out of this hotel....or clinic. But sadly, they said we would have to stay at least until lunch. We also thought they said we had to finish the bottle of fluids that was draining into our arms, so the race began! Our IVs had been finicky enough that we watched the nurses adjust them multiple times and learned how to do it ourselves. Of course, once I knew how to do that, I had that thing going as fast as possible. It made my arm cold and ache a little, but I wanted to get out of there! I was still holding on to a bit of hope that I would get to go to Machu Picchu that day. Needless to say, that didn't happen. And the nurses didn't actually mean that we got to go home sooner if we finished our IV fluids. Double bummer. I was really hydrated.
Lunch time came and we were super excited...not to eat, but to get out of there. Now, please don't take this the wrong way - the nurses were super sweet, the doctors were tall, dark, and handsome, and the pjs were comfy. We were treated so well in our clinic, especially compared to our friends still in Lima, but we were in a foreign country and just wanted to get back to our planned adventures.
They brought us lunch around 12:30 pm, and Marie and I were so excited we couldn't sit still. And then they told us that we could leave after DINNER. Ugh. Not good news. Especially because by this point we kept breakfast in our bodies for the appropriate amount of time and we were drinking water on top of having IVs. We felt like we were ready to leave.
So we "suffered" through a few more hours waiting for dinner to come. They started talking about dinner, and then they started talking about our discharge papers! HORRAY! They fed us dinner while they were signing our papers, so we actually got out of there a little bit earlier than we thought. What a great day! Tommy got to leave with us, but Mary had to stay one more night. She had an upper respiratory thing on top of all the stomach stuff, so she needed to stay.
Officially we were all diagnosed with Salmonella. Apparently salmonella is a very broad term, and our specific case was Typhoid Fever. That sure takes you back to the 1800s doesn't it? The guys at work like to call me Typhoid Sara now. We looked it up online, and that is a little dangerous. You learn all sorts of things you don't really want to learn.
We called a taxi and headed back to our hotel. Marie and I were super excited to put our own clothes on, get our IVs out, and take a shower! Our showers in our hotel were super fancy and nice with warmed floors, but also it was just nice to see the sun again. I'm being dramatic, I know, but Marie and I talked about how we have a much better appreciation for nurses, patients, and being outside. We lost all sense of time in the clinic. Luckily there was a tiny window that we could kind of tell if it was light or not, but even then we were convinced there was a light bulb in there and not actually daylight.
After our showers and clean clothes, we went to the hotel restaurant to have some dinner. The dinner they served to us at the clinic was chicken soup, and we were all convinced that we got sick from chicken, so we were not too excited to eat that. We had some delicious grilled cheese at the hotel and then went to bed.
Early Saturday morning, I woke up because my stomach was upset again. I was convinced that it was the medicine, so I would be ok in a little while. Well, a few hours later I was still not doing well, so I went to Marie's room and woke them up. They called the clinic for me and they said to come back in. Dang it!! More to come later....
dun dun dun! haha.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
by request.
Ok ok ok I give in!
This is Christopher.
He's very tall - almost 2 meters tall - and the kids in Peru thought that was pretty weird.
He buys me flowers when I get sick in foreign countries.
And he knows a little bit about a lot of things. Like in my last post I wrote "peaked" and I should have written "piqued."
There you go. Your very own post.
This is Christopher.
He buys me flowers when I get sick in foreign countries.
And he knows a little bit about a lot of things. Like in my last post I wrote "peaked" and I should have written "piqued."
There you go. Your very own post.
Peru continued...
I sure hope you haven't been holding your breath to learn about the rest of my trip. But I do hope your curiosity was peaked!
Wednesday
Pretty much you can copy and paste what happened on Tuesday and put it on Wednesday. We started the day with a Bible study (which is interesting when about half of your group wants nothing to do with the Bible). This trip was a "young adult" trip with our synod, but it turned out to be some people from our synod and some people that knew someone in our synod. We had 2 people from New York, one from Georgia, 2 from Colorado, 1 from Louisiana, and the rest from Texas.
After Bible study we headed to an art museum that moves all over Peru. I learned a lot about the political struggle in Peru, especially during the 20 years of violence. The whole exhibit was about those 20 years and it was very powerful. The artists met us there so they walked us through the gallery, telling us all about their pieces. I thought the art was powerful before the artists came, and I was blown away by the time they explained their pieces. That was incredible.
This one is my favorite I think. The artist was from Japan. Someone from Japan (I want to say it was the government, but I don't think that's right...) send kimonos to Japanese people living in Peru for this project (this is the only one in this gallery, but there are more elsewhere.) The faces on the kimono are of political figures being blamed for the violence (either causing it or not stopping it). The faces on the ground are people missing or murdered. The real kicker is the mirror in the center bottom. The artist put that there to show that you easily could have been one of the missing or murdered.
This is a view of the front of the gallery. I really like the space. That's Matt and Marie at the exhibit.
This is a really awesome tapestry. It's showing the destruction of the forest. On the right you can see how fertile and grand the forest is - lots of animals, plants, and native people. Then on the left people see how great the forest is and start destroying it.
It was incredibly detailed and 3D as you can see in this photo.
After the art gallery we all went to lunch in this area that seemed like down town Lima. At this point, I wasn't exactly sure where we were. It's really hard to keep track of directions with all their crazy driving. Let's just say they don't have a problem with texting while driving because you would not survive.
Lunch was fabulous! This was the first time we got to eat "real" Peruvian food in a restaurant and it was so tasty! But it was sooooo not worth it. Later we figured out that this is where we got sick. After we ate, we went to the restroom before we got on the bus again. They didn't have running water that day, which we didn't think much of that day. But that means employees can't wash their hands, they can't wash dishes...etc. You should start playing the "something-bad-is-coming" music.
We got on the bus and traveled to a church for the afternoon. Three churches came together and met at one church, so we got to see a lot of people in one place. Some groups of kids from each church wore matching shirts, and some shirts were from a church in our synod.
Check out the video below of a song they sang for us. My favorite is the little girl on the right. She's awesome!
We got back in the vans and headed to the next church where a few congregations had gathered. They had been working on renovating their church, and they just got the lights the day we got there. They were pretty excited. It started to rain while we were there, which was cool because it rains 3 inches a year in Lima. The kids were all kind of shocked and didn't really know what to do with the rain. I didn't get too many pictures there. Some of our group was doing an art project with the kids, but they were in a tiny little room and a few of us didn't fit. It was ok with me because I was pretty tired by that point anyways.
We got back in our trusty vans with our trusty drivers and headed back to the hotel. It was pretty late and we were gearing up for an early morning flight to Cusco the next day.
Thursday
4:30 am - We are all packed up and heading out the door. At this point, I think most of us have what Matt calls "bubble gut." Our stomachs are rumbling...and not because we're hungry. Some of us are feeling it worse than others, but really we just think 1. we're in a foreign country, 2. it's 4-frickin'-30 in the morning.
We pile into our two trusty vans, and already Mike is puking. Do we turn around? Nope. Keep pushing on, we can do it.
We get to the airport, get checked in and sit at our gate. Luckily there's a bathroom nearby because we are getting a little nervous. Immodium is being passed around like candy. But we are strong; we can handle this. Just a little traveler's diarrhea.
The flight to Cusco is about 1.5 hours, so it's a smaller plane. We load the bus that takes us to the tarmac. As we're unloading the bus and walking to the plane, Mike passes out. Luckily it was a slow pass out, so he started to stumble and slowly black out, so the people near him caught him and gently put him on the ground. At this point, half our group is on the plane and the other half is on the tarmac. Then Will starts seeing black, so he sits down. Then Tom starts feeling badly. At that point we decide that Peggy, Mike, Will, Tom, and Mindy will stay in Lima and catch the next flight. This is just travelers diarrhea, so they'll be fine soon. Right? Right. They have to be fine, we're going to Machu Picchu tomorrow!
Mandy, Lucy, Matt, Marie, Tommy, Mary, and I board the plane, a little apprehensive, but ready to go to Machu Picchu. About 30 minutes into the flight, Mandy passes out. Lucy freaks out and starts pounding the flight attendant button above my head...that's helpful. The plane is pretty empty, so they already know us as the sick Americans, and now we're pounding the ceiling. Awesome. We get the nice looking flight attendants (the guy looked like Trent, Jessie! It was creepy. Except he had like a German accent and I think he was even taller) to help us with Mandy - they bring her ice for her head because she feels warm and some sprite for her poor stomach.
By the time we're going to land, Mandy is still not feeling better, so they call the EMS guys to meet us at the airport. Oh, I decided to look out the window and saw this...
I've seen some mountains in my life, but these were MOUNTAINS. It felt like we were flying right next to them instead of looking down on them. I don't think this picture does it justice, but it will have to do. But I highly suggest flying from Lima to Cusco, just to see this!
The plane lands and everyone else gets off the plane. The EMS type guys come on to get Mandy. They put her in a wheel chair and then we all get off the plane. They decide she needs to go to the clinic so they wisk her and Lucy away. The rest of us head to the bathroom first and then to baggage claim.
In Peru they are very picky about who can pick up what bags from baggage claim. A good idea if you ask me, since some guy almost walked off with my bag in Houston the other day. You have to show them your baggage claim tickets before you can take the bag. Well, since we had all 14 bags for the 12 people (only 7 of which landed in Cusco) we were a little worried. Luckily they have a big bark and not bite, so we got to take all of the bags with us. At this point we're still thinking that the rest of our group is joining us in just a few hours, so it's ok that we have their bags. (play more music here)
We finally get our bags, buy some water, and some oxy shot and we're on our way. Oxyshot is this great invention - oxygen in a can. Since Cusco is at 11,000 feet, we were a little nervous about altitude sickness (ok, actually it was our trip leader that made us so nervous, but we weren't feeling well already so we decided it would be good to have).
Walking out of the tiny Cusco airport, we're excited to see a friendly man holding a sign with our names on it. Reuben is our tour guide for our stay in Cusco, and I'm pretty sure he's an angel. He was very surprised to see just 5 of us instead of the original 12. We explained to him what was happening, and he promptly took us to the clinic where they took Mandy. When we got to the clinic, they had already done some preliminary tests on Mandy and decided that she should be moved to another clinic. Lucy stayed with Mandy and the rest of us went to the hotel. By this time, either the altitude or our stomachs were getting to us, so we made it to the hotel, walked to our rooms and laid in bed.
Matt and Lucy were the only ones feeling well, so they were taking great care of us. They brought us water, toast, and anything else we needed. We were all laying in bed, sipping water, making trips to the bathroom, and changing between being super hot and super cold because of fever.
A few hours later, we heard back from Mandy's test results and heard that she had....dun dun dun....salmonella. Awesome. Since we had all been eating either the same exact food from the churches, or going to the same restaurants, we figured we all should go to the clinic.
Our trusty friend Reuben comes to the hotel and helps us get some cabs and figures out the best clinic to go to. Luckily there's one close by that speaks English, so we pile into 2 cabs and we're on our way. The wonderful staff there meet us at the door with wheelchairs and they wisk us away into some nice rooms with beds. Mary and Tommy share a room since they are hermanos, and I get to be with Marie - best roommate ever (excluding Jessie and Malea of course!).
They start doing the standard things - taking our blood pressure, temperature, all that good stuff. They ask us questions about our symptoms and then decide to take some blood. A little while later they give us some IVs with medicine and more importantly fluids. We started to feel better within minutes of the IVs. They are amazing things!!
I'm a little foggy on the timeline of things, but at some point someone called home and started a mass amount of chaos. They told people in the US that we were all sick and in the hospital before we could even call our important people to let them know we were ok. A leader in our synod actually posted on facebook to pray for us. We of course appreciated the prayers, but news about loved ones being sick going viral was not such a good plan.
We ended up staying in the clinic that night. They gave us some very comfy pajamas and warm blankets. It was difficult to sleep in a strange bed with strange noises and a needle in my arm, but I managed to sleep. It felt so good to feel better!!! haha.
Wednesday
Pretty much you can copy and paste what happened on Tuesday and put it on Wednesday. We started the day with a Bible study (which is interesting when about half of your group wants nothing to do with the Bible). This trip was a "young adult" trip with our synod, but it turned out to be some people from our synod and some people that knew someone in our synod. We had 2 people from New York, one from Georgia, 2 from Colorado, 1 from Louisiana, and the rest from Texas.
After Bible study we headed to an art museum that moves all over Peru. I learned a lot about the political struggle in Peru, especially during the 20 years of violence. The whole exhibit was about those 20 years and it was very powerful. The artists met us there so they walked us through the gallery, telling us all about their pieces. I thought the art was powerful before the artists came, and I was blown away by the time they explained their pieces. That was incredible.
This is our group listening to the artists. Each family with a missing loved one made a square for the piece on the left.
This is a view of the front of the gallery. I really like the space. That's Matt and Marie at the exhibit.
After the art gallery we all went to lunch in this area that seemed like down town Lima. At this point, I wasn't exactly sure where we were. It's really hard to keep track of directions with all their crazy driving. Let's just say they don't have a problem with texting while driving because you would not survive.
Lunch was fabulous! This was the first time we got to eat "real" Peruvian food in a restaurant and it was so tasty! But it was sooooo not worth it. Later we figured out that this is where we got sick. After we ate, we went to the restroom before we got on the bus again. They didn't have running water that day, which we didn't think much of that day. But that means employees can't wash their hands, they can't wash dishes...etc. You should start playing the "something-bad-is-coming" music.
We got on the bus and traveled to a church for the afternoon. Three churches came together and met at one church, so we got to see a lot of people in one place. Some groups of kids from each church wore matching shirts, and some shirts were from a church in our synod.
Check out the video below of a song they sang for us. My favorite is the little girl on the right. She's awesome!
We got back in the vans and headed to the next church where a few congregations had gathered. They had been working on renovating their church, and they just got the lights the day we got there. They were pretty excited. It started to rain while we were there, which was cool because it rains 3 inches a year in Lima. The kids were all kind of shocked and didn't really know what to do with the rain. I didn't get too many pictures there. Some of our group was doing an art project with the kids, but they were in a tiny little room and a few of us didn't fit. It was ok with me because I was pretty tired by that point anyways.
We got back in our trusty vans with our trusty drivers and headed back to the hotel. It was pretty late and we were gearing up for an early morning flight to Cusco the next day.
Thursday
4:30 am - We are all packed up and heading out the door. At this point, I think most of us have what Matt calls "bubble gut." Our stomachs are rumbling...and not because we're hungry. Some of us are feeling it worse than others, but really we just think 1. we're in a foreign country, 2. it's 4-frickin'-30 in the morning.
We pile into our two trusty vans, and already Mike is puking. Do we turn around? Nope. Keep pushing on, we can do it.
We get to the airport, get checked in and sit at our gate. Luckily there's a bathroom nearby because we are getting a little nervous. Immodium is being passed around like candy. But we are strong; we can handle this. Just a little traveler's diarrhea.
The flight to Cusco is about 1.5 hours, so it's a smaller plane. We load the bus that takes us to the tarmac. As we're unloading the bus and walking to the plane, Mike passes out. Luckily it was a slow pass out, so he started to stumble and slowly black out, so the people near him caught him and gently put him on the ground. At this point, half our group is on the plane and the other half is on the tarmac. Then Will starts seeing black, so he sits down. Then Tom starts feeling badly. At that point we decide that Peggy, Mike, Will, Tom, and Mindy will stay in Lima and catch the next flight. This is just travelers diarrhea, so they'll be fine soon. Right? Right. They have to be fine, we're going to Machu Picchu tomorrow!
Mandy, Lucy, Matt, Marie, Tommy, Mary, and I board the plane, a little apprehensive, but ready to go to Machu Picchu. About 30 minutes into the flight, Mandy passes out. Lucy freaks out and starts pounding the flight attendant button above my head...that's helpful. The plane is pretty empty, so they already know us as the sick Americans, and now we're pounding the ceiling. Awesome. We get the nice looking flight attendants (the guy looked like Trent, Jessie! It was creepy. Except he had like a German accent and I think he was even taller) to help us with Mandy - they bring her ice for her head because she feels warm and some sprite for her poor stomach.
By the time we're going to land, Mandy is still not feeling better, so they call the EMS guys to meet us at the airport. Oh, I decided to look out the window and saw this...
The plane lands and everyone else gets off the plane. The EMS type guys come on to get Mandy. They put her in a wheel chair and then we all get off the plane. They decide she needs to go to the clinic so they wisk her and Lucy away. The rest of us head to the bathroom first and then to baggage claim.
In Peru they are very picky about who can pick up what bags from baggage claim. A good idea if you ask me, since some guy almost walked off with my bag in Houston the other day. You have to show them your baggage claim tickets before you can take the bag. Well, since we had all 14 bags for the 12 people (only 7 of which landed in Cusco) we were a little worried. Luckily they have a big bark and not bite, so we got to take all of the bags with us. At this point we're still thinking that the rest of our group is joining us in just a few hours, so it's ok that we have their bags. (play more music here)
We finally get our bags, buy some water, and some oxy shot and we're on our way. Oxyshot is this great invention - oxygen in a can. Since Cusco is at 11,000 feet, we were a little nervous about altitude sickness (ok, actually it was our trip leader that made us so nervous, but we weren't feeling well already so we decided it would be good to have).
Walking out of the tiny Cusco airport, we're excited to see a friendly man holding a sign with our names on it. Reuben is our tour guide for our stay in Cusco, and I'm pretty sure he's an angel. He was very surprised to see just 5 of us instead of the original 12. We explained to him what was happening, and he promptly took us to the clinic where they took Mandy. When we got to the clinic, they had already done some preliminary tests on Mandy and decided that she should be moved to another clinic. Lucy stayed with Mandy and the rest of us went to the hotel. By this time, either the altitude or our stomachs were getting to us, so we made it to the hotel, walked to our rooms and laid in bed.
Matt and Lucy were the only ones feeling well, so they were taking great care of us. They brought us water, toast, and anything else we needed. We were all laying in bed, sipping water, making trips to the bathroom, and changing between being super hot and super cold because of fever.
A few hours later, we heard back from Mandy's test results and heard that she had....dun dun dun....salmonella. Awesome. Since we had all been eating either the same exact food from the churches, or going to the same restaurants, we figured we all should go to the clinic.
Our trusty friend Reuben comes to the hotel and helps us get some cabs and figures out the best clinic to go to. Luckily there's one close by that speaks English, so we pile into 2 cabs and we're on our way. The wonderful staff there meet us at the door with wheelchairs and they wisk us away into some nice rooms with beds. Mary and Tommy share a room since they are hermanos, and I get to be with Marie - best roommate ever (excluding Jessie and Malea of course!).
They start doing the standard things - taking our blood pressure, temperature, all that good stuff. They ask us questions about our symptoms and then decide to take some blood. A little while later they give us some IVs with medicine and more importantly fluids. We started to feel better within minutes of the IVs. They are amazing things!!
I'm a little foggy on the timeline of things, but at some point someone called home and started a mass amount of chaos. They told people in the US that we were all sick and in the hospital before we could even call our important people to let them know we were ok. A leader in our synod actually posted on facebook to pray for us. We of course appreciated the prayers, but news about loved ones being sick going viral was not such a good plan.
We ended up staying in the clinic that night. They gave us some very comfy pajamas and warm blankets. It was difficult to sleep in a strange bed with strange noises and a needle in my arm, but I managed to sleep. It felt so good to feel better!!! haha.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Peru
A lot happened in Peru....some that was on the agenda, and some that wasn't in my wildest dreams. I hope you enjoy the story!
Monday, January 3
After one quick trip back to Chris' house for a missing passport, he got me to the airport where I met my traveling companions for the first time. There were 12 of us total...Mike, Mary and Tommy and Will (dad, sister, brother, and roommate), Peggy, Lucy, and Mandy (staff from the synod), Mindy and Tom (Campus Pastor and boyfriend), Matt and Marie (Peggy's son and girl friend), and me. Interesting group already, si? Si.
The flight to Lima, Peru was rather uneventful (especially compared to the flights to come...). We left at 4 pm and got there around midnight. Peggy warned us that Peruvian people are very friendly, but I didn't really understand until we got there. Now, keep in mind that it's midnight. After we made our way through immigration, got our bags, and then pushed the magic button that gave everyone the green light (aka customs), we made our way to the airport exit. We were met by about 30 smiling, singing, hugging, and kissing Peruvians! Pastor Dana (a missionary from Minnesota) had a guitar and led them in all some sort of welcome song. They even had a sign that said something like "Welcome to the people from Texas!" It was quite the welcome. Then, in true Peruvian style, they hugged each one of us and gave us a kiss on the cheek. To our American bubbles it was quite the shock, but such a warm welcome.
We headed back to the hotel and promptly fell asleep. My roomie was Mary and she had a cold (aka she snored the whole night). Bienvenidos a Peru!
Tuesday, January 4th
Our hotel was pretty amazing. It had a beautiful courtyard with a covered patio inside the middle of the hotel. We ate delicious breakfasts here each morning with fresh mango juice and an array of semi-american good (like hotdogs as sausages and "corn flakes" with milk). It was delicious.
This morning we met together as a group for really the first time. We've had two conference calls together, but it's hard to get anything done. Our trip was different than anything I've been a part of. The trip was supposed to be a group of artists from our synod to be artistic and bring back artistic ways of representing the Lutheran church in Peru. Ultimately the artistic results of our trip are going to be used to raise support, money, and interest in traveling to Peru to meet our Lutheran brothers and sisters. Our meeting this morning was to discuss what art projects we were going to do with these people. Nothing like last minute right? Each artist brought some of their favorite media (I brought my computer, 2 cameras, and 3 lenses) and we discussed a plan.
Walking away from the meeting, I had no idea what our plan was. I decided I would just document the whole thing and go with the flow...I do not use the word "artist" to describe myself.
We went on a short walk to a money exchange place. In Peru they use soles (soul-lays) and the exchange rate is 2.78 soles = $1. Then we walked to an Italian place and had lunch. No joke, I had pizza! haha.
That after noon we piled into our 2 buses and drove to our first congregation. I think this one was my favorite, if I'm allowed to have favorites (maybe it was because of the lighting of the afternoon and the blue sky so I got great pictures).
First, they had a little band that played some worship songs. We actually recognized one of them so we sang it for them in English...when I remember which song it was I'll tell you.
Then we went outside to play and do some art. I got some pictures of some beautiful people.
They fed us some delicious food, and then we all went back inside to talk a little with the whole group. We got to listen to their dreams and concerns for their congregation. They have some great programs at their church, like a soup kitchen type thing on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for the kids of the neighborhood.
We said goodbye, hopped on the bus and headed to another congregation. We did a different art project at this church - each person drew a "map" of their life. This congregation was a little more difficult to photograph because we were inside and it was dark outside. They really need some good lighting engineers in Peru...they only use fluorescent lights without any real fixtures or lenses or anything. Yeah, I definitely think the Peruvian people need a lighting engineer.....or something.
We went back to the hotel late that night, but it was an awesome day. I really felt like I could leave after today, that I had enough fun for a week. Little did I know what was going to come....(aren't you just biting your nails in suspense? yeah, I thought so.)
Monday, January 3
After one quick trip back to Chris' house for a missing passport, he got me to the airport where I met my traveling companions for the first time. There were 12 of us total...Mike, Mary and Tommy and Will (dad, sister, brother, and roommate), Peggy, Lucy, and Mandy (staff from the synod), Mindy and Tom (Campus Pastor and boyfriend), Matt and Marie (Peggy's son and girl friend), and me. Interesting group already, si? Si.
The flight to Lima, Peru was rather uneventful (especially compared to the flights to come...). We left at 4 pm and got there around midnight. Peggy warned us that Peruvian people are very friendly, but I didn't really understand until we got there. Now, keep in mind that it's midnight. After we made our way through immigration, got our bags, and then pushed the magic button that gave everyone the green light (aka customs), we made our way to the airport exit. We were met by about 30 smiling, singing, hugging, and kissing Peruvians! Pastor Dana (a missionary from Minnesota) had a guitar and led them in all some sort of welcome song. They even had a sign that said something like "Welcome to the people from Texas!" It was quite the welcome. Then, in true Peruvian style, they hugged each one of us and gave us a kiss on the cheek. To our American bubbles it was quite the shock, but such a warm welcome.
We headed back to the hotel and promptly fell asleep. My roomie was Mary and she had a cold (aka she snored the whole night). Bienvenidos a Peru!
Tuesday, January 4th
Our hotel was pretty amazing. It had a beautiful courtyard with a covered patio inside the middle of the hotel. We ate delicious breakfasts here each morning with fresh mango juice and an array of semi-american good (like hotdogs as sausages and "corn flakes" with milk). It was delicious.
Here's a shot of some cute girls playing in the courtyard of our hotel.
Walking away from the meeting, I had no idea what our plan was. I decided I would just document the whole thing and go with the flow...I do not use the word "artist" to describe myself.
We went on a short walk to a money exchange place. In Peru they use soles (soul-lays) and the exchange rate is 2.78 soles = $1. Then we walked to an Italian place and had lunch. No joke, I had pizza! haha.
That after noon we piled into our 2 buses and drove to our first congregation. I think this one was my favorite, if I'm allowed to have favorites (maybe it was because of the lighting of the afternoon and the blue sky so I got great pictures).
First, they had a little band that played some worship songs. We actually recognized one of them so we sang it for them in English...when I remember which song it was I'll tell you.
Then we went outside to play and do some art. I got some pictures of some beautiful people.
I found a fun friend to talk to. His name is Jonathon and that's his sister Celeste. Between his broken English and my broken Spanish, we had a nice conversation about movies, food, college life, and family. Pretty fun!
They fed us some delicious food, and then we all went back inside to talk a little with the whole group. We got to listen to their dreams and concerns for their congregation. They have some great programs at their church, like a soup kitchen type thing on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for the kids of the neighborhood.
We said goodbye, hopped on the bus and headed to another congregation. We did a different art project at this church - each person drew a "map" of their life. This congregation was a little more difficult to photograph because we were inside and it was dark outside. They really need some good lighting engineers in Peru...they only use fluorescent lights without any real fixtures or lenses or anything. Yeah, I definitely think the Peruvian people need a lighting engineer.....or something.
We went back to the hotel late that night, but it was an awesome day. I really felt like I could leave after today, that I had enough fun for a week. Little did I know what was going to come....(aren't you just biting your nails in suspense? yeah, I thought so.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)