As most of you probably know, I am home. I have been home for over a month now. AFS recieved a recomendation from the doctor saying that I needed to return to the USA, so here I am. It all happened very quickly, I only had a day to get all of my stuff ready and to go shoppoing and to do everything that I wanted to do, of course I was not able to do everything or to say goodbye to everyone. Leaving was one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do in my entire life. It was like I was torn from everything I knew and thrust back into the unknown. Just like when I first got there.
I will never forget my experience. I have made life long friends and I now have connections in an amazing country. I have learned a language that I am now fluent in. I have seen places that most people can only dream of or see on post cards. I have learned things that I will need for the rest of my life.
I do not consider myself to be fully American anymore, becuase I know that I am and always will be part Peruvian. Peru has become part of who I am and who I will become.
Since I have been home I have become very busy. I am doing camps, working 2 jobs, taking summer classes, getting my drivers liscense. But I am also starting a fundraiser, it is called Adopt A Desk, and it was set up to help the second school that I went to, Maristas. To learn more about it, please visit the website at adoptadesk.webs.com which should be up and running by the weekend. I will keep everyone posted on that.
So as soon as I got to Peru I started thinking of how I would end my blog, the end of my time in Peru, and I have found a suitable quote that I think sums everything up.
I came, I saw, I conquered - Julius Ceaser
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
sorry it took so long!
what an....adventure. I am so sorry that I have not posted anything for a while. I was pretty sick so I had to be hospitalized in a clinic for about five days. I must say, it was not the horrible experience that I imagined it would be. I did not enjoy it, but I did have cable TV and the nurses were really nice to me, so I am not complaining. The doctor said that I had an infection in my throat and the effects spread to the rest of my body.. Not quite sure what that means, but I had blood drawn 6 times, 4 shots, 2 IVs, and one biopsi, so it ust have been bad. I am much better now, I left on Saterday and I am currently staying with the AFS president in Huancayo until I am fully recovered.
I am very excited because I start a new high school tomorrow. I am not changing schools because I did not like San Juan Bosco (my old school) I just want to have some new experiences and get to know some new people in my last few months here in Peru. I am going to a school called Maristas. It is a new school, it just opened 2 years ago, so it is still very small. About 50 students. Or thats what I heard at least. I have actually not been there yet, so tomorrow is going to be very exciting.
I am also beginning to think that I am going to be changing families...again. But that us still up in the air, no one really knows what is going to happen yet.
I can not wait to tell you all about my first day in my new school!!!!
Love you guys!!!
I am very excited because I start a new high school tomorrow. I am not changing schools because I did not like San Juan Bosco (my old school) I just want to have some new experiences and get to know some new people in my last few months here in Peru. I am going to a school called Maristas. It is a new school, it just opened 2 years ago, so it is still very small. About 50 students. Or thats what I heard at least. I have actually not been there yet, so tomorrow is going to be very exciting.
I am also beginning to think that I am going to be changing families...again. But that us still up in the air, no one really knows what is going to happen yet.
I can not wait to tell you all about my first day in my new school!!!!
Love you guys!!!
Thursday, March 18, 2010
sick
I am so sorry that I have not written in a long time. At the moment I am sick and I just want to sleep all day, so I am not going to write that much. As soon as I get better and get back in school I will give you a very long update, but right now I am going to the doctors.
I love you guys!!!
Lindsey
I love you guys!!!
Lindsey
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
see with your eyes closed
Close your eyes and look around. What can you see? Black? Black with those little squiggily lines? Look more carefully. Can you see what I see? I see faith. When your so far away from everything you know, that is all you can look for and if you are very lucky, then you can find it. Now, you may be thinking, what does faith look like. I can assure you that is not an easy question to answer.
It is that feeling that is inside of you that is so strong you feel as if you can see it just as clearly as you can see your hand in front of your face.
The act of knowing that you are not alone even if there is no one around for miles.
The beautiful song that fills your head when the world is silent.
The warmth that comforts you in the cold air of that Andes mountains.
The feeling of security in a world filled with violence.
It is the still calm that comes over you, when you do not feel the need to do anything, only the need to just be.
Have you ever seen a stranger go out of their way to help a person they have never met before. It is a beautiful thing. It is what we all hope to see everyday. But why do we sit there and watching hoping to see a true act of kindness when we could be the people doing the acts and setting the example.
Have you ever heard the lines from the well loved song "so I keep on waiting, waiting for the world to change" ? What a stupid song. We all keep saying that the world needs to change, and then we sit around and wait for other people to do it. Why arn´t we the ones making the change, one person can make a huge difference.
So I sugest that you stop looking with your eyes open and start trying to see with your eyes closed.
It is that feeling that is inside of you that is so strong you feel as if you can see it just as clearly as you can see your hand in front of your face.
The act of knowing that you are not alone even if there is no one around for miles.
The beautiful song that fills your head when the world is silent.
The warmth that comforts you in the cold air of that Andes mountains.
The feeling of security in a world filled with violence.
It is the still calm that comes over you, when you do not feel the need to do anything, only the need to just be.
Have you ever seen a stranger go out of their way to help a person they have never met before. It is a beautiful thing. It is what we all hope to see everyday. But why do we sit there and watching hoping to see a true act of kindness when we could be the people doing the acts and setting the example.
Have you ever heard the lines from the well loved song "so I keep on waiting, waiting for the world to change" ? What a stupid song. We all keep saying that the world needs to change, and then we sit around and wait for other people to do it. Why arn´t we the ones making the change, one person can make a huge difference.
So I sugest that you stop looking with your eyes open and start trying to see with your eyes closed.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
2 gringas en Chincha
WOW!!!! I am so happy that I decided to take a little break from Huancayo and come to the coast to visit my friend for a while. I am currently in the city of Chincha. It is not a city for tourists, not at all, there is nothing here.
My first day did not get off to a very good start. Within the first 3 hours my cell phone got stolen and then a truck full of boys dumped water on us and we got soaked! This was very refreshing, but at the same time it was very annoying. Luckily we were coming home and not going out.
But my friend Nicole and I are sleeping on the roof of her house everynight because the sky is just so pretty. It started that we were just going to sleep there for the first night, but that changed as soon as we layed down, the sky was pink and blue and purple. WE just sat there and stared at the sky. It is so fun because the clouds always make the most interesting shapes, we have seen letters and a cross and a flag and a guinia pig and other cray stuff like that.
It is all very funny because we are playing the very popular game of Carnival (with the water). WE stand on her roof and throw water at innocent people passing by. The funnest people to hit are the ones riding by on motorcycles. After we throw the water we duck down so that the people can not see us, which makes it even funnier because they are all looking around for where the water came from. Now I know that this might sound cruel, but its just so much fun. You should try it sometime.
yesterday was my best day of my entire year in peru so far. Nicole and I got up early and we took a 2 hour bus ride to the city of Ica. First we went to the mall. A real mall, with 3 floors and more then 10 stores! I was so excited. We went shopping and I got my hair cut for the first time since I have been here ( I feel like I am 10 pounds lighter). We bought some really cute jackets that say Peru on the front. Then we took a taxi to a lagoon that is in the middle of the desert. It was so beautiful, but the best part is what we did in the desert. We went sand boarding!!!!! We took a buggy (like a tricked out jeep) far out into the sand dunes. It was like a roller coaster, sometimes we were driving on verticle walls of sand. Then we got to the top of a very large hill of sand. We layed on our stomachs on these boards that looked a lot like snow boards and then the guide would push us off down these almost verticle hills. It was one of the funnest things that I have ever done in my life. And what was great is that Nicole and I got a private buggy so it was just us two and the guide ( who was also 17). When we finished we went back to the lagoon and tryed to shake off all of sand that now covered us. Eventually we managed to get mostly clean and we took a taxi to the movies. We watched a really good movie about rugby in south Africa.
After all of that we were so tired so we slept the whole bus ride back to chincha. We finally got home and we took a shower and went right to bed-on the roof.
Lots of Love,
Lindsey
PS- pictures will be coming when I get back to huancayo
My first day did not get off to a very good start. Within the first 3 hours my cell phone got stolen and then a truck full of boys dumped water on us and we got soaked! This was very refreshing, but at the same time it was very annoying. Luckily we were coming home and not going out.
But my friend Nicole and I are sleeping on the roof of her house everynight because the sky is just so pretty. It started that we were just going to sleep there for the first night, but that changed as soon as we layed down, the sky was pink and blue and purple. WE just sat there and stared at the sky. It is so fun because the clouds always make the most interesting shapes, we have seen letters and a cross and a flag and a guinia pig and other cray stuff like that.
It is all very funny because we are playing the very popular game of Carnival (with the water). WE stand on her roof and throw water at innocent people passing by. The funnest people to hit are the ones riding by on motorcycles. After we throw the water we duck down so that the people can not see us, which makes it even funnier because they are all looking around for where the water came from. Now I know that this might sound cruel, but its just so much fun. You should try it sometime.
yesterday was my best day of my entire year in peru so far. Nicole and I got up early and we took a 2 hour bus ride to the city of Ica. First we went to the mall. A real mall, with 3 floors and more then 10 stores! I was so excited. We went shopping and I got my hair cut for the first time since I have been here ( I feel like I am 10 pounds lighter). We bought some really cute jackets that say Peru on the front. Then we took a taxi to a lagoon that is in the middle of the desert. It was so beautiful, but the best part is what we did in the desert. We went sand boarding!!!!! We took a buggy (like a tricked out jeep) far out into the sand dunes. It was like a roller coaster, sometimes we were driving on verticle walls of sand. Then we got to the top of a very large hill of sand. We layed on our stomachs on these boards that looked a lot like snow boards and then the guide would push us off down these almost verticle hills. It was one of the funnest things that I have ever done in my life. And what was great is that Nicole and I got a private buggy so it was just us two and the guide ( who was also 17). When we finished we went back to the lagoon and tryed to shake off all of sand that now covered us. Eventually we managed to get mostly clean and we took a taxi to the movies. We watched a really good movie about rugby in south Africa.
After all of that we were so tired so we slept the whole bus ride back to chincha. We finally got home and we took a shower and went right to bed-on the roof.
Lots of Love,
Lindsey
PS- pictures will be coming when I get back to huancayo
Saturday, February 20, 2010
More Pictures!
Ok, The first two are from pole dancing. Then there is me on the steps in my house in Lima. and then there is my wonderful, amazing family in Lima that I stayed with for two weeks. And filally, another picture from prom of me and my friend Nele from Belgium.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Hand-washing clothes
I hate to say it, but Americans are spoiled. Now don´t even try to deny it because we all know that it is true. We take so many things for granted, like washing machines. Such a simple little thing that as Americans, we all have. Well in these past few months I have had to emotionaly deattach myself from this glorious machine. I have had to do the unthinkable, the unheard of, I have had to wash all my clothes by hand *GASP*!!!! Yes it is very shocking, I know, in the beginning when my family told me what I had to do I just looked at them with what was probably a very stupid expression.
Now I know what you all must be thinking, "Lindsey, its not that bad, its so easy". Well that my friends is where you are wrong.
To start, you have to find the perfect size bin to put your clothes in. To small and not all of them fit, to big and your water to clothing ratio is off (yes, math is very much involved, who knew). Ok so we have the clothes in the perfect size bin, now you have to add the water. You have to put just enough water in so that you can push all of the clothes under, but you have to leave a little bit of space so you can still have the space on the top to scrub your clothing. Water, Check! Now as you all may have guessed, it is time to put in the soap. I am proud to say that I now have this down toa science, but my first few times I suffered deeply. I made the two most common mistakes, to much soap, and not enough soap. If there is to much soap it will take you, no joke, and hour to rinse one article of clothing. If you are infortunate enough to not use enough then your clothes do not get clean and when you are scrubbing you can rip them. Now, not having enough soap is very easily corrected, UNLESS, you add to much more and then you are stuck with the first problem that you were trying to avoid in the first place! OH NO!!!! Although those things may sound dramaticaly serious, they are not really that bad.
So we have a bin, we have water, we have soap, and lets hope that we ahave clothes or else putting soap and water in a bin would be very pointless.
The act of washing the clothes is actually the easiest part. You just use a brush and scrub away the dirt, you you dont use a brush and you use the clothing itself to clean itself. But there is a hidden danger. The brushes here have attitude problems and sometimes like to leave bristles stuck under your skin, not a very fun expearience and a pain in the butt (or finger) to get out. It took me like ten minutes because this bristle had to be difficult and keep breaking in little parts.
ANYWAYS! So your clothes are finally clean, YAY! But now they are full of soap.
Simple, dump out all the soapy water and fill it with clean water over and over and over again untill all the soap is out. Or you can rinse each article of clothing individually, which ever you prefer. Then you squeeze out as much water as you can so they will dry faster. And in Huancayo you want your clothes to dry very fast because you are always racing with the rain.
If you use the clothing lines as part of a grid and you line up the grid with the position of the sun and use points to represent articles of clothing then you can pinpoint the exact locations that will dry clothing the fastest and the slowest ( I told you that math was involved). But only losers would actaully take the time to make a grid and monitor the position of the sun, so I just hang up my clothes and move them around until they are dry. Both methods work just fine.
I hope that you all have learned something new.
I miss you all and I love you!!!!
Lindsey
Now I know what you all must be thinking, "Lindsey, its not that bad, its so easy". Well that my friends is where you are wrong.
To start, you have to find the perfect size bin to put your clothes in. To small and not all of them fit, to big and your water to clothing ratio is off (yes, math is very much involved, who knew). Ok so we have the clothes in the perfect size bin, now you have to add the water. You have to put just enough water in so that you can push all of the clothes under, but you have to leave a little bit of space so you can still have the space on the top to scrub your clothing. Water, Check! Now as you all may have guessed, it is time to put in the soap. I am proud to say that I now have this down toa science, but my first few times I suffered deeply. I made the two most common mistakes, to much soap, and not enough soap. If there is to much soap it will take you, no joke, and hour to rinse one article of clothing. If you are infortunate enough to not use enough then your clothes do not get clean and when you are scrubbing you can rip them. Now, not having enough soap is very easily corrected, UNLESS, you add to much more and then you are stuck with the first problem that you were trying to avoid in the first place! OH NO!!!! Although those things may sound dramaticaly serious, they are not really that bad.
So we have a bin, we have water, we have soap, and lets hope that we ahave clothes or else putting soap and water in a bin would be very pointless.
The act of washing the clothes is actually the easiest part. You just use a brush and scrub away the dirt, you you dont use a brush and you use the clothing itself to clean itself. But there is a hidden danger. The brushes here have attitude problems and sometimes like to leave bristles stuck under your skin, not a very fun expearience and a pain in the butt (or finger) to get out. It took me like ten minutes because this bristle had to be difficult and keep breaking in little parts.
ANYWAYS! So your clothes are finally clean, YAY! But now they are full of soap.
Simple, dump out all the soapy water and fill it with clean water over and over and over again untill all the soap is out. Or you can rinse each article of clothing individually, which ever you prefer. Then you squeeze out as much water as you can so they will dry faster. And in Huancayo you want your clothes to dry very fast because you are always racing with the rain.
If you use the clothing lines as part of a grid and you line up the grid with the position of the sun and use points to represent articles of clothing then you can pinpoint the exact locations that will dry clothing the fastest and the slowest ( I told you that math was involved). But only losers would actaully take the time to make a grid and monitor the position of the sun, so I just hang up my clothes and move them around until they are dry. Both methods work just fine.
I hope that you all have learned something new.
I miss you all and I love you!!!!
Lindsey
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