Miklo came to visit for 1 weekend only

I'm so glad I have such great friends. I haven't seen, or hardly talked to, Miklo in almost 4 years, yet he sent me an email because he'd seen that I'm living in Peru and wanted to come visit. To be honest, at first I was a little skeptical that he'd come but he actually did. He works for American Airlines and so he was able to get a really cheep flight and take off Friday and Monday for a short visit to Peru.

He got here mid-day on Friday, so I was able to pick him up at the airport just in time to get a little lunch and then go back to the school. And poor Miklo had to sit in my night classes and be subjected to a ton of questions from my students.

Saturday we went to Huayco, a small village outside of Arequipa. The village was so small that it didn't have any restaurants and so lunch was just some left over bread and water from a small shop. The village is built on the side of a hill next to the Rio Chili, and they used to have some kind of factory there by the water but now it's deserted.
The streets were really quiet and deserted, and so we probably only ran into a handful of people the whole time we were there. We wandered up and down the different streets crisscrossing the village on the hillside and so we had plenty of exercise just doing that.
There was a tiny, picturesque church fitting the size and feeling of the village overlooking the Rio Chili and terraced fields below.

We climbed down to the river and walked all along the old factory paths before exploring the crumbling old factory itself. There wasn't really a good way into the old factory, I guess because they don't want people going in there, so we had to climb up an old fire escape ladder.




After Huayco we took the bus back toward Arequipa and stopped off in some random town along the way (bigger though than Huayco) and satisfied our hunger with a "menu". Menu is the local meal of the day at the small family run restaurants. Evidently all of these places always serve the same soups on the same days of the week. I guess I haven't been often enough to know which soup is going to be on which day because I feel like I'm always eating Caldo Blanco. They are usually so much food that you can't finish it all and for only  s/. 4-6, about $2. It's a big bowl of soup and then a rice dish with potatoes (ALWAYS!) and some kind of meat and vegetables if you're really lucky. The amount of vegetables they eat here is something I can't get over after living in China, where I'd go days without eating anything but vegetables and not noticing it. Anyway, the food is tasty, the soup always more than the rice and filling to say the least. :) I like trying so many different kinds of potatoes!

Back in Arequipa, I took Miklo to the Mirador de Carmen Alto. 

On the street just down from Carmen Alto,
 there's this long mural of Ramon Castillo. 

And a little local culture

Hangin around in Arequipa

One awesome thing about traveling so much is that you get to meet lots of other travelers like yourself, with the same openness, spontaneity and outlook on life. But the downside is that in the time it takes to get to know these friends they're already moving on to their next great adventure and you have to say goodbye. I can't even think about counting all the cool, down to earth people I've met in the past 4 years. Although I'm always reminded of how many I've lost track of when another one of my friends leaves.

Both of my close friends here left last weekend. Amanda used to be the Academic Coordinator in Extreme, and she decided to leave after deciding that she's found the love of her life and can't live away from him another minute. So she ran off to Switzerland. And then Preston, an Extreme teacher and also a former teacher in China, finished his contract and decided to travel before flying back to the States. So because the 2 of them were leaving we went around Arequipa to see some touristy things before they go.

First, I took a tour with Preston in the Cathedral at Plaza de Armas. It's an impressive Cathedral from the outside because it's white edifice built about 400 years ago out of the volcanic stone, Silla. Then inside there are a bunch of Catholic relics made of precious metals and gems or diamonds, and supposedly all of the statues and big things such as the organ were shipped from Europe especially for the church. Other than that the inside of the cathedral seemed pretty normal to me (or maybe it's only because I've been to the best of the best in Rome).

The tour took us on to the roof and gave us an awesome view out over Plaza de Armas and El Misti. Probably my favorite part of the tour. Up on the roof we saw the church bells...and the backwards 'p' in Arequipa on the side of the bell. lol.



 Later, we met up with Amanda and walked out to Mirador de Carmen Alto. I was pretty surprised that there were fields, like countryside fields, so close to the center of the city. Only within a 20 minute walk from where I live. So as we followed Rio Chili upstream there were more and more green fields along the banks of the river, until we got to the super touristy viewpoint, Mirador de Carmen Alto.

A shoeshine stand near Siglo Veinte...
I feel like it's something that would be really popular in China.

Rosh HaShanah

Our big production!

Even though Peru is a Catholic country I've never felt any anti-antisemitism toward me when I tell people that I'm Jewish. A lot of people have told me that the people here are very racist, but at least not towards me.

So there aren't any synagogues here, but luckily Rosh HaShanah was on a Sunday so I spent the day preparing for a big dinner with my 'familia Peruana'. Early in the morning I went with Giovana and Milner to the big market just outside of town to buy a ton of food. We bought a whole chicken, lots of vegetables, lots of apples, other fruits, raisins and every thing else. We came home and Giovana helped me prepare everything from scratch.

First we made the dough for the challah so that we could let it rise and put it in the oven before the chicken. It's always fun teaching things like this to my friends in other countries because they're always so interested in other cultures. I taught her how to braid the challah and told her that we always make round challahs for the New Year with raisins. The challah turned out better than a lot of breads I've made here so far, but I still getting used to the oven because there's no temperature gauge so it's always too hot.

-We boiled a lot of peeled apples to make apple sauce. It's Micah's recipe. Yumm.
-We cut up cabbage and tossed it in homemade dressing for cole slaw. It came out tasting a little weird because there's something funny about the mayo here...Ok, whatever, you win some you lose some.
-We cut up a ton of carrots and cooked up some Tzimmes.
-For another cold dish we made Israeli couscous salad but substituted the couscous for quinoa. It turned out really good, especially with the real olive oil I splurged on.
-The main dish was the chicken. I taught Giovana how to make the bread dressing(all from scratch except missing celery) and stuff the chicken. Then we glazed it with a homemade apple sauce/ketchup/brown sugar sauce and crammed sliced onions and apples under the chicken before putting it in the oven. To my surprise it turned out really good.
In the end we ate at 5pm. Long but satisfying day :)
This was my first time making such a big meal completely from scratch. So pulling this off inspires me for Thanksgiving coming up. And Micah's going to be here so at least he can help me.
Even though I couldn't spend the day at home with my family and friends this still was a great day.
 L'Shana Tovah v'metukah! 

My poor Canon G10!

So, just before my trip to Colca Canyon my camera died. It was having trouble turning on sometimes and now it won't turn on at all. I don't know what happened to it. It's only 3 years only and I spent $500 on it in China, so I wouldn't think that it should have died already. I hope it can be fixed...so it's on a little adventure of it's own right now. I sent it to the US with Amanda, because she flew into Chicago and was going to meet up with Micah and give it to him to send in to be looked at But for some reason that didn't work and now it's in Amanda's sister's basement. Hmm... what's next?

Canyon Del Colca

The best thing about teaching here (and the reason I chose this school in the first place) is that we only teach 18 days a month and then get 4-7 days off until the next month of classes begins. So for the break at the end of August I took 2 trips; first to Colca Canyon and then to Camana, a small coastal town. This was a much needed break after my first month of classes and the hectic and disorganized test days.

Pedestrian street in Chivay 

I went with Hannah and Preston, 2 other teachers from Extreme, to Colca. On our way, we had to go through Chivay, a small town. We went into the town for a couple hours while waiting for our next bus. After China, the market was interesting to see how similar it was to China except only selling different things. I guess there are some universal similarities between developing countries.

Alpaca is the main meat around here, so I guess it shouldn't have been surprising to see alpacas running around. But it was super cute to see little 3 and 5 year-old kids pulling baby alpaca through the market.
One thing these markets have in common with Chinese markets is the herb merchants. I feel like I've seen this table of herbs being sold out of plastic bags before in China.

And I don't know what it was about this cemetery, but I really like it. I want to be buried in a place like this. It's all personalized, and didn't feel lonely at all like all the families are still together enjoying the afterlife just like they had here on earth.

Then we took a bus to Cabanaconde, a desert village next to Colca. In the Plaza de Armas they have a condor statue on top of the fountain because Colca is known for their giant condors. We had a good alpaca soup and chicken and rice for our menu lunch.

You can almost feel what it was like to live in the desert here hundreds of years ago.

Me, Hannah and Preston

We took the road out of town and wandered our way over to the rim of the canyon and this is the view we found.


















With a view this great you can't help but sit on top of this rock to enjoy it.

It is pretty incredible how these people can farm here in the desert next to the second deepest canyon in the world. The only water they have is from a small stream of mountain runoff.

472 years Arequipa

Arequipa Day finally arrived!! Happy 472nd birthday! Unfortunately we didn't get out to the parade until about 4 in the afternoon. But I guess it didn't really matter cause we still got to see a few hours of the parade and a bunch of groups dancing in the streets.

It was on Aveneda Independencia so you could see El Misti in in the background, but it was so crowded the whole length of the parade, about 3km. I especially liked the Peruvian guy dancers because they had these little bells on their legs and did a funny kind of dancing.

After the parade Giovanna and I passed the fountain in Plaza de Armas (Weapons Square) and took a few fun pictures.
I found out that all the cities and towns here in Peru have a Plaza de Armas in the center with a church or cathedral.

That weekend after Arequipa day Giovanna went with me out to Tiyabaya in the countryside just to wander around. She was probably wondering why I wanted to go to such a small little village when there isn't really anything to do there. But we found our way down to the Rio Chile and just walked along the fields along the river. And it was so beautiful and relaxing after being in the city since I got here.

Living with a Peruvian family

Ever since the day that I moved in this family has treated me as a part of the family. Right now they have cousins visiting from Ilo, a coastal city near Arequipa, for the couple weeks holiday right now. In the picture there's Gabi, Lourdes, Giovana, Lise, milner, Liliana, me and Avi with Fatima in the front. They'll stay until after Arequipa day, August 15, so the house is so busy right now with all of them and all the friends and other family that comes to visit daily. But I hear that this is only temporary because of the holidays... Every day they invite me to eat with them, and most days I do. Lunch, from around 1-2 in the afternoon, is the big production here in Peru. And everyone takes their turns doing dishes, setting the table, and cooking. So yesterday, I made chili for them. It was the biggest pot of chili I've ever made and I had to split it into two pots just to be able to stir it all. We ate it over rice and even though the beans weren't completely cooked everyone said they liked it and took seconds.

My favorite -I'm not playing favorites, promise- is the little girl, Fatima. She's only 7 years old and doesn't speak English, but she loves coming into my room and making noises and faces at me. She sits next to me whenever I'm using my computer in the living room, and so far my family and Micah got to hang out with her too on Skype. Even though sometimes it's a lot of attention, I really like her company. She's the happiest little 7 year-old I've ever met, she's always smiling and in the whole time they've been here I've never seen her get upset about not getting her way or having to do something her mom says. It's refreshing after Neko and Skyler's tantrums...

And every night the neighbors came over to hang out, play cards or have little dance parties...sometimes until 3am. Would have been fun if I didn't have class in the morning or if every little creek in the house couldn't be heard in my room.

Arequipa day is coming!

This weekend I moved into my new place. It´s just an upstairs room in a family´s house, but it´s nice and the family is soooo friendly. They even invited me to have Sunday lunch with their whole family that was in town. They had fish soup, fried fish, Civeche (a traditional Peruvian dish that is just raw fish cooked by mixing it with lemon juice and onions- really good!), corn and sweet potatoes. I think I´m going to learn a lot of Spanish in this house. Especially because Giovanna (in the middle in the picture with the kids) is actually one of my students and loves to hang out and use her English and teach me Spanish, and everyone else in the house only speaks Spanish with a few words of English for fun.

August is a big celebration month here in Arequipa because the 15th is the anniversary of the city, Arequipa day. So starting last weekend they have all kinds of different celebrations and parties leading up to Arequipa day.

When Giovanna went with me to the center of the city to buy a few things we were walking past the Plaza de Armas (the very center of the city) and they were having a parade where groups from all around Arequipa come and do their traditional dance. Giovanna is from Puno, the city next to the famous Lake Titicaca which is a glacial lake up in the Andies and on the Peruvian border with Bolivia, and so she pointed out the traditional costumes and dance from Puno.

And also can you believe that this is winter here in Arequipa? 75 and sunny, everyday!

Then we went to the market. You can see it´s really different than the Chinese markets, but still stacked full of different fruits. And Peru has so many kinds of potatoes, so there´s Giovanna showing me all the potatoes. 

Peru

Arequipa, Peru

I feel like I´m living in a dream world right now. Somehow, all along I´ve been planning this trip to Peru but it hasn´t sunk in that I would really be leaving China and teaching in South America, teaching in Peru, teaching in Arequipa- someplace I´d never heard of before. I applied to this school, and had an interview and accepted the job and bought my plane ticket and all the other things necessary to get here, and I even did it months ago, but still managed to not believe it. So here I am, already, walking around the city feeling like I´m looking at pictures online, meeting my students dreaming of what my students will be like, teaching my classes wondering how my classes will go and eating the food hoping I´ll like it.

I couldn´t wait for this change from China (not that I don´t love China, but I needed a break from it). I wanted a place with blue skies, small cities, friendly people and REAL hiking. Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru and feels tiny, compared to China, there aren´t any sky scrapers, the center of the city is filled with old stone churches, cobbled streets and thousands of miniature taxis inching along.

My flight got into Lima Tuesday night at 10 and my flight to Arequipa was at 5:30 Wednesday morning. I was supposed to sleep in the airport but couldn´t, so on my flight to Arequipa there wasn´t anyone sitting next to me, I passed out before the plane was even in the air and woke up with the seat belt buckle imprinted on my forehead when the plane landed an hour later. When I finally stumbled off the plane this is what I woke up to.

Amanda, a new assistant director at Extreme English, picked me up from the airport, took me to the TEFL house until I find my own place, showed me to the school, treated me to lunch and helped me get some essentials. I feel so fortunate to have her because I know what it´s like to show up in a new place and have to figure out everything for myself, and she´s new so I´m the first one who got this ´treatment´ because they´re trying to make things easier on the new teachers.
I´m living next to the Yanahuara plaza and so my walk to school everyday is through this promenade with a view of El Misti. Also in the plaza is this beautiful, although not unique here, stone church.

I didn´t have classes the first day, thank g-d, so I had some time to wander around the city. I was in search of some notebooks for class and casually looking for dinner around 5pm. I didn´t find the notebooks because I refused to pay $5 for a small 100 page spiral book, I just figured I´d go to the central market the next day. So by 7 I realized a lot of places were closing and wanted to get some food, but I felt too scared to go into these small restaurant/bars on the street because they were packed with sweaty men watching TV and I couldn´t see if there was a menu. So I passed those and then only found cake or bread shops. By 9 I was so hungry and willing to eat anywhere but now absolutely everything was closed and so I did find some man´s small corner shop open and I bought just this bread, avocado, tomato and bananas for less than a dollar. And this dinner was perfect for me, I should have started with that option. Tomorrow I know better :)