more adventures

Thursday afternoon:
-Had a meeting with Oswaldo, William and Yonni. Talked through some of our questions about CIDE and we showed them a website of a social investment website called Kiva. (www.Kiva.org --check it out if you've never seen it before). Once Oswaldo saw this website, he got really excited and told us that he wanted to make CIDE exactly like Kiva. Took some time for us to explain to Oswaldo that he's not allowed to just copy another organization.

Went to Hebron for Alba's last dinner in Peru. I ate my new favorite Peruvian dish -- pollo a la brasa (aka- rotisserie chicken. yum.)

Friday:
-brought Alba to the airport. Walked to the mall and did some shopping at Saga Fallabella. Jeanne and Susan found some cute shirts and I found some cool flexible cutting boards (for 50 cents each!). I was going to buy a shirt, but when one of the buttons popped off while I was buttoning it in the dressing room, I realized that I had probably discovered the reason for the store's cheap prices. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw a lady at the sales counter sewing on buttons on other damaged goods.
-took a lunch break in the mall food court. got burgers from a Peruvian chain called Bembos. yum.
-as we were leaving the mall and getting into a taxi, we ran into oswaldo. he was panicked since we didn't show up to his house at our usual time, so he had been running all over chiclayo trying to find us (smart man to realize that we were probably at the mall). we felt bad for worrying him, but we were surprised that he wasn't praising us for living life without a schedule (like typical peruvians).
-worked all afternoon, then had dinner at a nice italian restaurant. ate a decent salad and mediocre pizza. sitting next to us was a pair of gringos, the first of many gringo couples we would encounter throughout the weekend. friday, it was a blond girl and a white (spanish speaking) guy. saturday at lunch, it was a white guy (wearking a "united carpenters of america" jacket) and a peruvian girl. saturday night, it was a white gay couple, one of whom could speak spanish.

Saturday:
-took a day off from work to organize life. went to hebron's to use the wi-fi internet, but it was too slow so we went to oswaldo's house. worked on random things to get ready for school -- organizing class schedule, work schedule, etc.
-went back to the italian restaurant for dinner. this time we had "chicken and spinach lasagna" that was actually limpy noodles, flakes of spinach, two little pieces of chicken and lots of cream sauce (what is lasagna without tomato sauce?!) Also had some sangria that was quite delicious.

Sunday:
-went eyeglass frame shopping for susan. she found some very cute frames for $50.
-Jeanne was the victim of a near-bag-robbery.

Here's what happened.

12PM, Chiclayo, Peru. We're walking down the sidewalk in a straight line. Susan, Jeanne, then Lindsay. We're chatting along, Jeanne points out a sign advertising manicures for 5 soles. La-dee-dah-dee-dah. Then BAM - a guy runs to the side of Jeanne and tugs down on her LeSportsac bag with all of his might. The straps rip and the robber runs away with the bag. Lindsay and Jeanne sprint after the guy, running across a busy intersection. Jeanne screams at the top of her lungs and a guy (a cute guy, i might add) walking down the street notices that something is wrong. Said cute guy trips the robber as he is hopping on the back of his accomplice's getaway motorcycle. By this point, Lindsay and Jeanne are about 5 feet away. Robber realizes that he is probably going to be caught, so he throws the bag to the ground and then speeds away on his motorcycle. Jeanne picks up the bag and the chaos is over.

Victims: two smushed pairs, a dented lip gloss container and the straps of Jeanne's bag.

Things that were inside Jeanne's bag that were almost stolen:
-passport
-brand new camera with hundreds of pictures from columbia, macchu piccu, lima, chiclayo
-jeanne's beloved journal
-credit cards
-cash
(what a mess that would have been to recover all that stuff)

All of us were a bit shaken up after the incident (especially me -- i kept thinking "what if that guy had a gun?" "what if we had gotten run over when we ran through the intersection?", etc etc. but luckily we're all safe and sound.

I still can't believe that the whole thing was real. It felt like something out of a bad movie. It's weird that the guy didn't go after my bag since I was in the back of the group. I think he targeted Jeanne b/c her bag straps were so thin, whereas mine was a thick leather strap and I had my arm protecting it. Realized that our crazy day was punishment for not going with the Tello family to mormon church.

Other news:
-Peruvian food does not agree with my stomach. I've been taking a lot of immodium. I'm ready to go home and get some fiber.
-After the near-robbery, Susan got a pedicure (where the lady used an electric drill to saw down her cuticles) and Jeanne and I got our hair cut by an incompetent transvestite (I asked for a 2 cm trim, but instead got like a 3 inch cut. Jeanne got a mullet cut.) But we did get this nice deep conditioning treatment that helped my hair a bit.
-at oswaldo's house, we tried a Peruvian fruit called guaba. from the outside, it looks like a smushed cucumber. On the inside, there are these huge seeds covered in white flesh. The flesh is the edible stuff and it tastes kind of like cotton candy. Yum.

Last night I came down with severe chills, so before I went to bed I put on three layers of clothing. Sometime in the middle of the night, I got hot again and woke up in a severe sweat. Then woke up with a terrible pounding headache. Ughh I'm sick of being sick.

Worked most of the day. For lunch I had a stuffed potato at this little market. I was expecting the potato to be stuffed with cheese and meat and maybe some veggies, but no no no-- this potato was stuffed with rasins, a hardboiled egg and some other unidentifiable things. Didn't taste terrible, but definitely wasn't my favorite.

Gotta get back to work. More updates to come.

Love,

Lindsay