Rule #32: Enjoy the Little Things
11.7.2015 Saturday
How the first week of November, my twelfth week in Peru, has already flown by, I honestly do not know. In many ways, I am completely comfortable here. It really is home. I have established routines, I've adjusted to cultural changes, and I have expectations and understandings of what each day will be like. Yet, it still is a new life to me and perhaps that is why time refuses to slow down. When I ponder my time in Callao, it feels like so much has happened and that I've lived here for more than three short months. Still, at the end of each week I am left thinking, "Another week is gone already?"
Such is the life of having two homes on two different continents: constantly craving your old home while knowing that your present home will someday change into your old home.
This past week was full of many blessings, as always. Last Friday, the night before Halloween, Kelsey and I went with our Peruvian "siblings" (Berli, Wesley, and Danielito) to la Parque de la Reserva in Lima. It's a park full of various fountains and colored lights. We walked beneath the moonlight through the grounds licking fluffy pink cotton candy off of our sticky fingers and viewing all of the delightfully hued tumbling streams of water. Some areas of the park were quiet and calm, areas designed for couples. Well-groomed flower beds and wooden benches with twisted iron legs and armrests lined these walkways. Cream colored Grecian pillars and arches surrounding one of the main fountains created an even stronger sensation of love and romance.
And, yet, other areas of the park were filled with the echoing laughter and squealing of children as they jumped and splashed in brightly colored shooting streams water. The variety of fountains made the park the perfect place for anyone to visit.
Sadly, the magic of Reserva faded a bit when the nightly water show malfunctioned. Each night, a video is projected onto a wall of water while music plays making for a sensational experience. However, the projector failed. After waiting for thirty minutes and concluding that it didn't seem the problem would be fixed anytime soon, we decided it was time to grab a dinner at KFC and agreed that we will return to the park soon. I'm naturally very eager to go back.
Halloween proved, as I predicted, uneventful. From various questions about the holiday to blunt statements from my students, here is what I have gathered about Halloween in Peru: It is the devil's day in which witches eat small children. It's a purely evil festival.
It's quite unfortunate that only the wicked practices and ideologies of this peculiar yearly celebration have made it to South America. While some Peruvians, especially children, did in fact se disfrazan (dress up) as superheroes and princesses to observe the holiday, it was apparent that Halloween is not a very popular day here. Instead, some celebrate el dia de la cancion criolla (The Day of the Creole Song) in honor of the Creole culture in Peru. I honestly don't know much about this holiday and in our household we didn't celebrate it in any way. All in all, October 31 is a rather typical day in Peru. So, I decided to take it easy and indulge in a Halloween movie marathon with my trusty companion Netflix.
Halloween day, the local mall already had decorations up for Christmas. Guess it's not solely a North American practice to be overly eager for Christmas...
After a lazy and anti-social Saturday, Sunday proved to be its polar opposite. I awoke in the morning disappointed that I was unable to partake in the annual award of an extra hour of sleep thanks to Daylight Saving Time (the last time Peru practiced DST was in 1994, the year I was born), dressed, threw my swimsuit and a change of clothes into a bag, and then waited* for the family to pick us up for a day trip to their uncle Cesar's house. Everyone boarded a silver eighteen passenger bus and an hour and a half later we arrived at the house's front gates.
The house was beautiful, the type of house you would stay in for a weekend getaway at a resort. Surrounded by the rocky, gray, treeless mountains, the silence was tangible. The quiet was an odd sensation after living in the buzz of a city. We spent the day watching the movie Insurgent, playing volleyball, meeting the family's numerous pets**, learning how to solve a Rubik's Cube thanks to Danielito and, in turn, taught him how to braid hair, and goofing off with our family. It also happened to be Cesar Jr.'s birthday so we finished our visit like typical South Americans: with a slice of Tres Leches cake.
A fun-filled day with my Peruvian family proved that family is family no matter where you are. They made jokes, nagged, laughed, talked, got annoyed, and watched out for one another. They may be quirky, but every family is in their own way. I'm glad that I get to be a park of their zaniness. All the more reason why Peru has become home.
Apart from last weekend's adventures, this week was a bit hectic. On Monday, I returned*** to the Language Center to teach an hour long English class to 14 students aged from about 10-15. This, in and of itself, presents challenges. With such a large spread of maturity, it is difficult to keep the younger students from being disruptive. It is also incredibly frustrating because the material is too difficult for some and too easy for others. There really is no middle ground.
To add to the irritation, the students completed their English book last month, right on schedule. This month, we are supposed to begin a new book... which has yet to arrive. I was not informed that the new English books had not yet been delivered until Monday afternoon a few minutes before my class. My creativity has certainly been stretched to new limits this week, which, despite my annoyance, I recognize as an enormous blessing.
Colorado's already legalized marijuana... coca leaves next???
Late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning, Daniel flew back after his month long visit to the USA. We didn't see him till lunch on Thursday (which was also Danielito's 16th birthday), but it's been nice to catch up with him the last few days. He's clearly very happy to be home and we're happy he's back after a wonderful and productive trip.
Naturally, Thursday afternoon the water went out again. You can imagine our frustration, especially since this time it didn't come back on until late Friday afternoon. This meant we weren't even able to flush the toilets... I have never been so appreciative of running water in my entire life as I was the moment the sink began to grudgingly spit out H2O yesterday afternoon.
This week was full of fun and frustrations. If I learned anything, it's to appreciate every moment, small or big, good or bad. Even when things are hectic, chaotic, or malfunctioning, at the end of the day they'll become fond memories that will always make you chuckle.
Ciao!
"You gotta enjoy the little things."
- Tallahassee, Zombieland
Disfruta las cosas pequeñitas.
*Peruvians are notoriously late. Their perpetual tardiness is referred to as la hora peruana (the Peruvian hour). For our Sunday trip we were told to be ready to be picked up at 8:30... They didn't arrive until 9:30.
**Cesar's family has 7 Rottweilers, 2 of which are puppies, 1 pregnant mare, 20+ rabbits and their babies, and a handful of guinea pigs. That evening at dinner, I found out midway through eating a white meat covered in sauce, which I had presumed to be chicken, why they raise so many rabbits... tastes like chicken.
***Kelsey and I share the responsibility of teaching in the Language Center so we switch off teaching every month. I began in September, so she taught in October.
How the first week of November, my twelfth week in Peru, has already flown by, I honestly do not know. In many ways, I am completely comfortable here. It really is home. I have established routines, I've adjusted to cultural changes, and I have expectations and understandings of what each day will be like. Yet, it still is a new life to me and perhaps that is why time refuses to slow down. When I ponder my time in Callao, it feels like so much has happened and that I've lived here for more than three short months. Still, at the end of each week I am left thinking, "Another week is gone already?"
Such is the life of having two homes on two different continents: constantly craving your old home while knowing that your present home will someday change into your old home.
This past week was full of many blessings, as always. Last Friday, the night before Halloween, Kelsey and I went with our Peruvian "siblings" (Berli, Wesley, and Danielito) to la Parque de la Reserva in Lima. It's a park full of various fountains and colored lights. We walked beneath the moonlight through the grounds licking fluffy pink cotton candy off of our sticky fingers and viewing all of the delightfully hued tumbling streams of water. Some areas of the park were quiet and calm, areas designed for couples. Well-groomed flower beds and wooden benches with twisted iron legs and armrests lined these walkways. Cream colored Grecian pillars and arches surrounding one of the main fountains created an even stronger sensation of love and romance.
Halloween proved, as I predicted, uneventful. From various questions about the holiday to blunt statements from my students, here is what I have gathered about Halloween in Peru: It is the devil's day in which witches eat small children. It's a purely evil festival.
It's quite unfortunate that only the wicked practices and ideologies of this peculiar yearly celebration have made it to South America. While some Peruvians, especially children, did in fact se disfrazan (dress up) as superheroes and princesses to observe the holiday, it was apparent that Halloween is not a very popular day here. Instead, some celebrate el dia de la cancion criolla (The Day of the Creole Song) in honor of the Creole culture in Peru. I honestly don't know much about this holiday and in our household we didn't celebrate it in any way. All in all, October 31 is a rather typical day in Peru. So, I decided to take it easy and indulge in a Halloween movie marathon with my trusty companion Netflix.
After a lazy and anti-social Saturday, Sunday proved to be its polar opposite. I awoke in the morning disappointed that I was unable to partake in the annual award of an extra hour of sleep thanks to Daylight Saving Time (the last time Peru practiced DST was in 1994, the year I was born), dressed, threw my swimsuit and a change of clothes into a bag, and then waited* for the family to pick us up for a day trip to their uncle Cesar's house. Everyone boarded a silver eighteen passenger bus and an hour and a half later we arrived at the house's front gates.
The house was beautiful, the type of house you would stay in for a weekend getaway at a resort. Surrounded by the rocky, gray, treeless mountains, the silence was tangible. The quiet was an odd sensation after living in the buzz of a city. We spent the day watching the movie Insurgent, playing volleyball, meeting the family's numerous pets**, learning how to solve a Rubik's Cube thanks to Danielito and, in turn, taught him how to braid hair, and goofing off with our family. It also happened to be Cesar Jr.'s birthday so we finished our visit like typical South Americans: with a slice of Tres Leches cake.
Apart from last weekend's adventures, this week was a bit hectic. On Monday, I returned*** to the Language Center to teach an hour long English class to 14 students aged from about 10-15. This, in and of itself, presents challenges. With such a large spread of maturity, it is difficult to keep the younger students from being disruptive. It is also incredibly frustrating because the material is too difficult for some and too easy for others. There really is no middle ground.
To add to the irritation, the students completed their English book last month, right on schedule. This month, we are supposed to begin a new book... which has yet to arrive. I was not informed that the new English books had not yet been delivered until Monday afternoon a few minutes before my class. My creativity has certainly been stretched to new limits this week, which, despite my annoyance, I recognize as an enormous blessing.
Being book-less and material-less, I took this opportunity to teach the students a load of new vocabulary about autumn and Thanksgiving. We played numerous vocabulary games in class and I even made a crossword puzzle for them to complete. Though slightly chaotic, many of the students really seemed to enjoy the change from their typical classes. Funny how a bad turn of events can quickly become a wonderful opportunity.
On top of that teaching anomaly, the strangeness continued in our apartment Wednesday morning. Sweaty and surely stinky, I came home after completing a workout video called Cardio Intenso with Berli and Kelsey. Let's just say that the intenso part of the video's title is quite fitting. I felt gross. I went in the bathroom, twisted the shower knob, went to start warming a pot of tea, and came back to find the water pathetically dripping, not even forming a stream! Thinking that the water would resurrect itself shortly, I called my mom for our weekly Wednesday morning chat. Well, the water didn't even attempt to revive itself until around 11:45. Rather than cause the children to bask in my smelly glory, I didn't go to my first three classes. Since I'm only an aid, this wasn't a problem. It actually turned out to be a nice little break for me and gave me time to prepare material for my Language Center class. By the time I finally showered and headed to school for my last class of the day, I felt that I had been incredibly productive. Although, that may have simply been the extra jolt of pizzazz in my morning tea. The energy buzz I get from the coca leaves in my green tea is electric. I felt incredibly focused and awake after drinking it the first time. Though maybe that's nothing more than a placebo effect... Either way, I'm hooked.
Colorado's already legalized marijuana... coca leaves next???
Late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning, Daniel flew back after his month long visit to the USA. We didn't see him till lunch on Thursday (which was also Danielito's 16th birthday), but it's been nice to catch up with him the last few days. He's clearly very happy to be home and we're happy he's back after a wonderful and productive trip.
Naturally, Thursday afternoon the water went out again. You can imagine our frustration, especially since this time it didn't come back on until late Friday afternoon. This meant we weren't even able to flush the toilets... I have never been so appreciative of running water in my entire life as I was the moment the sink began to grudgingly spit out H2O yesterday afternoon.
This week was full of fun and frustrations. If I learned anything, it's to appreciate every moment, small or big, good or bad. Even when things are hectic, chaotic, or malfunctioning, at the end of the day they'll become fond memories that will always make you chuckle.
"You gotta enjoy the little things."
- Tallahassee, Zombieland
Disfruta las cosas pequeñitas.
*Peruvians are notoriously late. Their perpetual tardiness is referred to as la hora peruana (the Peruvian hour). For our Sunday trip we were told to be ready to be picked up at 8:30... They didn't arrive until 9:30.
**Cesar's family has 7 Rottweilers, 2 of which are puppies, 1 pregnant mare, 20+ rabbits and their babies, and a handful of guinea pigs. That evening at dinner, I found out midway through eating a white meat covered in sauce, which I had presumed to be chicken, why they raise so many rabbits... tastes like chicken.
***Kelsey and I share the responsibility of teaching in the Language Center so we switch off teaching every month. I began in September, so she taught in October.
Hi Nicole! I love the way you roll with the punches. You will make a great teacher when you go back to MLC. What do you do for worship? Get that online?
ReplyDeleteI would hate that about the water...yikes!
Love,
Auntie Kim
Hi Auntie Kim!
DeleteThanks, as always for the kind words of encouragement. Definitely appreciated! We attend an ELS church here every Sunday. I also like to read personal devotions and sermons from my pastor back home. Very cool experience to study the Word in two languages!
Love,
Nicole