Day 74

I thought I had gotten a tan, but when I'm sitting in the middle of a bunch of Peruvians, I look so pasty. Meredith is even tanner than some of the Peruvians. From left: Christian, Gabriel (lying across the laps), Claudia, Nadia, her sister Cynthia, and Meredith. My last whole day in Peru was pretty cold, smelly (like dead fish) and boring, but I think I needed it to relax a little. Thinking about everything happening in the next week stresses me out -- it's going to be an emotional week. Today I just went to the post office, went to the mall (I'm not good at shopping by myself -- I was in and out in less than 10 minutes), and went to the grocery store to get stuff for my third despedida. A lot of people came -- some Panaggios, some Blocks, gringa teachers, and jovenes from Buen Pastor. They gave me a picture frame with the framed picture of me at the group on Saturday. They joked about how I have a rectangular smile -- like when I smile really big. So, in the photo, they all did the rectangular smile and I had my normal smile. It's so awesome. Cynthia told me that I had to explain that to everyone who sees it or they're going to think all Peruvians are crazy. And Eden gave me a picture that she had drawn -- it's so going to be framed when I get back to the states. After all the gringos left, it was just me and the Peruvians, and they wanted me to give a speech, but I really couldn't. First of all, it would feel like public speaking (even though there were only five of them there); secondly, they wanted it to be in Spanish, which would be pretty difficult; and thirdly, I'm not good at saying emotional things like that -- I can only barely write emotional goodbyes. I started crying! That's why my face is a little splotchy in this picture (and apparently the word "splotchy" doesn't have a Spanish equivalent). They all prayed over me, which of course made me cry even more. I can't believe I'm leaving...

Day 73

My last Sunday in Peru was Dia de la Madre, so the sermon at church was specifically about Christian women. As a gift to all the mothers, the kids had put together a little performance about Moses. I have to say that the costumes were quite a bit better than the actual performance -- there were a lot of little Egyptians with eyeliner on and everything. Awesome. After church, I ran home to see how Bethany was doing -- still sick, kind of flu-like symptoms. Then I booked it (not sure why... Peruvians are used to waiting) back to church to go out to lunch with Eden, Christian (whose mother is traveling), and Josue (whose parents wanted some alone time after celebrating Mother's Day on Sunday). We went out to lunch at a cevicheria in Jesus Maria called Isla del Amor (hahaha...), and I had some really awesome tacu-tacu with a seafood sauce. It was so fun hanging out with those guys -- they all make me laugh so much. Then we walked back to Eden's house, watched Friends (with Spanish subtitles), drank coffee and ate cookies. Josue had to leave, and Claudia and Gabriel showed up, so the five of us went to El Parque de la Reserva, which is this giant, pretty state-of-the-art fountain park. This photo was before the boys pushed me into the fountains and got me soaked (and is to prove that I don't just take photos with gringas). I froze... but it was totally worth it. Only a couple more days with these guys.

Day 72

I got to sleep in again and woke up to already-made coffee... so nice. We hung out at home till about noon, when Meredith, Bethany and I went to El Cascajal. For only 35 soles (plus the cost of drinks), you get a giant buffet lunch -- including postres -- and listen to a live band and watch baile folklórico. We went partly because it's my last weekend here, but also partly because Meredith wanted to treat some friends to lunch as a Mother's Day gift -- they were the family that she lived with when she came to Peru during college, I think. This dance is from Cuzco (there are different cultural dances from all different regions of Peru). They did four different dances, and on the one that is typical of the region around Tarma, they pulled me down onto the dance floor. The dancers pulled Bethany down to the dance floor twice (I think they single out gringas -- we were the only three gringas in the whole place). It was so so so fun (except that Bethany was feeling pretty sick by the end of it). Bethany and I took a taxi home (and I gave directions entirely in Spanish!), and while she slept, I practiced my testimony in Spanish. Then I went to the universitarios group at 7 at Buen Pastor. We sang some songs, had a time of prayer, I gave my testimony -- which I'm pretty sure everyone understood -- and then Ramiro taught a lesson. As he closed the lesson, he prayed for the group, but then he prayed a lot for me specifically, which was so nice. And THEN Christian said that they all wanted to take a picture with me because it was my last time there, and they had bought me a cake that said "Te queremos Bethany!" They're so sweet -- I'm totally blown away. Or maybe that feeling only lingered until they rubbed chocolate cake all over my face and in my hair. Apparently it's a tradition, but I'm inclined to blame Eden because it was she who suggested it, or maybe Claudia because she actually carried it out. Apparently it took about five people to restrain me -- there was a lot of flailing. But Cynthia and Eden helped me wash it off, though I'm sure I still have it in my hair. I don't even care. It was such an awesome day. I'm pretty sure I'm going to cry when I leave.

Day 71

The roommates and I had a relaxing morning at home recovering from our quick trip to Tarma. Bethany and I went to lunch together at a little place within the Residencial San Felipe -- we had aji de gallina, another popular Peruvian dish. We went grocery shopping and I got to show her around Metro (I didn't realize how much I knew about this town until Bethany came). Then we met Meredith back at the hotel so we could ride together to Miraflores, to the ADIEL office there. Bethany met the pastors really quickly, and then we toured around Miraflores while the pastors and missionaries had meetings. We went to Parque Kennedy, had some coffee at Cafe Cafe (the first coffee bar in Lima), and walked over to Parque del Amor, which overlooks the ocean. There were some parasailers taking off from a nearby cliff, but the park is really cool because it has all these funky, curvy walls that are mosaics with quotes about love and names of lovers (my favorite: Esmerelda y Cuasimodo), and then there's this giant statue of these two people making out... kind of scandalous. So, of course, all the young couples of Lima go there to make out (and then get in my pictures... ugh). Bethany and I took the bus home in horrible Friday afternoon traffic, which was suspected to be related to Mother's Day. Dia de la Madre in Peru is a big deal because you not only buy a nice gift for your own mother, but you have to buy gifts for all the mothers that you're friends with. I don't think I'll want to brave the malls this weekend because it'll be crazy. After we got home, Claudia came to pick us up and we walked to Buen Pastor and met up with other girls from the group to go to the Zac Efron movie, "17 Again" or "Diecisiete Otra Vez." It was hilaaarious -- even better than I expected. It was a little weird that his character's name in the movie was Mark Gold, and if I were to name the person I know that looks the most like Zac Efron, it's a guy named Mark Gold, the student body president of Texas A&M (friend of Andrew's). Bethany and I went home exhausted but very content.

Day 70

This is the most snow I've seen or will see in Peru. This was on our 7-hour(ish) drive back from Tarma. We got up early, packed, checked out, had breakfast and rushed to the bus station to find out that our 9 a.m. bus didn't leave till 9:45. We mostly slept (but Meredith woke us up for this view). The highlight of the trip was when the bus stopped in the middle of the road halfway down the mountain (by the way, these are like switchbacks in a pretty steep valley). Ten guys get up and get off the bus. I thought maybe there was a problem with the bus, but then we look out the window, and nope. Just a bathroom break. Only in Peru. Then, we stopped for lunch -- they told us we had 20 minutes. We ate as quickly as we could, but the bus still started to leave without us. It had started driving down the road and pulled over to pick us up. Oops. The second half of the drive, Meredith and I sat together to keep going over the Cross-Cultural Servanthood book, and it's awesome because now that I've been here two months, I've started to have a lot of cross-cultural experiences. I know exactly what the author is talking about because I've experienced it. We got to the bus station in La Victoria at about 4, and back to the house by 4:30. Dave Block picked me up to go to my last English class at El Alfarero, and he had bought me a cake that said "Feliz Viaje Bethany." It was so sweet! Everyone in the class gave me a big hug goodbye, and they wished me safe travel and God's blessing. And the cake was awesome -- chocolatey with a little bit of whip cream and cherries. The lesson for those last two classes was using the song "Big House" by Audio Adrenaline, and I had to teach them all the motions. It's actually a really good song for teaching English because the verbs are in present tense or are commands, it's pronounced well, it has simple vocabulary, and it's slow enough that they can sing along. However, I would be fine if I went 10 years without ever hearing that song again -- I've met my quota of Audio Adrenaline for a while. I was telling Dave, though, on the way home that it hasn't hit me yet that I'm leaving. I'm excited for the next phase in my life, but I'm really going to miss Peru.

Day 69

We packed a lot into one day. Bethany and I were ready to go about 15 minutes before we had to, so we ran over to get coffee from a local restaurant. Then the four of us went to a store about 5 minutes away owned by a guy named Chicho -- a well-known Tarmeño businessman that owns two "dollar store"-type stores. We led a devotional time with his staff members -- all college-age girls -- and I shared my testimony in Spanish! I was pretty nervous, but I think they understood and it went well. As a thank you, Chicho gave us the cheesiest, tackiest pencil holders (mine has a dog head figurine attached to it -- maybe a Boxer?), but it was so sweet. We ate breakfast and then headed over to his other store, but because Mother's Day is coming up this weekend, the place was pretty busy, so Chicho couldn't let his employees take a break for a little devotional. Instead, we did another demographic survey with Chicho, and learned a lot about Tarma as well as about him and his beliefs. After that, we had quite a bit of free time because a lot of the people Meredith and Elsa would normally visit were out of town or really busy. Meredith and I went to an Internet cabina -- only 1 sol (30 cents) for an hour, so I was there for an hour, and Meredith stayed for probably two. I ran over to Tarmenito, a little store near the bus station on the main street, Calle Lima. I bought two half-liters of manjar blanco, the Peruvian dulce de leche, to bring back with me to the states. And then Bethany accompanied me to the Indian market, a much smaller version of the ones in Lima. We met back up for a late lunch (saw the end of the Chelsea/Barcelona game... wow), Meredith did another demographic survey, and then we toured the Tarma market. That was where I took this photo -- I love love love how the women of the sierra dress, and I especially like the white and black hats that they wear. After the market, we crammed into a mototaxi to head to an English class taught by a guy named Lucas. For three hours, Bethany and I spoke in English to beginning/early intermediate English students. It was more exhausting than I thought it would be. While we were in class, Meredith and Elsa went to a church service and were a little shocked by how the pastor presented some topics. We discussed our nights over some bowls of arroz con leche (amazingly delicious) and then had some coffee back at our regular restaurant before heading back to the hotel. In the style of my friend Emily's blog about her European adventures:

Tarma is. . .
- no toilet seats
- alpaca wool everywhere
- amazing cinnamon-y arroz con leche
- blue skies (which you can't see from pollution-filled Lima)
- the "City of Flowers" (seriously -- they grow flowers and sell them to people in Lima)
- dry weather + no hair straightener = bad hair days
- small-town feel, friendly people
- tasty tamales

Day 68

I think I said the word cansada at least 10 times in one day. We had to leave the house by 7 for the 8:00 bus to Tarma, so I got up early because (of course) I hadn't packed. The bus ride was about 6 hours, and Bethany and I had a good chat before we both fell asleep. We're actually freakishly similar -- not only physically, but also in the way we think and express ourselves. We were asked if we were sisters a few times, and Meredith called us gemelas because we were dressed very similar. We stopped for lunch and just had some soup. We rolled into Tarma around 3 p.m., took at taxi to Hotel Vargas and checked in. We grabbed lunch and some coca tea (tea made from the leaves that make cocaine), which is supposed to help with altitude sickness. The afternoon was made up of meeting people, kind of making the rounds to greet everyone that Meredith knew in town, and Meredith conducting demographic surveys. The surveys were actually really interesting -- they asked questions like, "How do people here perceive God?" or "How do people express themselves?" While the answers to those questions were quite fascinating, Bethany and I were just struggling to stay awake. We ended up getting home about 9 p.m. and she was probably in bed and asleep within 5 minutes. I stayed up a little later in Meredith's room working on translating my testimony into Spanish. The picture is with Bethany in the Plaza de Armas or the Plaza Principal in Tarma.

Day 67

Monday was a blur of people rushing in and out of our house. Sonia was there to clean, so we made lunch for her, but we were getting ready for Bethany Kerr's arrival (she's 23 and is going to be a missionary in Peru for two years -- she's moving to Tarma with Meredith and Elsa). We had someone come to assemble the futon like thing, where Bethany will be sleeping until I leave, and someone else install a bar in Meredith's closet. And then it was time to go to my last missions meeting, this week at the Panaggios' house. We had coffee and basically a time of prayer and encouragement. I realized, though, that I'm at a very interesting point in my life -- in this weird transition stage between college student and adulthood. At the meeting, I stole away for a sec to chat with Maria Panaggio, who is 17 (granted a mature 17-year-old), but then I had to get back to prayer time with her parents and the Blocks and Meredith, career missionaries who all treat me as their equal, even though some of them have children older than me. This was such a perfect time for me to come because I just finished school but I'm mature enough to be on my own. If I had come one year later, it probably would be hard for me to relate to high schoolers and college-age students. After we prayed, we realized we were hungry, so the adults (including me!) went to San Antonio for dinner. While there, we found out that Sonia's 49th birthday was last week... oops. She hadn't said anything, and she was still at our house cleaning. So Meredith and I bought this apple pie thing from San Antonio and rushed home to sing "Happy Birthday" (plus the other two songs in Spanish). She seemed to appreciate it. It's hard to tell -- women from the sierra don't express emotions very openly. Meredith and I left to get Bethany Kerr from the airport. We were running late, but we actually arrived about 2 minutes before she walked out of customs with her five bags -- "smoothest airport trip ever," said Meredith. We got home a little after 11 and had to pack for our three-day trip to Tarma.

Day 66

I understood most of Ramiro's sermon -- on hope and how God keeps his promises. The service went a little long, so some of the American girls wanted to get to lunch, but we invited some of the Peruvian jovenes to join us for lunch. It was awkward, to say the least. I think we could have been a little more sensitive to their budgets and their time schedules (it took us about half an hour to get to the restaurant and they had to get back to church for worship practice). Nonetheless, lunch was tasty, and then after the Peruvians left for their practice, the gringas went to get ice cream at this new fancy ice cream place on Salaverry, across from 4D (another ice cream/dessert place). My brownie flavored ice cream was good, but the Swiss chocolate was amazing. Eden and I then walked up Salaverry back toward our homes and went to Metro. I needed some food items, and Eden needed some groceries as well as to purchase some airline tickets. She had been carrying more than $200 cash on her, and then she pulled $500 out of the ATM... wow. I felt bad for the people behind her in line -- they seemed a little frustrated because they had already put their groceries on the little thing (what's it called? The more Spanish I learn, the less English I can remember.) And the check-out girl had to check every single $20 bill to make sure they were legit. Bummer. I went home, put away my groceries, called Stevo, and then took a nap. I woke up after it was dark, so I was very disoriented. I spent some time in the evening working on my testimony. One of my goals before I leave is to share my testimony -- in Spanish -- in Tarma. Meredith is going to help me translate, and then we'll probably go to Elsa for proofreading, since it is her first language.

Day 65

I didn't get up till 10 a.m., and Meredith was making coffee. . . I love waking up to already-made coffee. I hung out at home till about 1:30, when I went to meet Meredith at Plaza San Miguel, where she had been running errands. We had lunch at Pizza Hut, and she had to rush out right after, so I went home on the bus myself. As I was walking from the bus stop to my building, I ran into Nadia, who was walking to meet up with Josue, Christian and Gabriel at a Chifa restaurant, so I went with her. It ended up being a really fun night of hanging out and just talking. After Chifa, we walked back to the church and hung out for a while before meeting up with Eden and Claudia. We went to Starbucks in San Isidro so I could get a hot drink (it actually got pretty chilly tonight) and then walked to this park in San Isidro that overlooks the ocean. We were there probably a full 2 hours talking, listening to music, laughing, and lying in the grass. Then the group walked me home and I watched the movie "Mona Lisa Smile" ("Sonrisa de Mona Lisa") by myself. I recently discovered a stash of movies at our apartment, and the nice thing about pirated movies is that they're in English with Spanish subtitles. Bien chevere (very cool).

Day 64

This was basically how we felt most of the day. I got up at 6 a.m., only half an hour after I'd fallen asleep, to let Adriana out of the house because she had to go to work. Poor thing. By then, since it was getting pretty bright outside, about half of us were awake, including Eden. So we made crepes for breakfast -- with bananas and chocolate. I'm so thankful for Eden -- she's an expert crepe-maker. All the girls said it was "rico," but wanted to know how to say that in English. I was like, "delicious" or "really good," and Eden wanted them to say, "You're the best cook in the world." Yep, any of those would work. Even though we woke up at 6, not everyone left till 11:00. At first, the exhaustion hadn't hit me, but as soon as they walked out the door, I went straight to bed. I slept from 11 till 3:30. I talked on Skype a bit and then finished watching "La Gran Estafa" before meeting up with Claudia, Gabriel and Josue to go see a movie. We walked around and waited for a while at Plaza San Miguel until Christian and Gabriela met up with us. Then we had about a 20 minute argument over "Diecisiete Otra Vez" (Zac Efron movie) or "Wolverine." We ended up seeing Wolverine, which was good. I like those kinds of prequel movies -- like "Casino Royale" -- that give you a lot more context for a character. Nadia ended up getting there halfway through the movie, so we went home on the bus together. We didn't get home till midnight, and I went straight to bed.

Day 63

For some reason, the pre-Inca ruins/hairless dogs/late night ice cream day wore me out, so I slept in. I'm not really sure where my day went, but the afternoon came quickly. I spent the day reading, sleeping, drinking coffee, cleaning my room. I went to the grocery store in the afternoon to buy groceries for the pijamada (slumber party) of Buen Pastor chicas -- hosting the party kind of stressed me out the whole day because -- as you can see -- this room barely holds all 11 girls, but that's where we all slept. I went to English class at 5:20ish with Dave Block and Kay Panaggio (she's kind of researching ESL classes for maybe trying the same ministry). We were a little late because Dave forgot his license (he didn't want to get pulled over without a license again), but the class went well. I love how enthusiastic everyone there is about learning English. I got home right at 9:30, when the Buen Pastor girls were supposed to get there, but the only one already there was Claudia, who had come by herself. We ended up chatting for almost an hour before the rest of the girls showed up (a good chat). And then the insanity began. . . We hung out and talked (as girls are prone to do. . .), and then we decided to eat at about 11 or maybe 11:30. My time all runs together, so I'm not sure on times. Then we had a praise and worship time with Maria on guitar, followed by a time of Bible study, led by Adriana, and then prayer. I really enjoyed that time (but it was kind of weird that it was the middle of the night). Then we decided we needed an extra energy boost, so we all drank coffee at 3 or 3:30 a.m. No joke. It was ridiculous. Then everyone's all energized so they wanted to play this game that Eden taught them where you are basically trying to steal the socks off of the other players. Very fun, but impossible to be quiet. Elsa came downstairs at 4:30 a.m. and said, "Tengo una problema. No puedo dormir." We were pretty silent after that. We decided to start a movie at 5 a.m. ("Ocean's Eleven," or "La Gran Estafa" in Spanish). We all settled into the chairs and onto the couch, and there were about 5 of us lying horizontally on my twin size mattress. I fell asleep at 5:30, just as the sun was starting to come up.