Amazon Jungle-Night One

Over the Easter break my friend, Aubrey, and I decided to go to the Amazon jungle. She is leaving Peru and is moving to Korea to teach 1st grade, so as one last adventure we decided that we would conquer our fears of cockroaches, spiders, large snakes, and every other gross animal to see the beauty and the rarity that is the Amazon jungle.

The Thursday night before Easter we flew to Iquitos, Peru where we had reservations to stay in a hostel that floats on the Amazon river. We were really excited about the hostel because it sounded, and looked from pictures, like such a cool place. When we arrived at the hostel we were greeted with a less than awesome situation. We hiked down the creaky steps to get from the street to the river, balanced-beamed across a very poorly made bridge and arrived at the hostel. It was more like we arrived at a bar, not a hostel. The entrance was actually a bar with music blasting. Aubrey and I stood in the bar with our suitcases for 5 minutes until this guy, Marcel, came to talk to us. There are two things you need to know about Marcel. 1. He owns the floating hostel and 2. he really likes alcohol. Marcel comes up to us completely drunk and tells us that we are not going to be able to stay in the room we reserved. Upon asking why not, he proceeds to tell us that the night before there was a hurricane and as a result our room has floated down the river. I asked him how he was going to get it back and he said that in the morning they would take 5 boats and tow it back. In the meantime we are going to stay in a dorm with a girl from DC. Aubrey and I agree and go into our temporary room to find two sets of bunk beds. We set our stuff down and notice that instead of professional sheets, we have little kids sheets. My bed has teddy bears and Aubrey's has bunnies. We look up and notice that the ceiling is falling apart and falling down on the beds. From the ceiling spiders are hanging down and landing on the bed. Running around our feet are cockroaches. We are already kind of grossed out by the ceiling and spiders and cockroaches and it is only made worse by the bathroom. We go in and see that the toilet water is brown. I flush it and more brown water comes out. After turning on the sink we notice that brown water is coming out of that also. Upon examination, we realize that water is being pulled up directly from the Amazon river. We are grossed out by the fact that we are expected to shower and brush our teeth with river water (can you say parasite), so we decided that we are going to walk to the store to get bottled water instead.

While we are at the store, we are trying to convince ourselves and each other that staying at this hostel isn't going to be so bad. Yeah our room got taken away by a hurricane and it might be extremely loud and dirty and falling apart, but it is still a cool idea that it floats and it is too late at night to do anything about it. We get back and realize just how loud the music actually is. It doesn't help that our room shares a wall with the bar. After getting back, we were standing outside of our room and notice a door that is connected to nothing. It is just sitting there without walls around it. After thinking about it, Aubrey says that she doesn't believe Marcel when it comes to our room. I asked her what she means and she points out that we are on a river in the middle of Peru; there is no possible way for a hurricane to form on the river. We realized that the door leading to nowhere used to be our room. I can't believe Marcel tore down our room to make a bar bigger! We both just started laughing at the absurdity of the entire situation. We notice that there is a section of the hostel about 20 feet from the bar that doesn't have any walls and the ceiling has holes in it. It was used as mainly storage for the beds that used to be in our reserved room, but there are hammocks hanging up over there. We go over and Aubrey teaching me how to lay in a hammock without falling out. We are laying there talking about how we are going to get any sleep with the music blasting and the bugs in our room, and she makes a joke that we should just sleep in the hammocks. I laughed, but then we both realized that sleeping 20 feet away from it all might actually be our best bet. The only problem is that we don't have any walls around us and no mosquito nets. We go back to our room and even though it is extremely hot and humid in the jungle, we dress in long sleeves, pants, and socks, trying to cover as much skin as possible. We then coat every inch of our body with bug repellent. We put all of our valuables in our backpacks because the room doesn't lock so we can't keep our stuff in there, grab our pillows and the top sheet off each bed, and head out to the hammocks.

We set up our "beds", put a bench in between the two hammocks and tie our backpack to it. We wanted to make sure that if anyone tried to take our stuff in the middle of the night, they would have to work at getting it free and hopefully we would wake up. Just to be extra safe though, we put our passports and our wallets in our pillowcases and slept on them. We then laid in the hammocks and attempted to sleep...unsuccessfully. The music was still so loud that we couldn't possibly sleep through it. By the time it stopped it was 4 am. We both sighed in relief that we might finally get some sleep, but then we hear a motor. Three minutes later we hear it again and both sit up. We see a motor boat going by full of people. Another three minutes goes by and another motor boat goes by again. This happened throughout the entire night. Iquitos can only be accessed by boat, so the way people get to and from the city is by taking a boat up and down the river. We could have slept through the noise of the boats motors, but remember we are on a floating hostel in hammocks. Every single time a boat goes by, our hostel bounces up and down with the waves, and Aubrey and I go swinging wildly back and forth. I spent the entire night flying back and forth, which was fun, but not conducive for sleeping. After awhile I finally fell asleep, but around 6 am was woken up by something growling and hitting me in the butt. I was freaked out by what jungle animal has decided to attack my backside, but curiosity took over and I peeked over the side of my hammock. I see two stray dogs play fighting underneath me, which is a relief that is isn't a strange animal, but I don't want to get in the middle of stray dogs so I just let them play. Finally Aubrey got sick of the growling and intervened by pulling them apart. The dogs stopped playing and Aubrey and I tried to go back to sleep, but the dogs have to be dogs and bark and jump in the river every time a boat goes by.

Aubrey and I weren't able to get back to sleep after this and decide that we need to spent our first day in the jungle searching for a new hostel because we can't do this for three more nights. We then pack up our "beds", deciding to leave our suitcases in the room in case we couldn't t find a new place to stay considering it is Easter weekend. We proceeded to spend the next two hours at an Internet cafe searching for a new hostel and jungle tours to take the following three days. We ending up at a hostel more inland in Iquitos, found tours to go on the following Saturday and Sunday, and went back and got our stuff from the floating hostel. The floating hostel was not too happy about us cancelling our reservation, but it seemed like it happened to them a lot. The hotel we found to say in seemed like a 5-star resort in comparison to the floating hostel. It probably wasn't that great, but we were just so relieved that it was quiet and clean that we just spent the rest of the weekend thanking God for providing us with a new place to stay. We were so tired from our lack of sleep that the first full day we had in Iquitos was not much fun. Once we got our new room and took a 4 hour nap, we were in much better shape. Although it was an extremely long night, it might be one of the coolest places I have ever woken up at. The next three days went much more smoothly. I'll post more about my adventures in the jungle later this week.

Hope you all are doing wonderfully. I love you all.

Andrea

Life So Far...

Hello again,

It's been quite awhile since my last post. Guess I'm not very good at keeping this up-to-date. Life here has been interesting thus far. It has been the hardest thing I have ever willingly put myself through. I came here expecting to go on this amazing adventure and love every minute of it. It has definitely been an adventure, but not in the way I expected. Working at a small international school is a lot harder than I expected. The school is going through an accreditation process which means a lot more work for the teachers. There is an overabundant amount of work on top of the normal requirements of a teacher and for awhile it got very overwhelming. I was actually working 7 days a week, 9-10 hour days. That is way too much for anyone. Working that much was really affecting all aspects of my life, especially my spiritual life. At the beginning of October we had a four day weekend, so some friends and I decided to go away for the weekend and take a break from work.

We spent the weekend on the beach in Arica, Chile and it was an absolutely amazing weekend. It was exactly what I need to gain perspective. Being about to take a step back from work really help me to see where my priorities were and where they should be. I realized that for my own health and sanity I needed to not work so hard, but actually enjoy the time I have in Peru. I went to Chile with four other people for three days. We flew down to southern Peru and drove over the border to Chile. We spent the three days relaxing on the beach, boogie boarding, playing Frisbee, sand volleyball, card games, and had an exuberant amount of laughter. It was an extremely relaxing time and I wish I was back there. The above picture is of John Swaney, Jon Bernhardt, Marissa Parsons, Jenette Cline, and I enjoying the sunset in Arica, Chile.

Since Chile, my time here has been a lot better. I have been really proactive about not working so much and enjoying my time in Lima. This weekend is Thanksgiving weekend and I decided to stay in Lima for the break. On Thanksgiving day I went to a potluck that a few of my coworkers were having. There was a traditional meal which made being away from home a lot easier. The next day I went to a beach in the southern part of Lima with 6 other friends. It was so fun. The waves were huge, probably the biggest I have ever seen. Since the waves were so big, it allowed dolphins to come really close to the shore. I have never seen a dolphin in the wild before so it made it that much cooler to see them jumping out of the waves. A few of us took boogie boards out and tried to ride the waves. We were extremely unsuccessful. They were so big it made it impossible to ride them. As soon as the waves hit me, it would just throw me around. It was really fun/intimidating to be next to waves that size.

The next day, 5 of us decided that we were going to go surfing. I have never surfed before so it was really fun to learn. It is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I am so sore from paddling out every time. I successfully stood up twice though, but only for a few second each time. While out there, we swam next to a jellyfish that was a good two feet wide. Talk about feeling helpless. I was happy once I got away from that. Now that the weather is getting nicer here I am really excited about spending more time at the beach.

There is only three more weeks left in the semester and then I go back to Colorado for a month. I have really missed all of you so much and I can't wait to see you all. I am so blessed by each and every one of you. I now have a phone that can call to and from the states. The number is 724-687-9071. Feel free to call me anytime. Again, thank you so much for all your prayers and support.

Andrea

P.S. As I was sitting here write this blog, Lima had an earthquake. There have been a lot here, but I haven't felt any of them, until today. I am glad I finally felt one. Now I can say I truly live in Peru:)

Huaraz Video

The 4th grade teacher, Megan, made a video of our time in Huaraz. It gives you a bit of a perspective of what Peru, outside of Lima, looks like.

Official Resident!

Hi Everyone!
I officially became a Peruvian resident this week. I am so excited. I no longer have to carry my passport around. Instead, I have a card called a carnet. It doesn't do much except for that I no longer have to pay tourist prices, I can pay resident prices. It just makes life a tad bit easier. A few of you have been asking for my address to mail me things. There is an embargo on Peru so the rules are that I can only receive items under 2 pounds and that I can't get mail at my apartment. It has to go to my work. My address is:
Andrea Santi
Av. Angamos Oeste 1155
Miraflores, Lima 18
Peru

I have been teaching at the school for about a month and a half now and I am still really enjoying it. The students are so great. For the most part, they are all extremely motivated to learn which is so helpful to me. I don't feel like I am pulling teeth trying to get them to participate and turn in work. I had a small victory yesterday. I gave the students a quiz in my algebra II class and all but two aced the quiz. That means I successfully taught something:) I don't always feel that way so it was nice to see it on paper.

I haven't had time to travel much since being here because I am working so much, but I did manage to go to a small mountain town called Huaraz. I went over a four day weekend with a group of 9 other girls on a bus for 10 hours. It was so much fun and felt extremely good to get out of Lima for a bit. We spent the first day there touring Huaraz. They have a lot of alpaca markets full of scarves and hats and purses. All craft type items. We shopped at the markets for most of the day.

The next day we went to the town of Chavin to look at the ancient ruins. The Chavin people were a culture that was extremely manipulated by fear. The high priests built underground water canals that they would use to echo sounds through the town that sounded like jaguars. The Chavin people didn't know about the canals so they thought whenever they heard the jaguars it was the gods angry at them. I was really interesting to see how much fear they lived with. The town look really small, but most of the rooms are underground. They had miles of tunnels underground full of rooms. It was extremely dark in there so they would take hallucinogens that would help them see down there.

The final day we went to a glacier lake in the mountains. The water was so beautiful. It was a bright blue color. We took a boat around the lake to get a better look at the glacier. It was freezing out there, but definitely worth the cold.

 Next to the lake was a mountain woman cooking fried bread and corn. It was so interesting to watch this woman work. She has such a different life style (and clothing style) than me. Her entire life is built on manual labor. Most of the mountain women work on farms which are built on the side of the mountain. The mountains are so steep that they have huts on the mountains they stay in for days while they are working on that section. It is just to much work to walk up and down the mountain each day. They definitely work harder than I ever have. It was really an eye opener as to how blessed I am to have a nice apartment with running water and a bed that I can go home to every night.

After the lake we went to the another town at the bottom of the glacier. It showed the history of what used to be the town. It was a thriving city until an earthquake hit which caused a giant mudslide from the glacier. It came so fast that it buried the entire town killing everyone except for the people that climbed up to the cemetery on top of the hill. Now all that is there is a memorial for all of the people that died.

This trip was really good for me to go on. It gave me a different perspective of how blessed I am in life. It was really nice to get away and see that Peru is a very beautiful country and to enjoy the sun for a bit. I am so blessed by the people God has put in my life since being here. My friends here at really awesome. I have so much fun with them. I am still in a transition period, but having people that I enjoy being around has made that a lot easier. Please pray for me as I continue to transition here. Pray that my teaching will be fruitful and spirit-filled. Thanks for all of your prayers and support!
Andrea

One Month!

Hey Everyone!

So I have decided that the best way to keep you all up-to-date on my life in Lima is to start a blog. As many of you know I am not a fan of writing, but I am really going to try and commit to keeping this blog current. I decided to make my first post today, because this is exactly my one month mark :) I can't believe that it has already been a month and that it has only been a month. I hope that makes sense. This month has been one of the longest months of my life and one of the shortest months all at the same time. My days are long, but my weeks are short. Haha. I am just now starting to get a routine which is really comforting. It is helping to make Lima feel more like home.

Lima is definitely bigger than I expected. There are 9 million people living in the city and the city is so huge. It reminds me a lot of New York City or San Francisco. There are buildings packed in right next to each other. The wonderful thing is I am a fifteen minute walk from the ocean. I haven't touch it yet because there is a cliff in the way, but soon I hope to get down there. Public transportation is huge here. I take what is call a Combe to and from work everyday which is basically like a daycare van. It is always interesting on the Combe. They pack people in there like sardines. There are also taxi's everywhere which is an experience all on it's own. When you get in a taxi you barter for your price. It is hilarious when I try because I don't speak Spanish well enough. I am picking up the essentials quickly though.

The first two weeks in country were really chaotic. There was so much I had to do to set up my apartment and my classroom. Most of my time was spend shopping for things like a bedspread, bathroom supplies, dishes, and a dryer. I still have a lot that I need to get, but I am finished with the necessities for now.  The rest of the time was spent in school meetings to get acquainted with the school. My co-workers are so wonderful. Honestly every single one of them. God has definitely blessed me with a great group of people that are so supportive as I transition into the country and as I figure out my first year of teaching.

For the past two weeks, I have been actually teaching. I am teaching geometry, algebra II, and two remedial math classes at ICSL. My classes are really small. I have 8 students in my geometry class, 11 in my algebra II class, 4 students in one of my remedial math classes and 3 in the other. So far all of my classes have been going well. I am still trying to find my teaching style, but that'll come with practice. My students are great. They are really motivated to learn. That is a new concept for me coming from Greeley and Denver schools. It's true what they say though. The first year is the hardest. I basically live at the school because there is just so much to do. I am trying to set good boundaries to keep myself healthy and sane.

My main purpose for creating this blog is so that I can set up a prayer support team. I have been really missing my family and my friends over this past month. It has really been hard not having anyone who truly knows me around all of the time. I don't have the support system that I am used to. Pray that I continue to grow closer to the people here and make deep connections. It has also been really cold and wet here for the past month. I have only seen the sun once. Please pray that Lima can get some relief from this weather for a bit and have a sunny day.

I am so thankful for all of you reading this. God has truly blessed me with all of you.

Andrea

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Galatians 6:9