Monday, March 2

Needless-to-say Peru has been treating me very well!

I live in a big house on the outskirts of town with about 17 other people from all over the world. We have cooks that make us 3 amazing meals each day, clean our rooms, and do our laundry. We have satellite, internet, a house phone, and all the comforts of a Saudi princess... it's unreal. I figure they want to make us as comfortable as possible when we first get here and then gradually blend in, either way, I'm not complaining. There are some things that you just can't help 12,000 feet above sea level - cold showers and internet are very temperamental. I'm still yet to have a shower where my lips don't turn blue but like I said ... I'm not complaining.

It’s been a whirlwind getting here but it was worth every penny and parasite. After landing in Peru, Maximo Nivel, the school I'll be studying and teaching at for the next year, sent over a driver to pick me up from the airport, Bryan. He was a small Peruvian boy that had been studying English at Maximo and was now working in the international office. Bryan barely looked legal driving age, and had been so nerve wracked when he picked me up that his palms were drenched in sweat. He had been running around all day picking up students and volunteers for the new quarter and quickly warned me that it was the first day of Carnival in Peru and that the street would be filled with people trying to get me wet with water balloons and shaving cream - I rolled up my window.

The drive up to the school was quiet entertaining. The streets were filled with kids running around with water guns and shaving cream. They were spraying anyone and anything that moved... it actually looked like a lot of fun. Maximo Nivel was located on one of the main roads in Cusco, down the street from the big Plaza de Aramas (they must have one of these in every city), and conveniently located right next door to the only post office in Cusco.

When Bryan pulled up to Maximo, Owen, my advisor who I had been in touch with back in Chicago, was standing right outside waiting for us. He looked like he might be Korean but I don't want to politically incorrect so we'll stick with Asian. It was late Sunday afternoon and I'm sure no one wanted to be at school right now so after Owen gave me a quick tour of Maximo, Bryan drove me to my living quarters. Avenue Del Sol was definitely the biggest road in Cusco because the farther away we drove from it the the less populated it became but my house was only 15 minutes away from school and on the outskirts of this small neighborhood. The door was gated and Bryan helped me grab my bags from the cab. As we walked up the curb and towards the door, all the dirty stray dogs cleared the way and a Peruvian lady with a sweet smile opened the door and welcomed me with open arms - as if she was the "house mom". So far everything was far from what I had expected and in a good way.

The Family House, much like the hostel, was mixed with many different personalities and backgrounds. I walked into a small living room packed with students and a few older people with laptops. A girl named Laila stood up and introduced herself right away, after her everyone else followed, then there was the questionaire -- What's your name? Where are you from? What brings you to Cusco? etc.... Everyone was very nice but I was too tired for this conversation tonight. The altitude in Peru makes you very tired and its hard to catch your breath even when you're just walking so I conked out pretty quick and never seemed to regain any sort of energy that night. Not to mention, I was still recovering from what I came to find out was "Jardina" aka "The Snake".

Now it's been a little over a week and I'm finding it harder to focus on myself. My classes are pretty intense and it leaves me little time for blogging and exploring. For the next 4 weeks I'll be in TEFL courses which basically certifies you to teach English in any foreign country regardless of the language barrier. My personal translation -- a one way ticket around the world. The method is interesting and it's definitely much different then your typical method of teaching. I taught my first class on Friday and I think I did ok. I had one of the higher scores in the class and I played a fun game with my students at the end class - having them all sit on top of their desks and throw a nerf ball around saying one city or country they would like to visit in full English sentences as they went down the alphabet. I focused my lesson on travel - go figure!

There are four other students taking the TEFL course with me and in between all the craziness and madness I managed to find someone from Wheaton, Illinois! Nick and I got along from the get-go and we started to get to know each other in between breaks and during group work. Half way through the first week we realized how close we lived to each other back home. On top of that -- his girlfriend happens to be Indian! How much more familiar can it get? Sometimes we make these weird looks at each other in class and I swear we're thinking the same thing - he's definitely going to be my study buddy for the rest of TEFL. J is another boy in our class and he's about 23 years old and yes he spells his name with one letter. He used to live in San Francisco in a garage with a bunch of guatemalans where he picked up Spanish and worked in construction- don't ask. He also looks a lot older then any of us and lives in the one of the apartments behind the big Family House. Then there's Sonja, a german girl whose second language is English. She and I walk to school every morning together and she's already been in Peru for about 2 months so she knows her way around the town. It sounds like she doens't really want to take TEFL but her parents are making her do it so when she comes back to Germany she has the ability to teach English which is a high demand job over there - smart parents. Sonja originally came to Peru to work as a volunteer at one of the orphanages which she still visits regularly on the weekends. Sonja is a sweet girl, obviously a lot younger then me and seems very naive. So in a nutshell -- that's my class and for the next 4 weeks I'll be writing papers and working my butt off as we jam pack a year of schooling into one month.

I must admit I feel like I'm in elementary school again. I walk to school everyday just as I did in kindergarten, get a lunch break where I can go home for lunch or have one of our amazing chefs pack me one in the morning, and every night I go home to a great home cooked meal, trivia or a movie with the housemates, and finish up homework, only to wake up and do it all over again. We just got a new housemate today who came from Oregon, he's a few weeks away from graduating med-school and came down to Peru to do some clinical work before graduation. I guess that would be the big difference between the Family House and the Hostel -- I'm surrounded with responsible adults and students looking to add to their resume or lend a helping hand. I'd like to think I fall into this category but I think I might be a little bit of both. Either way I'm glad to be here and I'm anxious to start teaching.

I've been looking into different programs and there are so many opportunities, it's hard to decide. Teaching at Maximo would be great experience and they would pay me the most amount of money but I would love to go out into one of the jungle schools and teach English there or work with people in Ourambamba -- a small village in the mountains. However, these schools don't have many resources and most of the teachers who do go out there are volunteers or get paid a small stipend. I have some time to decide... so we'll revisit this later.

This past weekend I took a break from class and went out into the mountains with a travel group known as Mayuc. Me and a couple of the housemates met up with some other travelers which happened to be a group of Oklahoma frat boys taking a break from their corporate jobs to drink, travel, and drink some more. Then there was this other group of Dutch girls, and Holly, Amy, and I from the Family House. Two hours out of Cusco and through a couple of small mountain towns we reached The Urubamba River. The tide was high and rainy season had just begun in Peru. It's a great time to White Water Raft and I couldn't wait to get into the water as we made our way through the indigenous mountain range.

That night I slept with all kinds of bruises and bumps, I think I may have caught a small cold, but it was fun. We actually ended up meeting up with those Oklahoma boys and the Dutch group for dinner. A place called Jacks is a restaurant in the center of Plaza de Aramas and is supposedly a big Gringo joint which basically means they have American food that won't get you sick. I have to admit I had the best Cheeseburger ever and ate most of my bread this time because I couldn't resist, Peruvians can make a mean burger. Afterwards everyone wanted to go out dancing and drinking but Holly and I made our way back to the house. The previous night we found ourselves dancing on top of the bar at Roots (a club in the plaza) and didn't make it home till 3am so we were running on empty.

This past weekend I also managed to catch one of the biggest games in Soccer - Cusco vs. Lima. The streets were filled with a big parade, and shaving cream pirates again looking for victims. I made sure to walk in between my housemates (Phil, Dan, and Steve) who all happened to be bigger then me so that helped protect me for a bit but this group of Peruvian kids managed to spray me when I wasn't looking and I quickly hid my camera between the sleeves of my jacket. The streets were chaotic and I'm still not quiet sure what the Cusco team name was but I know their colors were red. We hovered in a restaurant for shelter as we waited for some other people from the house. Fortunately for us, we were able to get our tickets early and not have to haggle with the street vendors. Laila, Sonja, and Amy were the only other girls from the house that we ended up finding before the game. After some serious pushing and shoving we finally made it inside the gates and was able to get a decent view. It was an awesome game that ended in a tie between Cusco and Lima but Cusco should have won. They had a huge home court advantage -- the other team couldn't breath at such high altitudes. It was almost unfair - Cusco should have blown them away!