The biggest change this week has been that we moved out of our first living place with Wilma and into a room across town that’s a lot nicer. It actually feels like we’re living indoors now, which makes it feel a lot warmer. The best part is how quiet it is. We were able to sleep in until 9 today without any problem. Normally I’ve been lucky to get any sleep after 7AM. The room is carpeted too which I really find nice. I can stretch on the floor and not be absolutely freezing because of cold tile. We’ve got a rooftop view and a really nice attached, private bathroom too. And someone has a wireless connection open!!!!!! I can connect to the Internet from my room again. We’ve only been here two days in the new place, but we’re already happier. Oh, and the price is the same. Go figure.
I’ve been surfing almost everyday. I took a day off because I hurt my toe playing soccer, but I’m getting to the point where I can catch most decent sized waves. Yesterday my main problem was that there weren’t enough decent sized waves. It’s a lot of fun, although I do wish the sun was out so that it was warmer. It’s amazing it’s been so cold considering we’re only 8 degrees from the equator.
My small rant for the week is that there’s no toilet paper in any public bathrooms. You really have to carry some with you at all times. We went to a jazz concert a few days ago and the bathrooms at the theater had no toilet paper, no hot running water, no soap, and nothing to dry your hands. I’m amazed by the lack of such simple sanitary things. Kim and I have each had boughts of stomach problems. I think we’re becoming immune to some stuff here. The locals don’t get sick too often, which could still mean up to once a month. That’s still an awful lot of sick time due to bad sanitation and hygiene. And one local tells us that if he travels to some other city in Peru he’ll probably get sick there because he’s not immune. Hopefully there’s some sort of educational campaign at some point.
Yesterday Kim and I went with some other volunteers to the ruins of Chan Chan. It was a huge adobe city hundreds of years ago, and I didn’t even realize it, but the highway that I’ve been taking back and forth from Trujillo to Huanchaco passes right through the ancient city. Only a small part of the city has been excavated and restored. It’s mostly brown and dry, but there’s one room that you walk in and it’s full of water, plants and birds.
After visiting the ruins we went to David’s, the guy who’s running the Espaanglisch program I’ve been working for, and he cooked dinner for my birthday. A bunch of the other volunteers showed up and we ate, drank and talked for a while. It’s really fun to hang out in multicultural groups. Fortunately for Kim and me English is the common languange, so even with Peruvian, German, Dutch, French and Finnish people all talking we can understand everything. It really makes me feel language poor realizing how many languages most Europeans learn growing up, but at least I think Kim and I probably have some of the best Spanish of any of the volunteers. After David’s we went back to Huanchaco to hang out at La Tribu for a little while. I got a hold of a guitar for a bit which was nice. The owner and local artist Luis joined me with a drum and a harmonica for a little while, and it may not have sounded great but it was fun.
Teaching is still fun. I’ve only been doing one hour and a half long class a day to the 11-12 year olds. Last week I had them doing a spelling bee. In Spanish this wouldn’t be too challenging since everything is spelled how it sounds, but even simple words like “chair” are a mystery to people first learning English. I haven’t made as much progress with the Espaanglisch website as I’d hoped, but now that I have Internet here a home that should change. A major challenge initially was they rejected my domain registration since my IP address was in Peru and my other info was US info.