Fridges, Matias, native foods and the craziness that is Peruvian traffic

So last Wednesday we'd been feeling a bit down since Monday and Tuesday's activities had been a bit crap. We were lying in our beds feeling sorry for ourselves when we hear a knock at the door. I get up to go see who it is and see two Tios standing outside with a massive fridge. They hardly explain anything, just bring the fridge inside, plug it in,  make sure it's working and leave. At this point me and Amy got so excited. It genuinely made our day, that might sound a little bit sad but when you've been having a crappy week with no-one coming to activities, it meant a lot! Now we enjoy cold refrigerated fruit, water and Fanta at our leisure. Talking of Fanta, Fanta seems to taste way, way better than it does at home. We're not sure if it actually is different or we'd just been craving it so much that's why it tastes so incredible.

On Thursday we had Matias in our house trying to get him to sit down and actually do one thing for an extended period of time when he started wailing "popo, popoooo". We had no idea what he was saying but we assumed he meant he wanted to go to the toilet, so we left him there. It was about this point that Amy and myself were almost in a breakdown from laughing so much! So he kept on wailing and wailing so we went in to check on him haha and saw him sitting on the side of the toilet. We were just exasperated by now and so told him "hace un popo, lava tus manos y luego ven por aqui" (do a poo, wash your hands, and then come here). What followed was possibly the funniest thing I have seen in a long time. It was the sight of his wee face scrunched up in concentration, obviously trying very hard to do what we'd asked him. We gave up and for some reason had to go pull his trousers up before he came out. After that we had to take a few minutes to compose ourselves in the kitchen before we could face him again.

I wanted to talk a bit about how different the Spanish is here to what I learnt at school. Here they say "carro" for car instead of coche. Instead, "Coche" means buggy/pushchair/trolley. Instead of aqui and alli (meaning "here" and "there") they pronounce it "aca" and "aya". They don't use "zumo" for juice, but "jugo". Also they always say "ahorita" instead of ahora so we take "ahorita" to mean the equivalent of "right now" instead of just "now". They use "chompa" for jumper which is pretty easy to remember! "Tengo sueño" (literally means I have dream) is their way of saying "I'm tired" instead of "estoy cansado/a".

Another strange thing about Peruvian language is that they use rico (rich) and feo (ugly) as an adjective for everything. Food, clothes, facial expressions, are all described as feo. It's just a bit strange hearing "este comida es feo" (this food is ugly).

The kids and tias also all find it impossible to say both of our names. My new names range from Heller to Jerry  (remembering that their J sounds like the end of "loch" so it actually isn't as far off as it looks written down). Amy is constantly called Eeeeemmeee or Ah-mee. A lot of the time we are just referred to as "la voluntaria" or I've even heard some saying "gringa" or "gringita" since they can't remember our names or who is who.

Traffic in Peru, or Trujillo, at least, is absolute madness. Speedbumps are vicious, unmarked and often, and jolt you abruptly forward in your seat every 30 seconds. It doesn't help that there is a constant lack of seatbelts here so you just have to learn to provide your own suspension. Also Peruvians don't seem to bear in mind that a 5 seater car is meant for 5 people. Most times I get in the aldea car to take someone to the hospital, I sit with them in the front passenger seat or am squashed in the back with 3 if not 4 or 5 other people. I think the most there's been in one standard 5-seater car is 10. I was told on my first day in Trujillo that the most people there are, the less you move about.

Aldea meals are actually not nearly as bad I was expecting. Breakfast is almost always a bowl of hot milk (although sometimes quinoa porridge instead) and two rolls. Lunch is the main meal - some sort of soup and a plate of rice with beans/meat/egg/protein of some sort and a vegetable. Dinner is the same as lunch, but minus the soup, and quite often stone cold. Since arriving here I've had this weird seaweed-type thing (but not the tasty crunchy type you get at the Chinese), gancha (some sort of popcorn kernels we think - sometimes this is soft and just like beans, other times roasted and salted so it's halfway to popcorn as it is in Western countries), whole fried fish (which was a bit of a surprise when I realised I was making my way towards the eye) and what I think might be straight chicken liver which I've been given multiple times in soup. I've also become used to having beans, egg, and avocado with everything which I didn't like before I came here. Olives I still haven't gotten round to liking yet, especially first thing in the morning with a bowl of milk.

I've also had chicha morada (yummy drink made from dark purple sweetcorn-lookalike boiled with water, lemon juice and sugar), yuca (potato-type thing) and lots of yummy fruits - granadilla, chirimoya, carambole, lúcuma, pepino dulce (sweet cucumber/melon type thing), orange-coloured bananas, bananas small enough to fit in your hand, and mini orange-type things I'm not sure the name of . Peruvian limes are also used in everything. Some of the fruits I mentioned are made into delicious jugo in the aldea and are served at lunchtime as a pudding.

If you go to http://www.limaeasy.com/peruvian-food-guide/typical-fruits it gives you a description of some of the fruits I've had.

The last thing about food I must mention is that today - wait for it - I had pasta. In the aldea. Like proper spaghetti. It doesn't sound like much but when you've had rice every day for the past month or so and then you get given a plate of spaghetti, it's pretty phenomenal!

Activities-wise, arty things have taken a back seat. With the older kids (13+), we now do dance/zumba with the girls Mon-Thu, and sports with the boys Mon-Fri. It's a shame we don't do anything with the younger kids at the moment but we're thinking of starting up arty/craft sessions again from 2 until 3 before our sports stint from 4 to 6. It's not as hardcore as it sounds haha, zumba is really good fun and the boys always want to do football which just means standing about trying to run away from the ball when it comes our way.


Ciao,

The general view from the back of a Combi

Chicha morada

My first aldea meal! (rice, beans, fried egg, onions)