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