white sandal dreams

I should have had my camera with me, but I didn´t think to grab it on the way out the night before. This morning was beautiful. My alarm went off at 4:30am because I had to get the girls up early so they could get ready for the big choir competition. It was still dark outside, but the sun was sneaking a peak...and it was a gorgeous site. Now trying to wake up the girls this early after a late night of choir practice and cramming for their finals...is not so glorious. I feel terrible walking into their rooms and opening the window...that cold breeze is viscious in the wee small hours. I walked into dormitorio 3 to find some of the usual morning situations...they´re always the hardest to wake up so I start with them first. I went to wake up Nayda. It usually starts off with her squinting at me and faintly telling me, ¨Te amo¨...of course with a smirk...hoping it would get her just five more minutes. I walked over to Alexandra´s bed and began trying to wake her up, gently at first. She, too, awoke with a squint and a smile. ¨Why did you wake me up? I was having the nicest dream.¨ Every night I go around while everone´s getting in bed and they always want me to tell them a story about my life back in the states. Last night they wanted me to tell them about how I met my last boyfriend...which was at Six Flags. So this morning when I went to wake up Alexandra, she told me about her dream. She dreamt that she and I were walking together at Six Flags...and we were laughing and having a blast on the roller coasters. Then I bought her a pair of the most beautiful white sandals. I interrupted her dream when I woke her up. But she was excited to share with me her dream. She couldn´t wait to find out what it meant. The girls at the home take dreams and certain superstitious practices very seriously. Later in the day she found me and was so excited to tell me what she had found out. Mami Cati (the sewing workshop instructor who is known for interpreting dreams) told her that white sandals in a dream is a sign of true friendship. ¨Tasi! This means we will always be friends!¨ Then Alexandra gave me the tightest hug, said ¨Chau,¨ and was off to her next workshop.

nos vemos, huacarpay

This weekend was filled with all kinds of magical goodness. It started off early Saturday morning. Meghan, myself, and two friends hopped on a bus to Sicuani which is about a three hour bus ride outside the city. From there, we took a twenty minute cab ride to the agua caliente! It felt so nice to be in warm water! We were able to enjoy these natural hot springs under rain-filled clouds. After a few hours of warmth and relaxation, we did some walking around the plaza and found ourselves eating some delicious chicken. It had been 15 years since our friend, Boris, had returned back to his hometown in Sicuani. I´m glad he decided to invite us along with him.

Sunday we went to Huacarpay in Lucre...just an hour away. Now, Huacarpay is a place I will be returning to. It was so beautiful. Our friend, Maruja, invited us out there with some friends for a BBQ at a house that one of her friends helps take care of. This house had so much property. I really felt like I was in some kind of fairy dream land. I don´t know if I´ve ever seen brighter flowers or more fruit growing in one place. They were growing peaches, plums, rasberries, pears, red apples, green apples, figs, olives, corn, and more fruits and veggies I didn´t know the names for. We all froliced around eating more fruit than we probably should´ve. I won´t go into detail about the consequences of such actions. Anywho, mid-morning we took a short stroll over to a soccer field that stood in front of a luscious green hillside backdrop. I made two goals and I wouldn´t bring this up except for the fact that the other team was all-Peruvian...and they take their soccer very seriously. After a few solid hours out in the field, we walked across the way to a hidden paradise and a clear-water pool. Meghan and I didn´t know there was going to be a pool! So we just stuck our feet in and watched everyone jump in to cool off. All twelve of us sprawled out in the grass for a noontime nap before heading back to the house to get our grub on. They busted out with a huge bucket of meat, potatoes, and salad stuff. The food was pretty great...except for the meat. With the amount of salt they dumped on the meat, it was pretty intense. Meghan and I began eating...and watched to see if anyone else would say anything. It took a while, but after twenty minutes or so...someone made the first move. Soon enough, everyone was taking their meat over to the sink and washing as much salt off as they could. The afternoon continued on with more frolicing and fruit-eating before hopping back on the bus and heading home.

Overall, it was a great weekend of exploring new parts of the hillside outside of the city, making new friends, spending time with old ones, and enjoying how green the rain has made everything.

it´s friday!

Today is friday and this week has been a much more relaxing one than last week. Last week included 22 hours of meetings and presentations in preparation for the upcoming year. In some ways, I enjoyed the fact that they really do treat me like staff. At the same time, putting in 32 hour shifts at the Hogar was a little more than tiresome. I will say, however, that spending that much time in meetings will definitely make people bond haha. I feel a lot more comfortable with the staff these days. I think I´ve been adopted into the family of educadoras. There are six educadoras who are pretty much in charge of scheduling all of the years´ activities for the girls. They are also the ones who spend the most time interacting with the girls. There always has to be three educadoras on night shift which means that each of them will have a 6 month period of straight night shifts. I´m finishing up my second month of night shifts. They haven´t been too bad. I owe a lot of how well I get along with the girls to these night shifts. I´ve been able to spend a lot more time with them one on one, helping them with homework, telling bedtime stories, and then there´s the fabulous task of trying to get them all up at 5am for chores.

I am happy to say that starting January, I´ll be an educadora on turno tarde...which means I only work from 2pm-7pm everyday woohoo! I´m really looking forward to sleeping in my own bed at night and also having the mornings unscheduled. I´ll be able to go in early when I want and learn some cooking and knitting skills before teaching a computer and english workshop while the girls are on vacation. I´ve also been talking with Yoni who is our social worker. I´m hoping to start accompanying her when she takes the girls to make home visits. And then since I have Saturdays off, we´re coming up with a schedule so I can take the girls out on one-on-one day trips. A lot of the girls don´t go to school and many of them don´t get visits. So they spend the majority of their time at the Hogar. It´ll be nice to spend time with them and explore some different parts of Cusco.

Christmas will be here soon! wow! I can´t believe how fast it is coming up! Meghan and I will have a few gift exchanges with the different Hogars and then we will also have a white elephant gift exchange/christmas celebration at our place next Saturday. Some of the girls will be able to go home to celebrate Christmas with their families...they are very excited for this. Many of them are preparing to make permanent returns back into their homes. Please pray for these girls. It is a bitter sweet thing to see them preparing to go back home. I´ve gotten so close to many and feel very protective over them. Different circumstances brought them to our Hogar. Many of them have spent years bouncing around different girls´ homes. I pray that God keep them safe and watch over them. May he prepare their homes and families for their re-entry and continue to make his love known to them regardless of whatever circumstances they may face in the future.

giving thanks

So the official day to celebrate what we are thankful for has come and gone. It was a beautiful day. We had 16 people come over. Getting chicken would´ve been very expensive, so we ended up getting thanksgiving sausage haha...and a lot of it. Everyone brought food, so we had the sausage, macaroni and cheese (we had a bunch of cheese that was about to expire), mashed potatoes, regular cooked potatoes, a salad, tons of bread, camote (which is kind of like a sweet potatoe but better in my opinion), popcorn, and apple pie! We had probably just the right amount of food...enough to send plates home with people, to send food for those who couldn´t come, and we still managed to have some leftovers to last us the weekend. We had a bunch of construction paper and markers out for people to write what they were thankful for and then we all put them on the wall. We weren´t sure how it would go over because it´s not a tradition that is really celebrated here...but we were happy to see everyone really get into and put some time and thought into what they wrote. The beautiful colorful reminder is still up on our wall...next to our Christmas countdown. Our friend Herbert gave a beautiful prayer to bless the food, and Meghan gave a great toast.

We told people to get there at 7pm...so we expected people to start coming over around 8 or 9. It took a while to cook and warm stuff up on our little two burner stove, so we didnt actually start eating until around 9:30 or so. But no one seemed to mind. It was beautiful to watch everyone visiting and interacting...friends from work laughing with friends from the bakery...all of the random pockets of people who have been so warm and welcomed us here in Cusco. And they were all enjoying food and fellowship together in our new apartment.

Thank you so much for all of the thanksgiving packages and emails! We are definitely set on snacks and yum food for a while now. We feel so blessed and lucky to have so much love from people. I am blown away by how much love God has showered over me through my family and friends. I miss you all so much. I look forward to seeing you all again and sharing in more love, laughs, trials, and beginnings. Love you.