Sunday morning I had door duty at the main house from 9 am until 7 pm, covering for Sylvia as she went to a religious festival in the mountains. As I woke up to go downstairs I saw that the lock on our door was off and the people that run the house were talking about it. It turns out that where I am living was broken into that night between the hours of 1:30 am and 5:30 am, while 4 of us were sleeping in the house. Not one of us heard the criminals use a crow bar to pry the top lock off, take the gas can we use for the shower, the gas can we use for the kitchen, or an old amp in the downstairs music room. I live on the second floor and was completely fine, nothing of mine had been touched and I had not been harmed. In my last blog I had mentioned some weird vibes I had been feeling in the evenings when I would come back to this house, but this event validated those feelings. I feel generally safe here and will continue to always be aware of my surroundings and make safety a priority.
Saturday afternoon a man had been sitting outside of the door making handicrafts as many people do to sell in San Blas, but none of us had seen him before and he was making basic bracelets without many to sell. With some hindsight bias I feel like one of us should have spoken to him or figured out more about him because he is not a usual craftsman on our street. Besides that it was a petty theft and easy break in because of the broken second lock. Gas for heating is expensive here and whomever broke in has some karma coming after them. Throughout the day we had a man install two new locks and repair the door, one of the locks including a drop bar that covers the whole door. We also got new keys.
Besides living CSI: Cusco for a few hours I read a book in the sun, did some dishes, ate a Peruvian Nestle ice cream, and read some more. It was a pretty boring day besides the break in so for dinner I made pasta with sauce and cheese and finally got our girls night movie set up. The plan had been for over a week to watch Pride and Prejudice but either the sala was taken, we were all too tired, or we didn't have a projector. I got the new projector from Niki, the connector from David, and tried to get the Netflix version up on the screen. We struggled for a whole but figured out I had to actually drag the window onto the projector screen in order to view it. Once we got everything going Alex, Selene, Kaki, and myself munched on guacamole, Lays potato chips, and Coca Cola while watching one of the greatest chick flicks ever made. It was a fabulous evening.
Come Monday morning I had t work again from 8 am until 2 pm and this time I was trying very hard to find something to do. Most of the volunteers complain about having to pick up the slack for those that live here or they feel like all they do is work, and I was afraid that this could be the day I start complaining. But no, I found ways to be productive and to entertain myself. I was going through my emails and saw Memorial Day deals from Pacsun and Victoria Secret, and one other place that I cannot mention because I know my parents will be reading this and I used it as a gift to them. I ended up taking advantage of Pacsun's buy one get one 50% off deal and found a 25% off and free shipping deal online to buy 3 possible dresses for recruitment when I get back to FSU, some bathing suit bottoms, and nice tank tops to layer once I get back to the US. With all of my coupon codes and such I saved over $100 and was quite satisfied with my ability to return online purchases in a store within 3 months, which is perfect timing for when I am back home. I also took advantage of Victoria's Secret's 7/$26 deal where I could get 7 pairs of underwear for $26 so I bought 14 pairs and am so excited to have new underwear when I get home because lets face it, who doesn't like new underwear?? While I was placing my order online the housekeeper saw what I was buying and, in Spanish, asked me what I was buying that for and gave me a semi-disgusted look. I'm pretty sure all Peruvian women wear are granny panties.
Anyways, after all of that I was able to make a creative gift online for my parents, because father's day is coming up and my mom deserves some love from me as well while I am gone. To mom and dad who I know are reading this, wait to open the package that I had shipped to the house on father's day at the same time. Also know that I love you both so much and would not be able to make it three months by myself in a foreign country without your infinite love and support.
While I was also on my shift I had my mom send me some recipes from back home because we are putting together a cook book here at the house and I needed to contribute five recipes. I asked her to send me the recipes for my Aunt Nancy's pasta salad, my Aunt Kelly and Uncle Eric's Portofino pesto, No Bake Cookies (NBCs), Philly Velvet Dessert, apple crisp, and my grandmother's Whoopy pies. I typed them up, send them in, and decided I wanted to make NBCs for the house. So after my shift I was on a mission to get all of the ingredients, which was difficult to some degree. I went out on my own and discovered they do actually have cocoa for sale in the tiendas so I got that, got one kilo of sugar, went to el Mercado San Pedro for one kilo of uncooked oats, went to Orion the super market for milk, 400 grams of unsalted butter, and peanut butter which they did not have. I knew where it was definitely and walked all the way back to an overpriced tienda that I had already passed and tried to get two jars of Peter Pan peanut butter (Peru has weird peanut butter so I had to get the best they had) because I didn't know how much I was going to need. The woman rang me up and I thought the total cost was 5.80 soles and so I gave her that but then she showed me the total clearer and it was 45.80. I didn't have that many soles on me so I had to put it back and walk all the way back to the house without all of my ingredients.
Once I got back I asked Kaki to go get one jar for me because my fingers started swelling from the altitude and walking so much. So she agreed, I gave her 24 soles to cover one jar of peanut butter, and got everything else ready for when she came back. When she finally did I started making the famous cookies! First I had to measure one cup of butter from 400 grams between two slabs of it and I figured out one cup of butter is 225 grams. So I measured that out, added 4 cups of sugar that did not melt down like I wanted , 8 tablespoons of cocoa, and one cup of milk to the pot on the stove to boil for one minute. Then I added one cup of very expensive peanut butter and 6 cups of oats to complete my doubled recipe. In the end the kitchen smelled great and my cookies got glowing reviews. I was so excited that even under Peruvian circumstances, I could still bring a part of my life and family into the Healing House. I was so proud I sent a picture to my mom via text.
Like every other Tuesday a group of us goes to the Montay Shelter in San Jeronimo to work with the (very) young mothers. Today instead of giving them treatments we did a girls day and pampered them with scrubs, lotions, and manicures. I love going there and seeing the girls that have stepped up to the plate of being a mother or those that had no other choice. It was great to be able to pamper them with what they really want and to make them feel beautiful. I saw some familiar faces from last time and had better conversations with all of the girls because my Spanish is starting to come back quickly. One of the girls from last week told me that my eyes look celestial and beautiful, it is rare for them to see such blue eyes and with my pattern. I then showed them how I can cross my eyes and they started laughing, and I relished in it. I am more than happy to be that crazy gringa girl that makes weird faces, struggles sometimes with her Spanish, but still gives them unconditional love and support and makes them feel like they aren't alienated for being young mothers.
After scrubbing multiple hands with a seas salt, tee tree oil, and peppermint homemade scrub, massaging their hands with lotion, and painting their finger nails with flowers I showed the girls pictures on my phone of where I live, my family, and me as a child. They thought that my little cousins Parker and Peyton were beautiful and that my sister and I as kids were gorgeous. It gives me great satisfaction just to show them that small window into other parts of the world. That experience also made me grateful for my family, where I live, and for sex education and available protection in the United States. Sorry if you don't want to hear this, but many of these girls were raped and had no form of birth control, and contraceptives, or options after they were sexually abused to make sure that their childhood was not completely lost. Be grateful, not ashamed, of what we have available to us in the states as women. Coming back from my rant, they asked me and the other girls from the house to come back on Sunday and play volleyball with them, I felt so accepted by them even as an outsider.
On our way back we took the bus instead of a taxi, which only cost me .80 soles and was the first time I had taken actual public transportation in Cusco. We got off at an early stop in order to go to the best bakery in San Blas where I got a baguette and pan con chocolate, which was basically a sweet, fluffy roll with chocolate inside and heated up. I was so satisfied by that. Then we went back tot he house with thoughts of lunch in ours heads already at 11 am and decided to go to The Rock and figure out where we wanted to eat. We walked 5 minutes down the road to hike up to this rock that used to be a energetic center in somewhat ancient times. While we were up there we saw an Alpaca and a puppy playing, a filled pool, and Sara and I played on a see-saw. We all then decided to go to Presada, a vegetarian place for lunch and it was a great decision as I got the menu of Costa Rican pasta and rice and bean fried somethings.
At 2:30 we had a meeting for the free clinic today and it was decided that last week I did my part in giving treatments so today I could sit out and I decided to read in the sun some more and Chucky the not so friendly cat came and curled up on my lap. The rest of the day I have been feeling very tired and run down so I called it an early night and hope I will feel better in the morning. But most people don't have as good of an attitude as I do about being here for so long. What has been monumental in my happiness here is taking it day by day, not having such high expectations of the things I cannot control, and to know that this is an experience I will probably never get again and that it is teaching me so many life lessons. I cannot say that others that have been here for a shorter time than I will be here for are struggling with such things and breaking down. I have a little over 10 more weeks but I know my family and the most important things to me will still be there when I go home, so I am not stressing about missing them or anything.
I am here for a reason and I plan on taking full advantage of my time here. I encourage you all to live deliberately every day and focus on the present moment, because that is all we truly have.
No comments:
Post a Comment