Thanks To My Hacker Friend

I do have the horrible habit of leaving myself logged into my gmail account on other's computers.  And if you haven't read "my" last post, do so and you'll understand.  Here's a photo of the perpetrator.

Well, that's my attempt of payback. :)  Garren is really a great friend.  Very sarcastic at times and hard to read (except in the above picture).  He is a very huge blessing to me on this trip, though.  His entry is a compilation of things that have happened thus far on the trip... not all are entirely accurate though, I am not growing a rat-tail, you will be glad to know.

Anyway, things are going great here in Peru.  Some of us are having a hard time with the language, others are doing everything they can from throwing up what they're eating and then others are adjusting simply to the altitude (which includes near overdoses of Imodium and Peptobismal).

The other day we went out to Zamacola for a lunch after a morning of fasting.  The dinner was a soup and then a plate of fried chicken, rice and a salad. Well, the soup was good for me.  One lucky girl, Ashley, got a chicken foot in her bowl.  I can hear the resounding gasp imparting across the world.  Yes, folks she was served a chicken foot with nails still intact.  She did not eat it, but was very intrigued.

A couple days later at dinner I was talking with Lala, the host lady I live with, and she asked me if I have ever eaten chicken feet, liver, heart, or gizzard... I told her no.  After a bit of a conversation about the ethics of eating chicken odds-and-ends she asked me if I would eat these things if she served them, because this is something they eat occasionally here.  I told her that I would make no promises to like it, but I would try it nonetheless.  I figure, why not be adventurous.

And here's one last random thought for the day.  I was walking across the bridge on my way home today and I was amazed at how effortlessly I could walk.  I mean, it took no thought whatsoever.  Take ping-pong for example.  We had an intense match a couple weekends ago, and it took so much concentration... Walking, on the other hand, is a breeze... you just go... no other thought needed.  I guess this is a good thing to think about as within the next couple of weeks we are putting on our Extreme Love event here in Arequipa and this guy Nick Vuijic.  He was born without legs or arms and has a very uplifting story.  Also, there is going to be Felix Vargas, an ex drug cartel worker.

That's all for now.  And if you want to visit Garren's real blog you can find a link along the right or just click here.

I Like Turtles

Trevor stayed logged on, on my computer.  So I will post a little bit about Trevor.

First off, he is very much Swedish.  Like it or not.

Trevor's favorite thing to do is to walk around el cercado all day los sabados.

His second favorite thing to do is to put cotton in his mouth and chew on it back and forth.

His third favorite thing to do is to say, "Oh man, oh man, that's great."

His fourth favorite thing to do is to be very gringo and very pavo.

His fifth favorite thing to do is to fold brochures.

His sixth favorite, last but not least, is to find out where Kristin's tattoos are.  

You like that Kristin? I got you in this blog.  I even bolded your name.

In reality, Trevor is quite joyous and passionate about being here in Peru.  We have become great friends even though we are four years apart en edad.  I like to say my maturity makes up the difference, but in reality I like to say his immaturity makes up for it.  Trevor and I are growing mustaches together, and we're also beginning the process of growing rattails.  Yay for european style.  Trevor is also my assistant for Operation: Acquire Dog for Puno.  One that isn't so big that it can see the table when it stands up, but one that isn't small so you can't punt it.  The next two years we'll develop a great friendship between Trevor and I hope he chooses to keep this post up.

Sincerely,

Garren

P.S. I hope you can comprehend sarcasm.

Mountains and Sunshine and Blue Skies Ohmi!

Months ago I thought to myself... Self, when you get a blog in Peru you're going to have so much to write about. I realize now my err.  It's a little difficult picking out of all the things going on something to write home about... beside the interesting cultural differences.  So, here I will try.

First, I'll tell you about some things they do differently here.

• Everyone, everyone wears their shoes in the house... so it seems.  I haven't heard this explanations yet, but it was the same in Costa Rica, that if you walk around with no shoes on the cold will come up into your feet and make you sick. 
• We do NOT throw toilet paper down the toilet.  I don't even think they call it toilet paper here... I believe the name is personal paper.  That sounds much more modest, doesn't it?  But yes, they do not put toilet paper down the lou. There is, instead, a waste basket beside the toilet where you tirar (throw away) the paper.  It makes for a confusing time in the bathroom.
• There is no such thing as ice cubes.  I'm not sure if this is a hard fact, but I have been wanting a glass of ice cold water for a week now and it just doesn't happen.  The refrigerator at my house is too small to fit any kind of pitcher inside so the water sits on the counter.  The coldest drink I had was a sip of a frozen lemonade at this wonderful restaurant in town called Capriccio.  
• Garbage trucks are Peruvian Ice Cream trucks! They go around town playing... Barbie by Aqua.  Ivan (the host I live with) told me that  they used to make an awful sounds, so to not annoy the neighborhood they play this song.  The reason they make any noise at all is because there is not set time they come and it just lets people know they are coming.  
• Arequipa's weather is 60-70 F.  We wear sweaters and parka coats regardless... because it's cold.  
• Buses are built for 12 year olds.  I'm too tall to fit in these things!  I step on and have to bend my head down to stand on the combis, as they call them.

That's all I can think of for now.

Two posts ago I spoke of having culture shock.  I wanted to give it a couple days before I wrote anything about it, because I wanted to analyse what I was feeling and have an accurate grasp on the situation.  I'm not sure how many of you know, but when I was in Costa Rica two years ago for school I was robbed at knife point.  It wasn't as horrible as I thought such an event would be, rather the after affect is what's been the worst.  There have been times that I'll be walking in a parking lot at night and someone will be close behind me and my heart rate would go through the roof.  The idea that they could rob me was all that I could take.

This is something that I knew I would have to deal with being in South America.  The day I made my initial post about being in culture shock was a result of feeling extremely anxious about being in a place that reminded me a lot of Costa Rica... where it was a viable possibility I could be robbed, again.  I think I confused the feelings of fear with culture shock.  I was ready to go home on day three!

After I made the post we headed out to Kristen's house, out in Zamacola... it's out in the country.  And I was unnerved because we were going to be out after dark.  We were just getting on a combis and Krsten courageously went up to the cambiador (the guy who collects the bus fair) and asked him if the bus went to Zamacola.  It just made me realize that I needed to be like that.  I cannot live in fear!  I talked to Kristen and Roy about it and their encouragement helped me so much.  The next day I came to school and Kristen had done her devotions the night before and read a piece of scripture out of Joshua where God commanded him to be courageous. 

I have never had a fear wiped away 100% so quickly.  I believe with all of my heart that God intervined in this situation and took my worry from my heart.  This whole situation just makes my faith in Him even stronger and I'm so thankful for that.  Maybe this is the reason why God allowed me to get robbed... so that I would learn to put my trust in Him even more.  Isn't He amazing. 

Anyway.  I love you all.  I thank you all for your prayers.  I see His hand working in Peru.  Ask me questions if you have any!!!!  Email me at ruhlandt@gmail.com

Que Retrocedemos (Let's look back)

My great friend, Garren, has given me confidence enough that I won’t fry my computer if I plug it in.  The voltage is different here in Peru.  I don’t know what it is in the States but here it’s 220V.  Apparently, this little black box on my cord automatically transforms the amount of voltage coming into my computer.  Wow, Portuguese (Garren), you’re a life saver.

So, let me back up about a week here and fill you in on what has been going on!  I understand now why it’s so important to keep up with this blog because now I’m not sure where I left off or how to begin. 

These luggage tags my friend, Claudia, gave me before I left made my bags so easy to find, and also a target for humor.  I don’t care what anyone says, I like them. 

It took us in total about two or three days to get to Arequipa, Peru officially.  We left from Florida on a bus at about 2pm on Saturday, May 22 to go to the airport.  We flew to Houston and got there at about 8pm.

Here are some of my new friends.  (From left to right) We have Roy, Micah, Garren and me.  This was our bus ride from Hobe Sound Florida to the Fort Lauderdale Airport.

Here’s Garren and Ashley waiting patiently in the Fort Lauderdale airport for our airplane.  This was when we still had some energy.

The Duerre’s are the Cluster support of my new family in Puno.  They are like our mother and father.  I love them so much and am so excited to get to know them more.  Again, in Fort Lauderdale.

These are their children:

 

Their daughter’s name is Ella, and she is four and there’s Thomas who’s three.  They were playing with something… I don’t remember.

We got into Houston at 8pm, like I said.  The van that came to pick us up couldn’t fit all of our things in one trip so they had to come for us in two trips.  Roy, Garren and I stayed behind with the rest of our luggage for the second pick-up.  Most of this luggage was from Amanda and Chad Duerre, because they are moving their little boy and girl down to Peru with us.  They have loooots of luggage!  On the second pick up we got to hear some Italians chatting behind us.  I was surprised that I could understand a lot of them.  Oh, nearly forgot to explain this photo!  This is Micah on his computer.  He was waiting patiently for us to get back from the airport in our hotel room. 

The next morning we drove over to the airport in Houston to get there by 12pm.  International flights require that we get there two hours early, but knowing that Chad and Amanda had a ton of luggage we had to leave earlier.

Here is a ejemplo (example) of the amount of luggage we had.  Welcome to the mountain.  Poor Thomas was beginning to get tired here.  It only got worst for the children.

Thomas is so cute.  Today he told me he doesn’t like me though.  Haha!  I’ll have to win him over somehow.

Our flight took off from Houston at 3:45 and it was six hours long.  It started to get dark so I wanted to take a quick picture.  I got to sit next to the wings, which I always thought was a cool place to sit on a plane.  Que chevre! (How cool!)

This is flying into Lima.  We got in at about 9 or 10pm.  We got into the airport and went through customs.  I was the only one in our group that spoke Spanish so, I had to really work my magic.  I’m not going to lie, I was really nervous… we’ll talk about that in another blog.

When we got past customs, which comprised a system of push-a-button-and-if-the-light-turns-green-you-can-keep-on-going-but-if-it-turns-red-you-have-to-open-all-your-bags, we found out that we couldn’t check in our bags until 4am…

Since we could not check in our bags we could not go to our gate to sleep… so we had to find a place somewhere in the airport and sleep somehow…  This is the second place we visited.  The first place we got kicked out of because they needed to mop the floors.

Garren was able to wrap himself up like a mummy in a sheet and sleep on the floor.  I wish that I had gotten a picture of it, but that was at 2:30 in the morning and I was too tired to care. However, this was not where we ended the night either.  They had us move to the other side of the hall because they wanted to mop this area too.  The children were cranky and we were all very tired at this point.  I think overall the appropriate description would be miserably tired.

This was after we went through immigration. 

This is a new friend, Amy, that we picked up along the way.  She is not with our group, but will be participating in Love Extreme, a project that the Extreme organization is putting on here in Arequipa and some other cities.  I think she’ll be with us for a couple weeks?

And finally!  We arrived in Arequipa.  I don’t have any photos for when we stepped off the plane, but we left Lima at 6am and got to Arequipa at 8am.  We were all very very tired.  The amazing thing was we came off the plane old-school with a set of rolling stairs set up against the plane!  I felt like a movie star.  Walking into the airport the other 40/40 group was waiting for us there.  They screamed me name as I rounded a corner coming into the airport and I nearly fell on the ground!  It was very emotional.

So, I’ve been here in Arequipa for about five days now!  We started our language school Tuesday, so that is all going well.  When I first got here I was feeling regret.  The moment I stepped off the plane I just had a pit in my stomach.  I kept thinking… What are you doing, Trev?  Yet, Monday, after we arrived in Arequipa and after they let us sleep, we had a meeting with Brian Tibbs, the man in charge.  He talked us through what we would be doing and even gave us a sort of orientation about how Extreme is formed and what we are doing as missionaries.  I’ll inform you all of that later.  After our meetings I was much encouraged.

I also spoke in my last post about culture shock.  I want to revisit that another time.  First, I just want to update you all on what’s going on and give you some cool stuff to look at.  Here’s a look at my room too!

My bed is the blue one and Roy’s is the red one. 

And that’s my closet space.  I feel bad because Roy only has this little end table with drawers that he has his things in.  I’m telling him right now that he ought to put his things in this closet area too.  There’s still room Roy!

 

Here’s the rooftop.  We are living with a host family in La Arboleda in El Cercado of Arequipa.  I’m very happy with the people I’m living with.  Their names are Lala (Gladys) and Ivan.  They have a son Matteas???  I think that’s his name.  But here in the background you can see Misty… the mountain.  Garren and Micah have a beautiful rooftop view at night.  I’ll have to take my camera over there next time and get some pictures.  So, so, so pretty.

We don’t live very close to the office where we are taking our classes.  We are about a 15 minute ride on combis (bus) away.  Taxis aren’t expensive, but with the allowance we are given we really cannot afford to take them everywhere.  Taking the combis forces you to know where you are and give you a better idea of the area too.  It’s difficult to get used to, but it’s the best way to get to know our way around.

Well, I’ll leave you with all of this.  This is a very very long post and I hope that you were entertained.  I will try to do better at updating frequently.  Now that I know that my compute won’t burn up with it plugged in here I can do my posts at home and then post them at the office where I have my Spanish classes.  I’ll also try to take a lot more pictures for you folks!

Continue to pray for me.  I felt great today about the culture shock, but I know this is something that will rise again.  I will write more about it later, but I want more time to think it all over, what’s going on with me, I mean. 

Your prayers have already been at work, I can tell.  I love the people I’m here with, and my fears about friendships at home have been consoled.  The Lord is so faithful.  Anyway, I don’t want to make this too long!  God Bless!

El principio

Welcome to Culture shock!  Woot!  I'm a little surprised that I am feeling culture shock so quickly.  Usually, it takes a bit more time for it to hit.  Please, continue to pray for me as I'm pushing through this.

My travel from Florida to Peru was loooong.  It took, in total, 3 days for us to get to Arequipa.  Sunday night we had to spend the night in the Lima airport where we slept on the ground.  It was pretty sweet.  Haha! 

I'm so sorry that this is so short.  I'm kinda in a bind where I'm using someone else's computer right now.  My host family's house has internet so I will be able to use that service with my computer when I get it all set up.  The electric is  little iffy... I don't know if it's really safe to plug my computer in.  My roomie Roy plugged in his alarm clock and it burned up.  We coul smell the heat... uh oh.  So, we have to get a converter and also there's not plug for the third grounding prong.  So, I may have to cut that off?

My host family is very very nice.  I love the house that we are living in. It is definitely very different from the house that my Tica mama had in Costa Rica. 

Again, please keep me in your prayers as I go through this time of adjustment.  I am also dealing with anxiety from when I got robbed in Costa Rica.  That's another story though. 

Here's a friends blog if you'd like to follow along with that too!  http://www.garrenmoore.blogspot.com/ He has a little bit more of an interesting log up that you can get an idea for the area.  I'm just pressed for time ;)

I'll have pictures soon!