TravelStream™ news feed for member nissasue on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/nissasue en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 29 May 2008 21:52:06 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nissasue/2/1212112200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nissasue/2/1212112200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nissasue/2/1212112200/tpod.html Thu, 29 May 2008 21:52:06 -0400 The Other Side: Volunteering in Peru and Adventuring in South America!

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Trujillo, Peru

okay so this is going to be a bit manic because there are a lot of things in my head and this is the best tool i have to streamline them other than making a really nutty chart which maybe ill do when i get home. i almost dont know where to begin.

1. have a week left. tmorrow is last day at ACJ yesterday was my last afternoon there and tomorrow is my last day overall. im not really sure what will take place. i didnt really get a goodbye with the kids on wednesday because they all kind of ran out after refrigerio. but maybe it is better bc i almost started to cry when i did get a chance to say goodbye to one of the girls. this is the girl who looked like kira from the dark crystal but was kind of a bad kid and its hard bc she is a smart girl but shes kind of jerky about it and really misbehaves and you could attribute it to age but its more likely attributed to her surroundings and shed be really brilliant if she just had someone to be that role modelly person but how do you get a kid to understand that.

2. ah i am really glad i did this tho it has been SO hard at times. other times it has been really great. i remember on the trek i had this great feeling about thinking about how far i had come in the preceding months. and now i feel i have come farther. it has definitely changed things for me. i know i will not be satisfied with certain things when i come back. i will not be satisfied with not challenging myself. i will not accept just the status quo or think well im not sure if i can do it so im not going to do it. and maybe im thinking things in terms of grad school maybe other things i dont know but seeing these kids here and how they live and even people here who arent so poor who may never have the opportunity to travel out of their own country who will never have the chance for a really good education makes me want to take advantage even more of the opportunities that i might have. it makes me not want to settle for things, settle for the average whatever - it makes me not want to settle because i know i dont have to - its my choice. it makes me not want to hide behind my insecurities/doubts/excuses anymore.

2a. and when flor left she was right - it feels shitty. it is shitty bc i get to go back to a place where i have running water and electricity (well i have it at the apt here) but i get to go back to a place where i dont ever have to worry about the things they worry about you know. not that i think they necessarily live a sad life or anything - bc i dont like to feel sorry for people. its like saying my life is better than theirs - i mean i dont know that. but i do know that i have more options and resources to change things in my life for the better. and its hard to reconcile with that - because it doesnt seem fair. and i feel like it is a waste of the opportunities i have to just settle - it seems even more unfair- when i say settle im not sure what i mean but i guess i feel like i have just settling for things the past few years. i guess i mean just accept status quo? i dont know - i guess one example would be me going to a grad school program that i dont think would challenge me enough bc it is cheaper or something. going to a program that doesnt challenge me to be smarter etc defeats the purpose of me going to grad school i think.

2b. back to opportunities - what is the extent of a person with oppotunities´´ responsibility to someone who doesnt have those opportunities? what is the extent of those who dont have those opportunities responsibility to account for the lack of opportunity? and the community´s responsibility? and the government? and businesses? why do some people have these opportunities and others dont?

3. it is hard to be çlieve that that in one week i will be in a car with my dad and kep back to tampa... and ill be just like everyone else. and ill have clean feet! (things im looking forward to and not looking forward to will be another blog post maybe if i have time) bc i have not been like everyone else for awhile. i mean i dont know what the value of being like or not like everyone else really is. but it is a really eyeopening experience to be the minority.

4. in the end i have to take all the good memories with me and learn from the hard ones. i cant worry about leaving the kids and the community behind bc there will be other volunteers and other nonprofits to help. i need to take the lessons with me and not forget and that is the best that i can do for them.

5. i really feel like this trip has kind of primed me for more adventures whether it be more wandering or grad school or working or i dont know.. i really do feel like this is the beginning of many things... i just have to not lose the motivation, the momentum or the lessons. i just have to give it a go thats all :)

so i think i will end it there if you have made it thru the manic with me thank you i love you and ill see you soon probably :)

i will try to get another post in here about the weekend trip to huamachuco and lima but we´ll see....
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Trujillo, Peru

okay kids here are the fotos that i have used for my postcards. its kind of neat bc its kind of a summary of my trip. some you have already seen before but i am posting anyways :) okay now you just have to sit by your mailbox and wait!
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Trujillo, Peru

okay more on trans today on the bus to work someone brought two net bags - one with live ducks and one with live roosters. another day it was two cages full of cuy.... oh the adventures on micros. micros are very bumpy and sometimes ridiculously full today some girl in the aisle was standing so close to my seat that everytime we hit a bump my head bounced off her boobs. ew. i had to take the bus back and forth twice today so i rode it in total four times awesome. four hours on peruvian local transit...thrilling. thats okay i read la historia interminable (the neverending story)

on food:
have tried cuy twice one fried once guisado i dont know what the means but the skin was thick and it was served with peanut sauce. oh cuy is guinea pig!
have tried the following parts of chicken: heart, liver, possibly intestines, and neck, maybe more. the neck is weird too difficult to get the meat.
have not tried the following part of chicken: THE FEET sometimes it is in my soup. ew. but people eat tho really the scaly crap and all!
have tried intestines but not sure from what animal.
have tried other unidentified meat.
did NOT eat the kidneys that fell out of my cuy.
really enjoy the aji - which is a spicy chile sauce very good will try to bting a jar home
did not enjoy my first pisco sour much the second wasnt much better prepared it is made with pisco (peruvian brandy?), egg white, sugar, lume juice nutmeg
have had a shot of pisco. im not a shot girl but it was all right. the sip was worse than the shot.
last night i ate what a local takeout place calls the peruvian hamburger (for approx$1.25 it came with frenchfries and a drink) it is a hamburger with fried egg, fried bananas with lettuce. add some limey mayonesa and aji and its brilliant. so brilliant i am thinking about getting it again tonight and then making it when i get back home. prvided someone else makes the burgers. who wants to BBQ?!?!?! hahaha maybe ill brave making th pisco sour too??? i asked peruvians about this being a peruvian hamburger and they said no. whatever.
still need to go to a good ceviche restaurant
still want to try criollos which i think is the word for cooked bull testicles. might try this in lima maybe.

i think thats it on food now. oof i am pooped. i am going to go eat i think. and then work on postcards hurrah!

maybe tomorrow ill write about i dont know.
times up CIAO
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Trujillo, Peru

so i have only two weeks left here in trujillo then till the 5th in lima! crazy!
i do think i made the right decision tho. sometimes i wish i could adventured more or traveled more but i really dont feel like this is the end of my adventure you know. im not sad/upset about it bc its the right decision.

anyhow since im leaving soon i thought i might do some speed posts about smaller topics so here we go this post: Traffic!

okay traffic in trujillo is crazy there are ZERO stops very few and srupidly place traffic lights. there are many roundabouts that you must be mad or very quick to cross. i prefer to cross further fromthe roundabouts. sometimes it feels a bit like russian roulette or it did at first. now im better at it. i am the ONLY person with road rage. and i dont drive. im a very angsty pedestrian no one ever yells at cars only me. i guess this isnt in chicago. okay well maybe not that many people yet at cars in chicago either. the buses are madness they come usually every five minutes they are privatized and maybe or mayb not regulated with govt standards? its costs about 30 cents(american) to get to huanchaco beach town and 60 cents to get to work. it costs me a dollar to get a cab to the mall but usually i just take the bus. it costs a dollar to the center but i usually walk. i walk to the grocery stre and the laundromat. most cars here are taxis the next most popular are old vw bugs. there a a few fancy cars but none that i really recognize. okay times up at the internet place. i guess ill go then? eh. i try to walk most places as long as its not stupidly hot. oh and there are no lights at the roundabouts and the taxi drivers are generally maniacs drive fast when someone is in them slow when theres not. they sometimes try to cheat me but usualy stand my ground.

okay not sure what ill talk about tomorrow. or whenever i post next.
ciao hope all is well!
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Trujillo, Peru

hello all...
okay this is an update regarding the last post.
i have decided to return to the states in early june. i think by that time it will be time for me to head back. after bouncing around for what feels like ages, I am ready to just have a job, health insurance from that job, and a place to call my own. or a place to rent and call it my own or you know rent and share it with someone...allright ill probably be sleeping on couches for a little while. i guess it sounds pretty boring. but to me it sounds great! i spent a year and a half in a job where i never knew if i would actually get hired or get the benefits that i worked for and before that i bounced around from temp stuff and working at camp and photo-g.
i feel like i am ready for something that i can count on. or at least if im not ready thats what i want.
so after a few weeks between tampa and chicago, i will move to new york city!
i of course will miss my really wonderful gma and the lovely best friends that i made in chicago but the truth is chicago always kind of felt like a transitional place for me.
so thats that decision made. i am happy about it!

sorry i have still not sent out postcards... i should now that i have a month left! eep. but theres that money thing. ah well we´ll see.
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Trujillo, Trujillo, Peru

oof my brain hurts i just went back and posted fotos in entries for huaraz, acj, and chiclayo. must go brain hurts and im having a rough couple of days due to some uh longstanding issues so yeah. not really sure whats ahead for me. gonna wait a week or two before i make any decisions tho.
ciao... :)
np
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Chiclayo, Peru

Okay will post fotos here too. here we went to Museo de Sipan which is nice if you like rich dead people and their things who they are buried with. and the witchcraft market.
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El Milagro, Peru

okay so this will be a foto post which i will post soon i just have to do these in order so bear with me.... i forgot these fotos anyways oops so i will post either tonight or tomorrow.
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Loja, Ecuador

SO Ecuador at last (im actually in trujillo... yo se yo se mentirosa!!!)
heres the deal my visa ends april 17. and apparently it is easier to cross the border than deal with peruvian bureacracy...brilliant.

SO left on sunday afternoon at 130 pm with Els and her friend Asha. Asha has been volunteering in LaPaz for five months in a womens prison --- apparently its not that hardcore. yeah okay. they sat together. i sat with the nutter. (see last post...haha).
they were going to travel to ecuador anyways i tagged along for the visa.

left monday morning for Loja, Ecuador after a demoralizing trip to the market in Piura. a lady asking us for money stepped on a casi dead kitten. it was awful. i hate markets.

the busride was long (8 or nine hours) and we had to switch at the next city after the border but by the time we got to the border there were only five us of us there. oh i did get dutched (this is what i call when the dutch are the majority in any given group... this happens often) there were two dutch travel dudes on our bus. oh okay lets all speak dutch. :) ah i am so culturally intolerant. hahaha. so the border was okay not really scary except for the uniforms and weapons you know ;) okay i have seen more automatic weapons in the last two weeks than i ever care to see ever again.
even tho the ride was long from the border to loja was long it was so pretty we rode through the andes it was really amazing i took so many fotos the trip back.
of course the bus did not have seat belts awesome and we had to listen to the latin american equivalent of elevator music: ecuadorian bus music. bryan adams singing in spanish (seriously!!!) celine dionne singing in spanish (im mean really what is it with these canadians?!?!?!?) other than that is was charming. and i read a lot of harry potter y la piedra filosofal!

SO loja was neat - a city in the andes larger than huaraz but not very high in altitude. it was more modern and definitely more money there (maybe bc a lower altitude i dont know)... AHEM the currency is the DOLLAR. i guess it has been the dollar since 2000. so that was kind of crazy. but they use ecuadorian change too. so now i am left with assorted nickels and ecuadorian quarters. i am not sure if this has anything to do with the city and/or country having more money or not. but i am curious what the affect has been and what the motivation was. there was a huge protest against it in 2000 and the president resigned and then the newly appointed/elected president put it through anyways. they do have a lot of imported products tho - i went to the supermarket and they had FLORIDA´s NATURAL (or what ever its called) orange juice!!!! there were definitely more rich people living up there which surprised me bc huaraz seemed a bit on the poor side. but thats another story of immigration/earthquakes/etc. i guess i assumed everyone on the andes does not have a lot of money -- not accurate. okay before i get anymore politically socioeconimcally offensive or something (presumptuous?) ill move on.

so i had one day free of busrides in loja which was nice... had some decent food but the blackberry juice was my favorite. we just walked around took fotos went to the post office the bookstore the tourist office went to a church hunted down places to eat.

wednesday morning my bus left at 7 latin america time (read 715) we broke down no less than five times - 2 of which were on lovely mountains roads. i guess i was worried on the way up about falling off the mountain in a bus but in the end i talked myself out of it. i was also worried bc i had to return by myself. but i decided not to worry bc i had to do it anyways so i might as well not worry bc i couldnt change anything. so it was fine the bus should have arrived in piura at 3 or 4 but we got there at close to six. most of the way there was only ten of us plus the three or four bus guys who seemed nice. the border re-enrtry was also not a big deal but we stopped at security stations in ecuador and peru numerous times.
okay i suppose i could ramble with more mundane details but maybe ill try to post some fotos no ill do it later i only have fifteen minutes.
so i got back to piura got a bus ticket for 11pm - thank god bc i just wanted to get ´´home´´ and to my ´´own´´ bed.
got back this morning at 5am waited at the station till 6 to take a cab chatted with the colombian girls for a bit and then slept! hurrah!
ciao!
miss you mucho!
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Piura, Peru

dont have fotos. dont have anything to say really i just wanted my dot on the map since i did stay here overnight.
oh i do have things to write!!!!
i didnt feel well so i stayed in the room and watched music and lyrics which was just as brilliant as the first time i saw except i missed the beginning and stephy was not there :(this was the stopover to ECUADOR (everyone loves to renew their visa!)
but the 6 hour busride (the ittsa bus company) was hot and smelly - the windows wouldnt open and the AC didnt work.... hahaha. AND i was stuck sitting next to some nutty college boy who kept giggling and wanting to practice his english. (how do you say ´bud´?) (last week i had a tax driver ask me the difference in pronouncing cat and cut...well just as long as he doesnt kidnap and cut/cat me im happy)but yeah so this nutty college boy announced tp the bus when i got back on the bus after buying some candy aat a roadside peehole (in peruvian english) ¨I THINK YOU LIKE CANDIES. yes i think you like candies very much. i also think the book you are reading is very interesting (my footprints guide)¨ i said ¨well yes it is very interesting.¨ his reply, ¨well yes i think it is very interesting because as you were reading it i was reading it too.¨
AAAAAAAAHHHH i believe i was channeling njp thinking, ¨why the hell are reading over my shouldr??????????¨
so that was the road to piura.
oh i almost fell asleep on the weird boy who was reading my book. oh god.
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