Pachacamac

Wednesday was a much anticipated day at my volunteer job because we had to give our first presentation about reproductive health to a high school (public schools in Peru don´t sponsor any sex ed). The doctor we´ve been working with and the director of the clinic came with us, and we were so grateful for their support because we were SO nervous. We waited in a room, and boys kept walking by really slowly and not-so-subtly staring at us. Our presentation started off pretty terribly. We couldn´t understand the students when they introduced themselves, and they were not participating in the discussion we were trying to generate. Then, all of the sudden, one boy (apparently a medical student) started asking questions, then everyone had tons of questions, and all the students got really into a game with played about the information we presented. We had some time for more informal questions and snacks after the game (which by the way, was girls vs. boys, and the girls dominated), and it was like Stephanie and I were celebrities! Everyone wanted our e-mail addresses, asked us about our lives and our work at the clinic, and even begged us to be their English teacher. We´re going back for 3 more sessions, which hopefully will end just as successfully.

Thursday after class, lunch with my favorite professor, and ice cream, I went to a quasi-American bar to watch the debate. A lot of my friends, people from my program, and even our directors and one of our professors were there to watch. It was organized by a group of Obama supporters (I´m not sure how they all found each other, but it was pretty organized with lots of information about absentee ballots and connecting with politcally active Americans while abroad). I thought the debate was really interesting, though I wish they would have discussed Latin America more to help me with my project! The next day at lunch my host-parents asked me how it went, and my host-dad informed me that Palin had won (I tried to diplomatically explain that Biden actually did a lot better and that´s what the American polls showed). He insists that Peruvians support McCain, which is pretty funny because he´s the only person I´ve talked to that says that, so I told him that most people at my university said they supported Obama. This statement must have been really absurd to him because he laughed while explaining that universities in Peru, especially the only I´m attending tend to be leftist leaning; more specifically he said, everyone at my university is a Communist and they want to see Obama win to weaken the position of the US and open the door for the global spread of Communism. Just when I thought I was escaping my Dad´s staunch Republicanism, I found someone else even more extreme to fill in for him.

Friday morning, I saw hours of the morning I haven´t seen since high school. We had to renew our visas (we had student visas for 90 days), and luckily our program guided us through the process. We had to be up so early to beat the rush, and by so early, I mean we had to get on the bus at 7:30, which had me leaving my house around 7:00. The process sort of epitomized Peru for me in that it was slow and unnecessarily disorganized. We entered through security, proceded to the third floor where we waited in line so they could check something in the computer and give us the bill. Next we went to the basement to wait in an even longer line to pay the bill ($20 in US dollars and s./12 in Peruvian soles, to be exact), then we took our receipt back to the third floor to wait in line again for them to take the receipt and collect the photocopies of our passport and plane ticket. After that we waited again in a waiting area for them to put more stamps in our passport, but we could not understand them when they called our names to tell us they were ready. It was tedious but kind of necessary so we coud stay in this country legally. And, I saved my receipt so I can happily send Richmond the bill. I was finally back home around 10:45 when I went back to sleep to start my day again later.

On Saturday my program sponsored a trip to Pachacamac, an arqueological site outside of Lima. Our guide is a professor at our university and wrote her thesis on these particular ruins, and I have to say, the tour was a little too academic (and long) for me, so I didn´t pay too much attention. Anyway, the ruins were still impressive. It was a huge site (probably the biggest set of ruins I´ve seen so far besides Machu Pichu), and we actually had to drive between the sections. There was one really cool excavated temple where exclusively women worshiped, but the rest was more or less piles of sands and rocks waiting to be removed. The coolest part was when we walked up some steps- on one side we could see a view of the mountains and the small colorful houses built on them, and as soon as we walked to the other side we saw a beautiful view of the beach and the ocean.