This one time.... I went to Machu Picchu! :)

 Here I am at Machu Picchu! It was so gorgeous I just wanted to stay forever! I sadly only had two hours there, but it was still amazing and beautiful and breathtaking! So Friday morning I flew from Lima to Cusco and my flight was delayed so we missed the first part of our city tour so we hurried and dropped our stuff at the hotel and then met up with our tour guide and had a city tour and saw some of the Inca ruins. Then that night we went out for dinner and I tried some Alpaca which was pretty good!  Then the next morning we woke up early and got on the train to Aguas Calientes which is a four hour train ride and then when you get there you take a 20 min bus ride to Machu Picchu up the curvy mountains! So then we made it to Machu Picchu and it really was just amazing! I loved it so much! The time was short lived but I'm so glad that I was able to go and take it all in. The pictures really don't do it justice! One of the best parts of being there beside the beautiful scenery was the sun! There were blue skies and sun and fresh air and it was just beautiful! I didn't realize how much I had really missed all of that after being in a cloudy, crowded, busy city for two weeks! I am definitely not a city girl! But anyway! Life in Lima is good and I made it safely back to my homebase. My last week is here! It came so fast and I'm sure it will go fast too! I hope everyone is well! Much love! 

Machu Picchu

Cusco

Pictures of Kiddies!

This is mostly a picture post! There are pictures from my adventures of this last weekend, and then there are some pictures of the kids at INABIF. The older kids I do crafts with on Fridays, and then the babies are the kids I work with every day! :) This weekend I get to go to Machu Picchu! I'm super excited and I will have a lot to share I'm sure! Sorry I don't have more time to write a more detailed description, I am doing well though, and greatly enjoying the time that I have in Peru! :) 

Pricilla 

Andre

Flavia

Fernando

Luciana 

Jade

Carlita

Just a few of my kids! More to come soon! :) 

Salchipapa, Gelato, Karaoke, Dancing, and Little Kids! :)

Hello everyone! Sorry it's taken me till the end of the week to write again! It has been an eventful week and I am loving every moment! :) 

So to start off, the weather here has been interesting... Usually during the day it switches from being warm enough without a jacket to being cold enough to want a jacket. It has been cloudy and overcast the whole time I've been here except for Thursday when the sun came out and there was blue sky for a few hours! It made my day! To celebrate we walked to the store and got some Nutella! Yum! 

Okay so I get to volunteer at probably the best place! I love it soooo much! So it's basically like a day care center in a place called Villa El Salvador which is a pretty poor town. I get to work with the one year olds who are super cute and crazy! I go from about 8:30 to 12:30 and I play with the kids, help them go to the bathroom, help feed them breakfast, snack, and lunch, and help clean the room. One of the biggest parts of the program is nourishment because a lot of the kids are malnourished and they are trying to help them get over that. So when it comes to meals, they give these little kids a lot of food and they don't have a choice of whether or not to eat it, or to say they don't like it. So it's pretty interesting because we have to like shove the food in the kids mouths, but for a lot of them, it could be the last meal that they have for the day, or at least the last filling and good meal. One of the girls, Luciana is super cute but she is so naughty! She is kind of like the leader of all the kids and when she screams, all the kids scream! The first day I was there and I wasn't quite used to the whole idea that they kids needed to eat everything they were given, she fell asleep during lunch with her face in her plate of food, and the teacher in the room just woke her up and started shoving the food in her mouth, she was like chewing her food half asleep and it was pretty cute. Anyway! All the kids are super cute! There are usually 10-12 kids a day, and there are two other women in the room with me. My favorite thing is when the kids dance because they are just so free and so cute and they love to move and I love it! So I had a goal to have all the names down by the end of the week and I totally did it! Woo hoo! We'll see how I do Monday if I still can get all of them right! Some of them look a lot alike and so it confuses me, but the more I get to know them and their personalities the more it helps :) Today i also got to work with the older kids (8-12) for awhile and we did some oragami! That was pretty fun to be with the older kids and they were really excited to have me there and were asking me lots of questions and asking me how to say things in english. Anyway! I love my volunteer work I get to do here! One more little story, one of the little boys that I work with, Santiago, has the cutest chubby face and he will come up to me and laugh and wait until I laugh back at him and then he'll run away. He is super cute! 

So the meals I eat here are all peruvian meals and they have all been really good so far! So for breakfast it is always the same things. There are rolls, jam, cheese, and butter, and there are hard boiled eggs, and some sort of juice (so far either pineapple or papaya). There is always fruit out to have which is really nice and I eat multiple clementines a day, they are so good! Lunch and dinner are always really good! I hope that I can get the recipes for things that I've had here so i can make them when I get home! :)  One of the meals I had was quinoa but it was made kind of like a porridge and it had chunks of white cheese in it, and it was delicious! I eat a lot of rice and potatoes too, but I really like rice so I can't complain about that! And really all the food has been delicious! 

Some fun things that I have done this week have been going out to sing some karaoke which was really pretty fun. One of the best nights was when we went out for Gelato because it was delicious and I hadn't had any dessert or anything sweet since I had been here and I was really missing it! I had two flavors, Sublime (a really yummy rich Peruvian chocolate with nuts and flakes of chocolate) and mint chocolate chip. YUM!!!! :) On Wednesday we went out as a group to go to a museum. We went to a museum in Barranco which was formerly a beach resort founded in the late 18th century by the residents of the ten Surco village, where Spaniard citizens used to live in their plantations. Anyway the museum is in a mansion which was really cool! Wednesday night we had someone come teach us some afro-peruvian dancing! It was so fun! it was kind of like being in a zumba class and I loved it! One of the volunteers here is a Yoga instructor also so we did some yoga that night too! It was a good day! Tonight I went out with a few people, and we went to a bar and other people had drinks, and then we went out dancing and it was really fun! Then we got some Salchipapa which was really yummy!!! I'll Post a picture!

It has been a wonderful week so far and I have had many wonderful experiences! I'm so grateful to be here and I can't believe that my first week flew by so quickly! Next weekend I will be going to Machu Picchu and I am really excited for that! 

Funny Moment: So we have about a half hour bus ride to INABIF and we were all chatting on the way and someone said something about mormons, and this one boy commented "Oh I saw a bunch of Mormons at the airport the other day!" Then I explained how they were probably Polygamists and how we are not the same! Anyway it just made me laugh. 

Much love to all of you! :) 

Sunday

Meg and I after Church! :)

We're really in Peru!

So today I slept in and it was really nice! So  today is just a free day and so I was just sitting talking to some people for about half an hour when someone new got here, she came in said hi and then said she was going to church and started walking out the door. So I quickly got up and asked her which church she was going to and she was going to an LDS church! Yay! :) So I quickly go and throw on my dress so I can go with her. We got in the taxi and we were off on our adventure! It took awhile to find the church and we had to ask like five people where the church was because the taxi driver didn't really know. When we got to the church we found out that was the wrong church and that ward had already finished. So an hermana there helped us and told us where the other church was. We got in a sketchy cab and found the church! It was really cool because we got to see a lot of the town the first day and get a little taste of Lima. As we were driving we just looked at each other and we were like we're in Peru! We found it! Because we went to a poorer part of town, Where the whole hillside is full of apartments and little houses, kids running in the streets, and all we had seen was really the richer areas.  So we got to church and the women were coming up and greeting us with kisses as soon as we walked in. I love the culture here! They are so nice and welcoming and I love, love, love it!!! :) So in sacrament the cutest little kids brought us a hymn book so we could sing. Then after sacrament was over, like a thousand people came up to us to say hello. They all asked the same 3 questions: Are you from the united states? Are you members of the church? and Are you returned missionaries? They were so nice and there was a sister that personality wise was a lot like Hermana Norma. She was super nice and social and was so excited that she would talk so fast so we had no idea what she was saying. She introduced us to everybody and wrote down about 4 peoples numbers so we can call and get a ride to church next week. I'm also pretty sure that almost every woman invited us to go to their house for dinner sometime. They are seriously the nicest people and I am so glad that I was able to go to church today. It was definitely the right way to start out my trip. Anyway I'm doing well and tomorrow I have my orientation and I get to tour Villa El Salvador tomorrow and learn a little more about my placement. Mucho Amor, Janey :) 

Made it Safe to Peru and Loving it!

Hola! So, I had a long crazy day! I woke up at 3:30 in the morning, and arrived at the airport at 5. When I got to the airport I waited in a line that wasn't moving really, finally got up and found out that my flight had been cancelled. Yay! So anyway they got me on a new flight from SL to Houston and that left at 10:30. Which left me with less than an hour in between my connecting flight to Panama from Houston. But the good news is, I made it! No problem at all! :) In Houston I met two volunteers that will be with me. They are super nice and I'm glad that I had them with me for the duration of my travels. I got a meal on the flight from Houton, and a meal on the flight from Panama. Which was pretty great! So then from Panama I flew to Lima. I was really lucky and had no one sitting in the two seats next to me so I laid down and fell asleep! It was really nice! :) Best part of the day was when I saw my luggage! I was super nervous that it wasn't going to make it so I'm so glad I have it! I have a stamp in my Passport! First one! Yay! Then when we got picked up it was about a 40 minute drive to the home base. The driver was really nice and he told us some things about Lima and pointed some things out to us. There are a lot of casinos here, which I don't know why I didn't expect, but I didn't so that was probably the most surprising thing! The weather here is really nice! It feels a lot like California to me humidity wise, and its just cool enough at night. Anyway! In my room there are 4 bunkbeds and for the first week there is only me, and another girl in the room so it will be roomy for awhile! :) She is also at my placement with me so we will be having a lot of fun together! Anyway! I'm alive and well and tomorrow is just a relaxing day as more volunteers will be arriving throughout the day. I hope everyone is well and I will keep you updated! :) Also... sorry if this was super jumbled and crazy. It's been a long day! Okay love you all! :) 

5....4....3....2....1.... Blast Off!

So today I had a conference call with some of the other volunteers and with my volunteer coordinator. It made me even more excited and I really am looking forward to meeting my fellow volunteers and and to be in Peru! So some things that I found out today are that at the house where I will be staying there will be 20 volunteers there already and we will be adding 15! So there will be 35 volunteers in this one house. Pretty crazy! All of the rooms are like dorms and there are 6 bunk beds per room. It will definitely be an adventure getting used to living in such close quarters with so many people, but I really can't wait! :) Today I also got my placement for where I will be volunteering while I am in Peru! The name of the partner organization that I will be working with is called INABIF (National Institute for the Welfare of Infants and the Family). The site is in Villa El Salvador and it is a big center that provides different educational and recreational services and activities for kids aged 1-16 years old. It also serves as a day care center for children of working families. My duties while I am there will include helping children play with their puzzles and other institutional material, helping teachers feed the kids, playing with kids during recess, and teaching simple games. I am so excited to be able to work with these kids and I know that it will be an amazing experience! I have a few things left to do before I leave but I am feeling really calm about everything so far. My flight leaves on Saturday morning at about 6 am and I arrive in Lima at about 1 am. I will be picked up at the airport by CCS staff and taken to the home base which is about 40 min away. So... Its finally here and I can't wait for the adventure to start! I just want to say thank you to all of you for your support and excitement for me! Love you all! :)