Saturday

I have lots of interests, hobbies, etc. But probably my two favorite things (at least in my top 5) are Catholicism and Peru. And what did we learn about today? The role of the Catholic Church in Peru. Heck yes.

The morning started off a little tense when another teacher came into our classroom telling us to get out because he had the room reserved for his class. Carlitos stood his ground for quite some time, even to the point of awkwardness, but finally relented so we eventually moved rooms. Carlitos was being so sassy to that guy though – I loved it.

Again, I felt like a true local today because we toured La Iglesia de San Francisco y La Iglesia de Santo Domingo. And being the world traveler that I am, I have already been to both of these places… twice. I’m basically an expert on Lima. Not at all – I reserve (s)expert status for Carlitos. We saw the catacombs with lots of bones including skulls – spooky. In La Iglesia de Santo Domingo we saw the skulls of Saint Rose of Lima (shout out to Katherine Cavanaugh Rose of Lima Boecking) and Saint Martin de Porres as well as relics from Saint Juan Macias.

Saint Rose of Lima's skull. Just the remains of the first saint of the Americas. No big deal.

We also did a little shopping. Kathryn bought some finger puppets. When we were asking how much they were, the lady answered that they we could buy 12 for 10 soles. Kathryn responded, that she only had 10 fingers (that girl is so logical) so we set out on our mission to find the 10 best ones. We were successful.

While walking around the center of Lima, Kathryn and I came up with a game where we point at everything in sight and sat in Spanish. I'm aware that

I’ve decided that Peru is teeming with foreigner traps.

1) The door to get into our house. Somehow, I’m ended up being the one in charge of the key, which gives me the responsibility of unlocking the door every time we enter or exit. It takes us a good five minutes, not to mention there are two doors we have to go through, to just get the key in the lock.

2) The fact that coins go up to denominations of 5 soles. Extremely confusing. This was more of a problem in Spain when I would be spending 2 euro coins like quarters only to realize, “crap, that was 3 bucks.”

3) Low hanging trees (low hanging everything). On the way to lunch (of course lunch, when else? I can’t describe how I feel about lunch – it’s a mixture of absolute dread and thrill), I walked under a tree only to be attacked by a branch resulting in a tangled mess of my hair and this cursed branch. Poor Andy had to untangle me after noting that I would make a pretty good Christmas ornament. Embarrassing.

4) The dog that we pass on our way to school. I swear he only barks at white people. I think he was trained that way.

5) The ultimate foreigner trap: dance competitions (good transition, no?)

Tonight was really fun. We went to a peña where they have traditional Peruvian dances as well as modern dancing. The best part was easily the dance competition where they asked for 8 foreigners. 3 of those 8 were from our group: Chinh, Courtney and Caroline. Ultimate gringas. I can’t even describe how hilarious it was. I’m not even going to try, as I can’t do it justice.

Cervezas grandes! I asked for a Cristal and specified that the "grande" part was the important part of my order.

Carlitos big pimpin...

Most importantly, I am very excited for baby Olivia Ojeda and the rest of the Ojeda/Hufnagel family!!!! I wish I could be there with all of you!!!!