1st Rotary Vacation

Yes. I am a procrastinator. I went on amazing trip from October 3rd-October 10th and I am just now going to write about it.

Arequipa
Arequipa is the 2nd biggest city in Peru of about one million people, nestled in the South of the country in between a volcano and two other huge mountains. It's elevated about 2,380 meters above sea level.
We stayed with different Rotarians while we were these- I was also with 3 other exchangees (another form the US, one from Switzerland and one from Belgium). On the first day, our host mom showed us all around the city. We went to many different Plaza and Miradores (places with pretty views).




We also went to (but didn't eat at) a very old restaurant, the last in Peru that doesn't use electricity. We got to go into the kitchen, and there was chickens and guinea pigs just wandering around in the kitchen.

My "sisters" and I met up with two other exchangees (both guys from the U.S.) and went to the Plaza de Armas after dinner. We hung out there for about 3 hours. We went to one restaurant and one of the workers let us onto the roof! So we got to see the Plaza from a not-so-common angle.



As a group in Arequipa, we went to the Municipality of Yarahura and met some important guy (someone like the mayor). We also took a "city tour," which went to most of the same places I had already been to.

Colca Canyon
Our overnight trip to Colca Canyon was probably my favorite part of the entire trip. The city of Colca is about 100 kilometers from Arequipa, but it took us nearly 4 hours to get there because we had to drive over, around and through the Andes Mountains. We also stopped a bunch of times to go to small Peruvian markets, where most of us bought Alpaca-fur sweaters and Choros (hats).

Right after we got there we went on a long hike through the mountains, and ended up at a pool (I have missed swimming so much). We stayed at the pool (which was pretty much a giant hot tub) for almost 3 hours. We had dinner in a tourist restaurant and then went to a Discoteca :). We were the only ones there at the disco, but it was pretty cool regardless. We returned to the hotel at midnight, and then woke up at 4:30 to go to "el Cruz de Condores" (the Condor's Cross). We got there at 8:00, and were really lucky to see about 20 condors!




Tacna
Tacna was another 6 hours south of Arequipa. We went in bus, but to enter the department of Tacna, we all had to get off the bus and get our bags checked for fruit. I thought that was pretty amusing.

Tacna is the Southern-most city in Peru with a population of about 100,000. It's not a huge tourist attraction, but we got to do a lot of things with Rotary and Roteract while we were there. Our first night there, they had arranged a small "family" party, which we all went to and played volleyball and hung out.
The next day, as a group, we went on a bus tour of the area. We went on another hike, where we got to see a whole ton of pre-Inca glyphs carved in rocks. And we got to cross this really cool/slightly terrifying bridge.



Arica, Chile
Another one of the coolest things about the trip, was that we went on a day trip to Arica, Chile! We took a 30-minute bus ride to the Peru-Chile border, and had to spend about a hour getting through two sets of border controls. But we all got through, and we all got new, 180-day visas, so that's good.
We went to a museum full of Inca/Pre-Inca artifacts, then to a restaurant that used to be a train station.

We walked around the Plaza de Armas and bought key chains and ice cream.
"Small Prices" ($1.00=555 Chilean Pesos)

We also went to the main Mirador in Arica, a cliff facing the ocean, and a giant "Jesus de la Paz"



I took about 600 photos in all. You can check out more of them at facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016934&id=1602540165&l=f368832b65

How I got Caught

The University of Chicago is known for its creative essay prompts on their `uncommon` application. This year, one of them was "How did you get caught (or not caught as the case may be.)" I`ve been fretting over this essay for a while, because I really really really want to go to the University of Chicago.
Finally I came up with this. It`s about my exchange (obviously), about the moment that I fully came to the realization of where I was and what my life had become.
Enjoy. (And comment? :)


" I’m not sure why I thought I might be exempt. I watched and listened carefully for everyone else to take their turn, but cast not a single thought on what I might say. Everyone spoke of the grand memories they had shared in their many years at school. They spoke of the sadness they were feeling at the prospect of losing their friends for an entire year. They spoke of love and togetherness.
Finally, there were only four people left- the two this whole thing was put on for, the one everybody knew would go last, and me.
I was caught.
It was my turn. Nothing had to be said.
I walked slowly and carefully to the front of the room, brain working overtime trying to think of what to say, and then, to translate it to Spanish. I took a long pause to look into the two pairs of eyes staring most intently from the middle of the front row. On my left were Daniela’s welcoming features which had so often patiently explained things to me. On my right was the more determined face of Carla, the girl I had considered my sister for the last three weeks. Both had tears glistening on their flushed faces.
I looked around at all the other girls in the room. All twenty-six girls had shed at least one tear in past twenty minutes. That was my inspiration.
I had been part of this wonderful class for two weeks. I could talk about how much I would miss my sister and my friend. I could talk about how the class would not be the same without them. But I didn't know that. I knew they were wonderful students and friends and sisters, but I didn't know enough to state how different class would be without them. I would miss them, but not in the same way their life long friends would.
But I did know something of what lay in their future. I knew what it was like to leave all my friends and family for a year. I knew what it was like to walk around lost in the airport for an hour, wearing a bulky and elaborately decorated Rotary Youth Exchange Blazer. I knew what it was like to say goodbye.
“Nunca hay palabras suficiente para decir adios," I stamered, not worrying about my bad pronounciation or grammar, only hoping that my message came out loud and clear. There are never sufficient words to say goodbye. A long pause followed,
“Pero esta es el comienzo de una gran aventura," I continued shakily. I reminded them of the hope, of the reason they choose this path, even though it would be so hard at times like these. This is the start of a great adventure.
There is so much more I could have said. I would have liked to have quoted a famous author. I would have liked to thank them for all their help. I would have liked to say something witty and sensitive about the wonderful friends they would make during their exchange and how hard it would be to leave them.
But none of these words came to my lips.
What did come were tears. Lots of tears. And, mere seconds after that, a warm, supportive, loving embrace, which I was caught in and never wanted to end.
But it did end. Pepa needed her turn.
"Buena suerte," I whispered before taking my seat again. Good luck.
Pepa walked slowly up to the front, meeting my eyes as we crossed paths. She faced the crowd with determination, her eyes more red than most. She had to say goodbye to her two best friends. It is a surprise she doesn’t hate Rotary Youth Exchange for taking away three of the closest people in her life for an entire year, for her older sister is also leaving in two days time. She can manage to see the good in the situation on behalf of her friends. She even plans on leaving next year.
Pepa’s message was perfect. It was full of memories and hopes, of understanding and support, of tears and joy. Anyone who had managed to compose themselves wound up disheveled once again. But nobody cared, realizing it as one of the advantages of an all girls school. We were all brimming over with emotion, and nobody tried to hide it. Our tears were full of sorrow, but equally full of hope and of love.
Carla and Daniela did not let Pepa finish her speech. The need for physical proximity was too great. The second she started stumbling over the actually deed of saying "goodbye," they were by her side. The Hug started with a core of three lifelong friends. Within seconds, The Hug included the other twenty-four classmates many of whom had also grown up together. And The Hug included me- the still slightly awkward exchange student. We were all crying and laughing and sharing and loving and never wanting to let go.
And now, I know that it will never really end.

Pepa never finished her speech because of that Hug. She never needed to. Everybody understood her unfinished sentences in their own way.
If I were to finish, I would say this.
“The girls in the class have such an amazing friendship, and I am so glad to be caught up in it too.” "


Also, I´m leaving for Arequipa in about an hour. I`ll be back in a week (with a monton de stories, I`m sure.

Quick Update

I had another AMAZING weekend, including 4 Rotary events, but only about 10 hours of sleep.

Friday.
The 18th of September was the 1 year anniversary of the Roteract Club of San Borja Sur. To celebrate, they arranged a outing to a pretty exclusive discoteca in Miraflores, right on the ocean. It was really pretty. All the exchange students and Roteract members got in free :) There was about 25 of us altogether. There's not much more to say, except that we danced until 2:30 in the morning.


Dance Floor at midnight.


Dance Floor at 2:30 am.


Saturday
We had more classes for Rotary. This week, we were supposed to start learning the Marinera, a traditional Peruvian Dance. However, the teacher didn't show up. Instead, a trio of students who go to the same school taught us how to do a traditional American Line Dance. Yeah. Country music... Fun. It was a bit ironic, since there are many students who aren't from the United States. It was amusing anyways. We had our Spanish lessons again. This time we got homework! We're supposed to read a book in Spanish and give a presentation. A 150 page long book from the 1900s. Eek.
After the lessons, I went over to another exchange student's (Geneva) house in Miraflores. From her house we walked to a little Market, where I bought 6 DVDs for 6 dollars, including Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (which is not going to be out in the states until December). This is very exciting to me. I love watching movies. Albeit, all of these are pirated, but who cares.
At 5, we had another Rotary obligation, which ended up being basically just a little reunion of all the intercambistas and about 5 other rotarians in a Papa Johns Pizza Place. The Pizza was awesome, better than the only time I had Papa Johns at home. So is the CocaCola. I swear it is sweeter here. Not that anyone drinks CocaCola. Inca Kola is much better (and only avaliable in Peru). It's kinda like Cream Soda.
After stuffing ourselves with Pizza (and memories of home), Geneva met up with our host sisters at a concert. It was like Battle of the Bands Peruvian Colegio edition. We got there in time to see the last 3 high school bands play, and then a popular band called "La Mente" play. It was amazing! Our sisters had gotten there really early, so we ended up right behind the barricades. Which was nice until some security guard came and stood right in front of me.
My host dad picked me and Daniela up t about 10:00 from Miraflores, and I assumed we would be going home. I was wrong. We went to another Peru Posible Political reunion thing... I'm still not entirely sure what. I guess there's going to be some vote soon, and one of their propositions in on the ballot.


La Mente Playing

Sunday
Yet another Rotary filled day.
Most of the exchangees met at Colegio Santa Rosa at 7:30 am to go to Ventanilla, Callo. Rotary had arranged for us to help at an orphanage and a medical clinic for the day.
First was the medical clinic. It is a clinic that is being sponsored by Opporation Emmanuel, which is based in Japan. It is one of the only hospitals in Ventanilla and for today, it was open free to the public. I got put in a room for "general medicine." I didn't get to help much, but I did get to do a couple little errands, like trying to find cotton to clean the thermometer. The lady I worked with was really nice. We're going to meet up for coffee some time. :) It was kinda awkward being in the room with the patients, since I couldn't really do much to help.
Here's a picture. I cut out the patients though.

After that we went to the orphanage, which was pretty much just around the corner. We were greeted by a nun and about 50 kids aged 2-18. The nun explained the mission of the orphanage and then told us to get to know the kids. The kids basically charged at us as soon as the nun gave the word. They all wanted to hug us and play with us. It was adorable. One of the kids really wanted to learn how to use my camera, so I let him and he took over 100 pictures. A lot of them were of his fingers... But it was still adorable! At the end, they all sand a song for us. :)


Con mucho amor,
Jacqui

Peru Posible!

First off, Hola to all of Senora Wagner's Spanish students who are reading this! I hope you enjoy reading this (if only to get out of playing those verb conjugation games for a bit :). More importantly, I hope I can help inspire at least one of you to think seriously about the wonderful prospects there are to be a foreign exchange student.

Saturday started normally. Rotary is sponsoring some Spanish lessons for all the exchange students. They're at a school about 5 minutes from my house. I got to take a taxi there all by myself! I'm probably a bit more proud of this than is normal, but I think it's cool. Everyone here uses the public transportation all the time. In a couple more weeks, I hope I'll understand the bus and combi system. The lesson were alright. The teacher is honestly a bit crazy and his use of English "slang" is frankly hilarious. My favorite was what he kept referring to as "the tree of language." There is the trunk which is the nouns, the branches which are the verbs, and the leaves that are the adjectives (or something like that). But the leaves that fall from the tree is "the money we will make next year when we return to the USA and teach Spanish." Yeah...

I got home from the lessons just before lunch, which was some fantastic Ceviche (a fish appetizer typical of Peru) and Papa Reyena (also traditional Peruvian, consists of stir-fried chicken/onion/tomato rolled inside mashed potatoes and then deepfried). During lunch, my host parents asked me if I wanted to go somewhere with them. I agreed, although I really had no idea what it was. All I understood from the explanation they gave me was "Partido" (which means game- and apparently political Party), "expresidente Alejandro Toledo," and "15 anos" (15 years). I am now pretty used to not understanding things, so I just sort of went along with it.

We left about an hour later, and drove for about 20 minutes to a more rural district of Lima. We pulled into something resembling a farm. The first thing my host dad pointed out to me was a bull fighting ring, so we stood around and watched that for a bit. I found out my camera has this really cool setting that allows it to take 2 pictures every second, and so I took a ton! It was an "artistic" showing, so the torero did not kill the bull, simply tried to make it charge impressively at the red fabric thing. The bull wasn't very enthusiastic, until it's final charge towards the exit. It was so enthusiastic then because it saw an opening that lead out of its enclosure and into the parking lot. Yeah. Thats right. The bull escaped. It just sort of ran around the parking lot for a while. It was quite exhilarating for those of us not being chased. They caught it after a couple of minutes, and nobody got hurt.



After that, I finally figured out the real reason we were all there. It was a political rally-like thing. It was the 15th anniversary of the Peru Posible political party, and ex-president and founder of the party, Alejandro Toledo was going to speak.

Since I'm not sure how many of you are up on Peruvian Politics, let me summarize what I know about this party (which still isn't very much). It tends to be more Central or Liberal with a greater focus on the rural areas of Peru. It was founded in 1994 by Alejandro Toledo, who became president in 2001 for a 5 year term. As president, he worked to improve the living standards in rural Peru, which are often overlooked because so much of the population lives in either Lima or Arequipa. Overall, he helped to stabilize Peru after the Internal crisis it had in the 80's and 90's and was widely supported.

There was a stage nicely set up nicely under a tent overlooking the bullfighting arena, however, the slight problem was that the organization forgot to set up any chairs facing the stage. I mention this because I found it funny. A lot of events like this are really lacking in what I would consider organization. It wasn't a horrible problem to fix, everyone just had to go grab a chair from the dining area that had been set up.

The ex-president arrived late. When he finally did arrive, he was greeted by a long, long, long standing ovation. He proceeded to give an hour long speech that was interrupted many, many times by times by chants of "Toledo 2011!" (the next presidential election year) or "Viva Peru Posible" or other similar chants. The crowd was all really lively. Everyone got involved in the shouting, even me! I couldn't tell you much of what he said in his speech, more due to the fact that I am not knowledgeable enough about the recent history of Peru and couldn't understand many of the references made. He was a great speaker, and the parts I understood seemed to be good.

After his speech (and another long, standing ovation), we all sang happy 15th birthday to the Peru Posible Political Party. The ex-president was then shuffled off the stage by some guards, and a band took the stage. They started playing music, and about 70% of the crowd stayed around and danced and drank. My host family and I didn't stay very long, but long enough for them to convince me to "dance" with them for a song or two.

Here are a couple more pictures.

Alejandro Toledo Speaking


The crowd (a mere fraction! I sat pretty much smack dab in the middle)


Ciao,
~ Jacqui

Journaling

I brought a 100 page journal with me to Peru. 100 pages. Guess how long it lasted? 31 days.
I had expected I would need to buy a couple more while I was here, but I did not realize I would need one so soon. I finished y first journal on the 28th of August, but I only had the chance to buy a new one on the 5th of September. This meant for an entire week I was without anything to write in, so I went back to typing everything.
I've sine went through and transcribed everything I typed into my new journal, but it is all still here on my computer. So, I've decided to share a bit of my everyday activity. Hope I'm not to boring. I've added a few notes as well.

Saturday 29 August 2009
I really did not realize I could run out of journal pages so fast. All 100 pages in my first journal are filled. I think theres an average of about 150 words per page, so that is over 15,000 for
Today there was a Rotary meeting at Colegio Santa Rosa at 10. Most the exchangees were there at 10, give or take a couple of minutes. However, the Rotarians decided to hold an hour long meeting before hand for just them. So we all just sat around and talked for an hour. It really is nice talking with the other students. There is so much less pressure when you know they don't know that much more of the language than you do.
The meeting was basically the same as the last one (we had an "Orientation" on the 8th of August). They went through all the rules again. This time, they just stopped and asked us more often if we understood everything. We then had to sign a paper agreeing to the rules. Only after that did we talk about something actually interesting- the trips that are planned. In early November we're going to Cuzco and Puno! Yay!
After lunch, I went with Carlos and Luciana to a soccer gam. Carlos is on a team that is made up of fathers of students at Santa Maria Eufrasia (my high school). The school was really nice. For some reason, there was some sort of mini-zoo in it. I kinda took a whole ton of pictures of some parrots, turtles and rabbits. They were cute.
Luciana's friend Ariana also came to the soccer game along with her mum and little brother. While Luciana played with her classmate, I talked with her mom. She (Sylvia) was very nice. I was the first exchange student she ever meet! She kept saying that she'd like to see Wisconsin. She said she had a friend who went there. It was really nice to talk to her and I understood almost everything she said. She also said that I had pretty good Spanish. Compliments like that make me really happy. I need to remember to email Senora Wagner sometime soon!

Thursday 3 September, 2009
Nobody bothered to wake me up this morning, and for a bit I hoped that we were just not going to school. Unfortunately, we did, just super late, which is not at all unusual for us. I understood most of what happened in Verbal Reasoning, because I thought it was homework already assigned, so I had read it through half a dozen times. Biology was just a practice for the song contest tomorrow. We went down to the theater and practiced and everything. Now I can't get the darn song (Yo te Voy Amar by N'sync) out of my head. We got to leave early today, at 1:00 because we had the Quinaria (Rosary) tonight. My host mom came and picked me up, and we jumped on Pepa's & Lila's mobilidad to get home. When we got home at about 1:30, we ate and then just sat around in the kitchen talking until Daniela and Luciana got home at 4:00. We talked about our mutual love of desserts and chocolate and looked at a bunch of recipes. I think I'm going to make Pizza tomorrow and that we're going to make some kind of dessert every Friday. Sounds yummy to me!
The Quinaria was not what I expected it to be. First off, it was not actually mandatory like I thought; only about 75% of the class showed up. We did the whole enter the church in two line, bow and donate some food that we practiced before. Then we (or at least I, others got up and recited somethings) sat and listened to them say the lords prayer at least a dozen times.

Friday 4 September, 2009
I've come to the realization that Fridays at my school are pointless. We did make it on time to school for the first time this semester! That was exciting. Formacion ran long for some reason (we had to sing a lot of songs to practice for next week?). So, we returned to the class late and Boris was already there. We just told him to leave because we had to work on Junior Achievement. So that's what we did for the first 4 class hours of school. (My classmates had a Junior Achievement class where they had to create a business. My class made purses our of jean material and cool little metal stars.) They're going to a University to sell them tomorrow and Sunday.
Then at 11 was the song competition. (Part of this 2 week long ceremony our school holds to worship the Virgin Mary when she was a baby. I still don't understand why her babiness is such a big deal, but whatever.) We won 2nd place after 3rd grade (of secondary school), Daniela's (my host sister) class. I really had no idea how we did because I was stuck in the middle of the back row holding a giant poster board of Nina Maria with Andrea and Lucia (the other 2 tall people in my class. I'm only taller than them by like 2 inches:). After the competition, everyone in my class was leaving to go set up their stand at the University. But nobody told me. Luckily, my host mom was at the school, so I got to go home early and sleep.
I had my first adventure making pizza today. It went better than I thought it would. I had no idea how hot the water for the yeast mixture was, but it was alright. The dough didn't raise too much, but it still made one good sized crust. Unfortunately, by the time it was ready none of us were really hungry. It was good anyways. My host sisters and I watched Twilight. I have to say, I like the movie better in Spanish.

3 weeks =D

I don't feel like I have any amazing stories or any real in depth culture analysis's to share right now. But I feel obligated to write a blog today. I've pretty much just been settling in over the last couple of weeks.

At my home, I've been spending a lot of time with my youngest host sister. She basically never lets me out of her slight. She's been very interested in learning to play cards. I've taught her Go Fish, Old Maid, War, Slap Jack, and Crazy 8's. Unfortunately, she's not the best at following the rules and I'm kinda getting bored of the same childish games. Can anyone recommend any other games to me? I'd be veryy grateful.

I also spend a lot of time talking to my host mom. She's the best at figuring out what I'm trying to say in my pidgin Spanish. After dinner, which is in itself a 30 minute affair, we usually sit around talking for at least 20 more minutes.

Also, I started school on 10th of August. That's going alright.

My classmates are all super nice, which is very good since I'm with them the entire day. Here, the students all stay in one classroom, and the teachers come to us. Our schedule is really confusing to me. We have 10 periods of 40 minutes everyday. However, we usually only have 7 or 8 different classes, since we will occasionally have the same class for two hours in a row, or will have it for one hour in the morning and one later in the day.

As for the classes themselves, they're not so bad. Except that there are about 20 of them. I actually have four different math classes (geometry, trig, arithmetic and mathematical reasoning), two different sciences (biology and physics) and myriad communications (literature, linguistics, etc.) and electives.

The teachers at my school are surprisingly lenient. They don't seem to expect me to do anything. So that's nice. Also, most of them don't care what we all do during class. A lot of girls text or even talk on their cell phones during class. A lot of people also spend most of class writing notes or drawing pictures. Everyone here seems to like to draw/design things/write pretty. Every single girl in my class has the exact same handwriting. Exactly the same. And it is, of course, very neat. And everyone keeps their notebooks perfectly organized. All their notes have perfectly re-drawn diagrams and everything. However, their desks and lockers are generally messy. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am exactly the opposite. I have Horrible handwriting, but am very organized otherwise. So, that'll be fun to get used to.

That's about all I have to say for now. I fixed the comments, so you can leave one without being signed up for blogger. So everyone should do that =D.

Also, everybody should get skype. It's this awesome program that you can download for free that lets you talk, as though on a phone, through the internet. Check it out! And add me: ijacqui

mucho amor,

~ Jacqui

One Week Down

First of all, I need to say happy birthday to my dad. And, while I'm at, also to my Uncle Kurt & Cousin Kurt.

I’ve been in Peru for an entire week now, but it still feels a bit surreal. I’m going to be here for about 45 more weeks, so I’m sure it will sink in sooner or later. It’s sort of hard to believe in here, a bjillion miles (give or take) from home.
Things are pretty different here. Everything is in Spanish, obviously. But there are a fair amount of words in English also. There are some words that are the same, like "Laptop," but even that they say differently (Like “La-Toe,” it took me a while to figure that one out).
So far, I’ve mostly just been taking things easy and getting used to the biggest differences in culture. I’ve meet both sides of my host family’s family and some of my host sisters’ friends. I’ve watched a lot of movies in Spanish with my youngest host sister.
I start school on the 10th of August. I was supposed to start yesterday on the 3rd, but the schools are currently closed because of the H1N1 flu. Apparently, it’s pretty bad in some areas down here, but of course all the students are pretty happy because they get an extra week of vacation.

I feel like I don’t have anything more to say, so I’m going to make a couple of lists.

Top things I love about Peru.
4. The People- everyone I've met has been really nice and accepting of my pidgin Spanish
3. Things are so cheap here- especially food.
2. My host family. They're awesome.
1. Just being here.

Top things I miss about the U.S.
4. Knowing where I am. I have no sense of direction in Lima.
3. Driving. Even being driven around is terrifying in this city.
2. Being able to say exactly what I mean and being clearly understood.
1. All my friends and family

I wish I had some pictures to share, but the only ones I’ve taken so far were at the National Museum of some cool pottery and I haven’t put them on my computer yet.

Spanish Word of the Day:
Monton: Tons of...
- Hay un monton de discotecs en Lima.

Lots of Love,

Jacqui