Hope.

I received the best news today! For the last two months, I have spent a lot of time volunteering at the orphanage here in Piura. We helped teach girls volleyball during their PE class a while back and there was one girl that stuck out to me the most. I've mentioned her before, her name is Andrea. Andrea was the most athletic out of all the girls by far and continued to show interest in the sport. As you know, the last month or so I've been coaching soccer at 6 different schools with a couple other volunteers. Andrea once again stuck out to me. Since the first day I met her, I instantly felt an emotional connection to her, almost like she was my daughter. I wanted someone to adopt her so bad. The last time I talked about her on this blog, I secretly hoped that someone seriously considering adoption would somehow come across this post and ask me about it. I want nothing more than to make sure she has a bright future ahead of her but how exactly can I ensure that when I obviously can't adopt her myself? I think about her often and wish that I could do something to ensure that she has a good future because I see so much potential in her. Last Saturday at our tournament, I met a guy who was watching all the games to pick out girls for the national team. He pointed some girls out from a different team that I knew already were good and had a lot of potential. This afternoon, I was informed that ANDREA is also being considered for the national team! I wanted to jump up and down with excitement, but I controlled myself. Although she is only being considered and nothing is official, it gave me hope. Andrea is such a sweet heart. I'm not sure if she even knows about this, but I really hope she is chosen. I can only imagine what it could do for her future. Like I said before, even if all it did was get her into a University to get an education...imagine what that will do for her life! Especially being an orphan, she needs to know that there is hope for her. 

It's really starting to sink in that I am leaving so soon, 3 weeks from today to be exact. I wish I didn't have to leave. The people here are so amazing, and I feel extremely blessed every day to have this opportunity to be here. I often compare this summer to previous years and just think about how I've been living all wrong! Being here has opened my eyes to so many things. It makes me want to continue to travel the world and enhance the lives of others where needed. The time I have spent here has been incredible, and the day it ends with definitely be sad. As I think back on my life, I realize how luckily I was to have been raised by a stable family, something that many people don't have. Im grateful for what I do have and to be able to spend my free time giving other people hope for a good life as well.

Reality check.

When I realized that I only have 24 days left in Peru, a couple different emotions hit me. It really was a bitter sweet feeling. Im really looking forward to seeing my family and friends, but the thought of leaving the family and friends that I have made here, knowing that I may never see them again, is a sad feeling. I will never forget some of the people I've met. Sometimes I feel like I have taken living in a Spanish speaking country for granted because Im not trying hard enough to communicate. It's easy to get by because I can rely on others that are more fluent to get my point across. Regardless, being able to communicate in a different language is an awesome feeling and I think that my Spanish has improved a lot since I came. It makes me want to learn more languages and travel everywhere! With only 24 days left it's easy to think about all the things that I am excited to have when I get home (hot showers, my car, a washing machine, and all those other things we don't need) but I've been trying to not live so much in the future, but focus on what I am doing now. There are still so many things that I have to accomplish in these last couple weeks. We have a solid team and have done a lot this summer. Lucky for me, most of them live in Utah, so they cant peace out of my life that fast!

Project Updates

I hit my 2 month mark yesterday and have been spending a lot of time thinking about all that we have accomplished here. When I first arrived, I thought I was going to change the world (as any volunteer would hope to do). It didnt take long for me to realize that for me to do that is basically impossible. I realized that in order to change the world, you have to change peoples lives one by one, and that is exactly what we have been doing. I hope that as I am here volunteering, the people I am helping will want to do the same for others one day. Service is contageous, and I cant get enough of it! This project update is long overdue. The following are projects that I personally have been working on. There are several others run by other volunteers as well.

* * WARNING: This post has zero photos, but will tell you a lot about what I´m doing.* *

Piano Classes: I have been teaching piano since I arrived in the middle of May. I will admit that I was not super excited about teaching because 1. I am not a good teacher, 2. Its even harder to teach in Spanish, and 3. Im not even that good at piano. It was hard for me to see how my time teaching them would actually be beneficial if I wasnt even that good myself. My perspective soon changed when I realized that I was being selfish and stubborn because I dont have to be the best teacher or pianist in the world to share a simple talent that I might have. It humbled me and made me grateful for the opportunity that I had growing up to take Piano classes. Along with that, I am not necessarily here to have fun and do things that I really want to do, I am here to serve and do the things that the people need. We teach piano in the church because there are a lot of people there that want to learn. In meetings on Sundays, hymns are sung to a cassette player because no one knows how to play. We started lessons from ground zero and have had 30+ people come at least a couple times. Not all that come are members of the LDS church either, which makes it even better! We are constantly inviting everyone we meet to attend classes. I am amazed at how fast the students are learning. They come prepared and energized every week. The best feeling ever is when they finish a song (yes, they can play songs now!) and are so excited! They smile and clap and feel so accomplished. Sometimes starting that fire in someone is all we really need to do in order to motivate them to work hard. Feeling accomplished in something as simple as playing the piano will help them realize they can be accomplished in other areas as well, in things that they can do to help their community.

Orphanage: I have done several things with the orphanage. The orphanage we go to is also a school and every Tuesday/Thursday afternoon, we spend a couple of hours attending/running their PE class because the teacher never shows up. Its kinda sad. Actually, its really sad. I think I have seen him there maybe twice in the last two months. I also teach Piano with another volunteer, similar to the classes at the church. The other more difficult project, is coming up with an after-orphanage program. As you know, once orphans turn 18, they have to leave. But what do they have? I dont imagine they have much of anything. No money, no where to go, not much/not very good education. We are trying to team up with the government because they are willing to give anyone that is able to come up with a program for these orphans a grant (of quite a bit of money). Ive been searching for ideas and have felt very passionate about trying to come up with something because I know that it is needed, and it will be of long-term benefit. We want a program that teaches orphans how to get real jobs instead of selling drugs or getting involved with prostitution. We want them to get an education. The first step for us is getting approval for the grant and then putting our ideas to the test. Obviously, this is not something that can all be done in 4 months time. Luckily, HELP International is hoping to have volunteers and interns through the entire year, and not just in the summer. The plan is to get it started and provide the ideas and information so that future volunteers and continue to carry out the project and make it effective. If you have any ideas, please comment here or shoot me an email at zoe.theobald@gmail.com. Your ideas are appreciated!

Soccer: Soccer has just started to pick up a lot lately! Here is the backround: Basically, sports arent offered to girls here. Opportunities arent exactly equal between girls and boys because girls are expected to grow up to be mom´s and cook. Sooo...we started a girls soccer league! Equality right?! We are working with 8 different school and have gone to coach/run practices at 6 of them over the past 2 weeks, and will continue going until we leave! I will tell you that working with 30-14 year old girl is not an easy task (but we arent going for easy here). We had our first tournament last Saturday! It was fun to watch the girls enjoy themselves. One of the girls from one of the teams plays/practices (Im not sure which one it is) with the National team and she is only 12! We are hoping that providing this opportunity for the girls will spark an interest in becoming really good at soccer. The orphanage is one of the teams and there is a girl, Andrea, that I really want to be adopted!  Sadly, she probably won´t because she´s already 13. She is super athletic and I can see her going far with a sport, even if all it did was get her into a University to get an education somewhere in the US or wherever. She is so adorable. Anywho, we have practices on Wednesday and Thursday every week and tournaments every Saturday! At the end there is going to be a winner and we will provide them with a trophy! This is something that will happen every summer. The best part about it is that the only thing they want help with is coaching. They dont want our money, which is struggle we have run into with other people. Some people think we just have loads of money to hand out, but thats not exactly the case. We have what people donate. I´m sure other non-profits have issues with that as well. We are HELP!

ICPNA: This is one of the top English Institutes in Peru and we spend a couple hours twice a week communicating with the students in the classrooms. Sometimes the teachers basically make us takeover! Usually Justin Bieber is a topic of choice, and Taylor Swift, and boyfriends. Almost always. Its basically expected now. Anyway, this is another place I visit frequently.

Centro de Salud Pachitea (Health Clinic): I know, I know, Im totally not a medical student or anything near one, but I really enjoy helping out at the Health Clinic. We originally started helping with a mosquito project that I explained in a previous post. More recently I have been working in the Emergency Room weighing peope and taking their blood pressure. I learned how to take blood pressure here, pretty cool eh? Along with that we get the occasional pesron with their head split open or even last week when a girl came in  unconscious! Ok people, I definitely have a greater appreciation for people in the medicial field! It is sad stuff. Most recently, we started working in the office where they keep all their patient papers in files. The folders are falling apart and there isnt enough space for all of them. They have wanted to change them out for a while now, but said they never have the time. DING DING DING. This is where we come into play. We started refiling all of their patient documents and putting 20 in a folder instead of 10 to create more space. I love this project because I know its something they need and will hopefully be able to be more prductive and efficient with better folders and a better numbering system. They have had the same folders for about 15 years. Thats a really long time people. Its a huge project that will take a lot of time, but I really do think we will be able to finish by the end of the summer. 4 week count down! Ready, set, go!

End of Summer Event: This one Im really excited about! As many of you know, Im studying Business/Venue & Event Management at BYU so this project is right up my alley. I thought it would be nice to have some sort of event at the end of the summer and invite everyone that we worked with. My thought was partially so we could see how many people we helped (to put things into perspective), to say one last good-bye, and also to show each group some of the other things we did this summer. My plan is to have food (thats a given) and tables to showcase each project and what happened in the past 3 months. HELP International just started sending volunteers to Peru 2 years ago so it is fairly new and not many people know exactly what we are all about here. I think this will be good advertisement for HELP International to the people in Piura. Many of them have no idea we do other things than work with them on soccer, or at the orphanage, or whatever it may be! More updates on this later...because I plan on having more things at the event.

It´s been a really successful summer so far and I´m excited to see what happens over the next month! I love and miss you all. 4 more weeks!

Cusco

Guys, Im totally cranking out these blog posts and Im super proud of myself. We have a lot going on during the day and by the time I can relax, all I want to do is sleep so it never gets done. I do have a new goal though. Im going to post at least every Sunday because I relax that day anyway. That means I will have at least 5 more posts. 

Although I didn't have any expectations of Cusco, it was not anything like I expected! I guess the cheesiest, most cliche way to put it is that it was unlike anything I could have imagined. I loved Cusco. When we arrived, it literally felt magical, almost like Disneyland. I know I sound ridiculous right now, but thats how it felt. We spent some time waiting at the airport for our guide to show up. Once he finally got there, we piled into a van and drove to our hostel, Pariwana. On the way there, we saw what we thought were gay pride flags everywhere. You can imagine how confused we were. Almost every other house had one. Turns out it's the Inca flag, and I'm glad we figured that out sooner than later. Cusco has extremely high altitude so we were advised to take it easy the first day to avoid getting altitude sickness. We arrived at our awesome hostel (and Im not kidding when I say that) and took a nap and relaxed. Our hostel was the ultimate backpacker joint. If you ever go to Cusco, STAY THERE. It was super cheap and amazing service. They always had something going on and it was a really fun atmosphere with ping pong tables, games, bean bag chairs everywhere and a ton more. They also had a retaurant/bar where they served breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. The free breakfast was bread and cereal. We would always stash bread in our purses to eat throughout the day because it was good and cheap. That evening we went to dinner for Schylers 21st birthday and surprised her with alfajores (a peruvian cookie) because she doesn't like cake. After, we went to the Plaza de Armas because there was a festival going on. We stuck around for a while and listened to the music. All of a sudden we were in the middle of a giant mob. Not gonna lie, it was a little freaky. We couldn't move at all and it was so hard to get out. The worst part...I was wearing sandals. I had my nice camera around my neck at I was nervous someone would rip it off or somehow get in my bag and steal my lens. I only had two hands to protect my stuff! We shimmied our way over to a closed off grassy area where we were able to walk freely until this old lady wacked me with her bamboo stick! I was totally taught off guard. She was a tiny old granny trying to tell me to get off the grass and she hit me with her stick. It was actually hilarious.

The rest of the time in Cusco consisted of things like Machu Picchu, the Sacred Valley/Ollantaytambo, a llama factory where we learned how to tell the difference between real and fake alpaca clothing, rock climbing and the Inti Raymi festival. This is more of a picture most. I guess we'll let the photos talk ;) They're completely out of order by the way.

After nearly getting mowed over by a crowd.

Walking to the mountain we climbed.

Owning the wall.

Looking over Cusco at Sacsayhuaman. 

Inti Raymi festival with Schyler and Hannah.

Spent a lot of time in these vans.

In food paradise.

Hiking around Machu Picchu

Classic jumping shot.

Sacsayhuaman

Just feeding an Alpaca.

THIS. BOY.

Pisaq

Pisaq

Ollantaytambo

LLAMAS at Machu Picch

Oh, and we watched Emperor's New Groove in Cusco. Best thing ever.

I literally could post a thousand more photos, but I don't want to swamp you with more. Hope you enjoyed them!

Lima

Lima was a good time. It was completely different from any other part of Peru we have been to because it was a big city! As far as a hostel went, we hadn't really set anything up and when we started looking, everything was booked. Luckily I have a friend from BYU who is living with her family in Lima for the summer. I called her up and asked if we could drop our stuff at her place while we went to go find a hostel that was available. Literally everything was booked. She was nice enough to let us stay with her and her family for our whole stay in Lima! It was so fun to catch up with Evita and meet her family. They were so nice to us!

The first day we spent getting settled in and exploring. I broke my phone charger here (I'm assuming too much power burned it) and I found out that there was a store in Lima that sold Apple products. We went to check it out in the mall but they didn't have it so we got lunch instead. We got sandwiches and then found cinnamon rolls. Oh my gosh it hit the spot. We had just been talking about how much we wanted one too. Lima was the closest I will get to America the whole summer. It was the most diverse and had a ton of really good food that you could find anywhere in the US. It was a fun change, and we didn't stick out like sore thumbs anymore. We walked through El Centro and found another iStore that actually ended up having my charger but it was 120 soles which is around $50. I was NOT that desperate. We explored and I made an impulse buy...a cowboy hat. It's awesome. Im not sure where I will ever wear it but it was cheap and I loved it. We walked around Miraflores for an hour or so later on in the evening. We ate at La Lucha (the most amazing food ever), and there started our ongoing craving of Oreo milkshakes. They were so delicious. Oreo's are good but I've never craved them until I came here. Its funny what sounds good to you when you're in South American and don't have everything. We have all craved really random things here (Peru in general). Miraflores is kind of the hip part of the city where all the young adults/tourists stay in hostels and hang out each night. El Parque de Amor (Park of Love) is close by, theres a market, and a ton of other things. While eating dinner, a man on a bike came up and started talking to us. I kinda had to play translator for a bit which was pretty funny actually. The guy (probably 40 years old) told me how he loves it when other people come to his country because he loves Peru and thinks its the most beautiful country ever. He wants other people to love it as much as he does, so he was happy to be able to talk to us in Spanish. There is something so amazing about being able to speak a different language, but I don't know how to describe it. I think being able to talk with people here has made my experience so much better than it already is simply because there is so much for me to learn from these people. They are so humble and kind and I just want to talk to all of them! That night was actually Evita's moms birthday. We went back to the house to celebrate with them by  eating dessert and singing. We jokingly said we were going to show her a Peruvian birthday tradition we learned, which is smashing their face in the cake, but we didn't do it. 

The next day, we went and visited the LDS Temple in Lima. I was so sad because I forgot my temple recommend in Arizona and didn't think I was going to be able to do baptisms. Luckily, one of the temple workers was able to call my bishop and Utah and give me the OK to have a temporary recommend. We ended up doing over 100 names between 3 people. I've never done that many in my life all at one time. It was a lot, but goes to show how much work there is to be done in Peru and South America. It really made me appreciate missionary work in that moment. After the temple, we spent the rest of the day hanging out with Evita. She had never been on a combi before, so we gave her her first experience. We actually didn't go on a legitimate one, more of a bus, but still. Combi's are super ghetto, run down vans that people pile into for like 1 sol, sometimes a little more. You would never see something like this in the US and I often think about how hilarious it is that we do it here because you're trusting some random stranger in a different country to take you where you want. Its basically the only form of transportation though. So we took a combi/bus to Miraflores, went back to eat at La Lucha because it was so dang good, and spent the rest of the evening goofing off and walking along the cliff/beach. We walked through a park on the cliff where some people were slacklining, so naturally, we joined in. First time I ever slacklined was in Peru! Pretty cool to say, not gonna lie.

Our last day in Lima started off with an earthquake. My first earthquake! It was even crazier because I was sitting on the ground when it happened. I didn't really know what was happening because there have been plenty of times that I have been sitting in the Tanner Building on BYU's campus and the ground starts shaking. It was shaking because of construction (because something is always under construction there) and not an earthquake. So when I was actually in an earthquake here in Lima, I didn't really know what to do/ I didn't do anything. Schyler ran to the doorway which was smart, but I just sat there. It came and went and nothing bad happened but it was kind of a freaky feeling. What if something bad had happened! I wouldn't have known what to do! After the earthquake we left the house and went to the Church San Francisco (the picture below). Underneath the church are some catacombs which are underground tunnels of tombs. So crazy. We weren't allowed to take photos in there or else I would have. After that we took a bus to Barranco and stopped to get some Starbucks hot chocolate because it was freezing! We walked along the beach (its right below Miraflores at the bottom of the cliff) and shopped at the street vendors selling jewelry and other fun things. That night we went back to Miraflores and met up with the rest of our group who didn't do the first part of the trip with us. We went to a water park where they had about 20 different water fountain shows and enjoyed the evening together. We got a little wet running through the water like kids...not sorry.

Lima was a fun trip. Most of it was just eating really good food and I'm not mad about that one bit. From Lima we took a plane to Cusco (one of the top 10 most dangerous landings NBD). Stay tuned! By the way, I could have sworn I took more photos in Lima, I think I just haven't put them all on my computer yet, so Ill post more later.

Trujillo

Another couple weeks have passed and I cant believe I'm half way through my summer here. We were lucky to be given some time off to travel and see Machu Picchu. Im going to split this into 3 different posts. One for Trujillo, one for Lima, and one for Cusco!

First off, blogspot is going crazy on me and the photos are going where I want them to, so this post may not look very pretty, but it has all the right information on it. So our journey started with a 6 hour bus ride from Piura to Trujillo. We left around midnight so we would get there in the morning! At 6am, nothing is open obviously so we went straight to our hotel/hostel and fell asleep for a couple more hours. We were all really paranoid about bed bugs because someone in our group had gotten them from a different hostel a couple weeks ago and she said it was the most miserable experience for her. I ended up sleeping in my jeans because I didn't want to risk it. We met up with a girl that Kanani knew and she took us to her favorite breakfast place. We ended up eating chicken sandwiches for breakfast, which is interesting, but it was one of the BEST sandwiches I have ever had. After breakfast we went to a ruin called Chan-Chan. We took a bus as close as we could, which was about a 30 minute walk away. We met some tour guides there on the street. It was a little weird because this place felt like it was in the middle of nowhere and we just had to trust that these guys on the side of the road were tour guides and not something else. Everything turned out fine though. Chan-Chan is the largest adobe city in the world and was built by the Inca Empire.  The photo below is right in the center of the city where the reservoir was. There are more photos at the bottom with more details.

I couldn't believe how big the place was. We actually had to have a guy drive us to the different major locations in order to see it all. Some places had more detail that others but the photo above was the largest location. We spent the majority of the Later that day we went to dinner at Los Sombreros and I had probably the best Lomo Saltado yet. Lomo Saltado is one of Peru's most popular dishes. That and Ceviche (raw fish...not very good). It was a beach front restaurant and definitely would have costed a lot more if it was in the US. I probably spent $8 on that meal. We ate, then walked around the beach for a while, just in time to see the beautiful sunset ( photo at the bottom ). The photo below is of me, Schyler, and Hannah. I love these girls so much. They make me laugh every day and we have become really good friends. The nice thing is that all of the people Im living with right now live within an hour of me in Utah so I know that I will still see them back home. 

The next day we slept in a little bit knowing that we were going to go hit up some more ruins (exhausting). We went to the Temple of the Sun where we walked around and listened to the tour guide. I loved this ruin so much more than Chan Chan! It has been preserved really well and you can see a lot of detail in the temple. While taking the tour, I was trying to imagine what live would have been like. Trust me, thats not an easy thing to do. Putting myself in their shoes while being there was the best part about it for me. It definitely made things more real. Below is a photo of me in front of it as well as on the top looking over at the Temple of the Moon.

Our last partial day in Trujillo we went to church where we met some other guys from Utah. There were here with a medical program up at the University of Utah. We spent some time with them that afternoon and went to the botanical gardens there. That evening we took a 10 hour bus ride from Trujillo to Lima! It was nice to take our bus rides through the night because we could just sleep and didn't have to pay for a hotel or a hostel. Ill pick up on Lima in the next post but here are some more photos from Trujillo!

Artsy Chan-Chan

The pier of Huanchaco beach.

The ladies.

The Peruvian hairless dog.

Huanchaco at sunset.

A day in the life of...me.

So I want to take some time to really explain all that I'm doing here in Peru. A lot of the photos I've posted on here and Facebook are of my adventures during free time on the weekends, but there is a whole lot more that I do than just have fun. Being a volunteer is super exhausting, but so rewarding at the same time. A typical timeline of my day looks like this:

7:00 - Wake up and go running (lets be real, I've only been running like twice)
8:00 - Breakfast
8:30/9:00 - Work
2:00 - Lunch
3:00 - Work
6:00 - Dinner
7:00 - Work (Tuesday/Thursday)

Typically we have one project in the morning, and a different one in the evening. On Tuesday/Thursday we teach English, Piano, and Zumba in the evenings from 7-9. Those are the hardest days because they are the longest.

Here is a list of all that we have done up to this point:

• Piano / English / Zumba Classes

• We have roughly 25 students in both our English and Piano classes and around 50 for Zumba. I personally teach Piano and it has been one of my favorite projects. I'm not even close to being an awesome teacher, and I am not even the most amazing pianist either, but the people are so appreciative and it makes me feel like I have legitimately made a difference in their lives when I teach them. Most of the students had no experience in music, and now, after just 6 classes, we are already able to play simple songs on the piano. They are picking it up so quickly, and will be such a good skill to have to be able to play in church and maybe become a famous musician one day. 
• Health Clinic



Our mosquitos and larva.

• I love working at the Health Clinic. It is not something I would really ever be able to do in the US because 1. Im studying Business. 2. It's not as easy to just walk into a Health Clinic, say you're a volunteer and start taking blood pressure and weight. It doesn't work that way in the US. We also went mosquito and larva hunting last week. Yes. Let me explain. So we had a glass tube with a rubber tube connected to it. We went to some houses hear the Clinic and in order to catch the mosquitos, we had to breathe in with the rubber tube to capture the mosquito in the class tube and then stick the tube in a container/cup, breathe out, and the mosquito launches into the container. Its pretty cool, not gonna lie. The purpose of catching them is to examine them to see if they carry Malaria or Dengue fever. This is also the reason for searching for larva. We walked around a cemetery searching bottles of water for larva. We have done some interesting things. Today at the clinic was a little crazy. It put the medical world into perspective for me, and I now have even more respect for the people that work in this field. First I saw a man trying to heal from an accident where he lost a toe, then a woman comes in screaming because her baby wasn't breathing, then another man comes in because he was outside walking and stopped breathing. It seemed like it was one thing after another. SHOUT OUT TO MY BROTHER WHO IS IN MEDICAL SCHOOL. Love you bro, you're going to be an amazing doctor, and I look up to you so much! You're a brave dude.
• Marketing Class
• A couple of us have been teaching a Marketing class at the University down the road. I think it is so neat that we are able to do such a wide variety of things. I love that we are trusted enough to teach a college class! Students are learning a lot and are very interested in the class. They always show up with enthusiasm.
• ICPNA
• ICPNA is an English institute here where we have gone a few times to have conversations with the students to help them learn English! Something I've realized with my Spanish is that the best way to learn is talking one on one with a native. 
• Aldea San Miguel
• Aldea is one of the orphanages here. I honestly love being able to volunteer here because I know that I am helping. The children are so adorable and is so sad to know that they have no families. After hearing some of their stories, it makes me want to go back more and more so they feel loved. On of the little boys was found in the trash when he was 2 days old, and another family of four kids watched their dad kill their mom while holding them. Most of the time when we go there, we go to help with their PE classes because they only have it 2 times a week and half the time the teacher doesn't show up. I wish I had photos to show from Aldea, but I will get some soon!
• Park

• In Peru, there are literally parks on every corner. Or at least it feels that way. These parks never get used and so we teamed up with a professor from Spain to see if we could try to encourage people to use them. Last week we had an event at El Parque Ecológico de la Urba. The purpose of the park is to provide an area physical exercise as well as inform people about the plants and animals they have their. We held an event to show people the park and introduce it to them so they would use it! We had a craft for the little kids (making birdhouses...thank you pinterest) and the others learned about the rest of the park. It was a fun event and we even made the Peruvian newspaper!
• Soccer
• We are putting together a girls soccer team for teenagers ages 14-16. Sports are not offered to girls here so we want them to have that same opportunity. There are going to be 8 schools involved. We are going to hold practices, games, and tournaments, with uniforms, trophies and everything! Im really excited for this project to get going. I think Im going to get super involved with it.

These are just a few of the projects we've done. I've already mentioned some, like volunteering in Noe where we played with kids and also painted their school, the Liahona Foundation, and the Red Cross.

I think one of my favorite parts about being here and volunteering is that even though the things we are doing are simple, the little things we do to help these people could turn their lives around. These people could be future big time musicians or professional athletes. Cheesy, I know, but there is so much potential in everyone we meet. Sometimes people just need to see that and get a push in the right direction.

Vamos a la playa.

          This weekend we finally got to be tourists! It was a fun change! It started kind of rocky. We took a van to Tumbes which is about 4 hours North of Piura. The ride was tight and not super comfortable but the people made it enjoyable. We've got a great group of volunteers that make every moment of this trip so fun. Once we got to Tumbes, we took a moto taxi to the random house that we stayed at. Im not really sure what the connection was, but I think it was our landlords brothers friend? Anywho, we stayed there for a night and let me tell you, I have never seen a more strange place in my life. When we first arrived it was a relief to walk into a house that looked super nice, but then I started looking around and realized how strange and odd the place really was. It seems oddly nice for the area we were in and nothing really worked together. Maybe that was their style but the decorations were different. I have a joke with myself (sad, I know) that they just found/stole everything and put it all in a house together. There was a random life size Santa Clause just chillin in the family room. The even crazier thing is that I totally had dejavu in that house (not about Santa). I don't know how to put my thoughts about this house into words but just trust that it was an interesting experience. They only run the water in the morning so if we had to go to the bathroom we just dumped a bucket of water in the toilet and it would all go down. Not sure how that works, its a mystery and a funny memory. Moving on...so we got settled in and then went out to get food. We stopped at a random restaurant, and it ended up being the worst food experience since we arrived in Peru. The food was pretty bad. All the meat was cold like it had been sitting out all day and it all just seemed kinda dirty. Luckily no one got sick *knock on wood*. After dinner we set out for the main street/square where they were celebrating the 30th year of something. They had some performances (all cultural dance) and music. We hung around for a while, avoided creepy people, and killed mosquitos before they attacked us. 

Mangroves near the border of Ecuador.

          The next morning we woke up and took a bus to a place where we got on a boat to explore some mangroves near the border of Ecuador! It was so beautiful, and felt like we were in a movie! On the boat ride we stopped on an island that had a bunch of caged crocodiles, and yes, you better believe I jumped in there and touched one of them. I didn't tell my parents until after. My mom nearly had a heart attack. In the end though, I still have all 10 fingers and toes. After that we got back on the boat and went to a different "island" called bird island. It was insane. You could see it from pretty far off in the distance. There are 6000 birds on this island and I have a photo below. These birds were literally everywhere, and was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It's not exactly an island that you can walk around but we perched out boat right up on one of the bushes/trees so that we could just sit in amazement for a moment.

          After bird island, we went to another island where we got off and beached it for a couple hours! It was so surreal. In that moment, I could only think about how blessed I am to be able to have this experience. I feel lucky to even be here in Peru, but to be able to live here for 3 months helping the people and serving them, on top of having weekends to travel and be a tourist?! I don't know how I got so lucky. It sounds so cheesy and cliche but I couldn't have done it without a lot of people. I'm only 3 weeks in and we've done so much! The island was so beautiful and I love the beach more than anything. On top of this, the whole experience only cost me like $10. Holla! We ate lunch on the island and ordered some fried shrimp. Soo good. After that, I took about with Cecilia and we walked around the island looking for seashells, taking photos, and exploring. The only downside was that I realized that the material on my swimsuit was basically gone so I had to stay covered up. Its literally a mystery. So I need to find a new swimsuit while I'm here. 

          After the whole boat tour, half of us decided to take off to Ecuador since the border was only 30 minutes away and a couple people had to renew their visas. For some reason the airport only gave them like 30 days, but Im cool with that because it gave us an excuse to go to a different country! So it turned out that the bus we needed left about an hour before we got to the bus station and the next one didn't leave till the morning. That wasn't going to happen. We got a taxi (which turned out to be some random man that just got off of work and decided to be a taxi driver for an hour) and he drove us to the border. I didn't think we would be able to find someone because taxi drivers only do short distances here. The only thing was that he wasn't allowed to drive across the border so he had to drop us off and we walked across the border because he kinda took us to the street. Im pretty sure what we did was illegal because technically you cant really cross the border unless you go through the security first so they can check your passport. Long story short we got our passports stamped, drove past the giant statue of Jesus, got a bus to Machala (the closets tourist town to the border) and found a place to stay. The hotel was nice! It even had a WARM shower! Not sure I'll get another one of those for a couple months. We got settled in, found a place to eat and then walked around the park in front of our hotel for a bit. Ecuadorians are super nice! The people at the hotel loved talking to us because we knew Spanish and even ended up making us breakfast for free the next morning! They thought we were funny because we were asking questions like "Wait, there are 4 beds? and a shower? like in the room? and a toilet with toilet paper?" Im sure they thought we were crazy but it was better than we were expecting and only $12/person (they use American dollars in Ecuador). In the end, Ecuador was fun. We walked around the market, explored, went to church, renewed our visas, and took a bus back to Peru. One of the funnier moments in Ecuador was when we were in the market getting ready to leave and I called my friend Sean's name so that he knew we were leaving. Once I yelled it, some random guy on the street starting saying his name too, except he didn't pronounce it right and it sounded like Chan. Two seconds later, the entire market started saying "Chan! Chan! Chan!" Needless to say, he finally hear us and we headed out. It was a short trip, but very worth it.

          On the way back to Piura, we stopped at Mancora beach which is a super touristy area. There were so many white people it blew my mind. It made me want to come back to South America and backpack for a month or something. We ate dinner, walked around the beach, shopped a little, then took a bus back home. We were greeted right when we got home but the cute little family that lives below us. I love them so much. It is so nice to be back and it truly feels like home to me now. I loved being welcomed back and loved by the little boys.

Pre-boat tour.

My dudes.

Risking my life to touch a croc. Please note the awesome farmers tan. Love it.

Bird island. The red ones are male, white are female.

Walking across the border.

Dinner in Ecuador!

Plantain trees for days in Ecuador.

Mancora

And of course, photos purely for the eye:

Hope you enjoyed this post! Keep following for an update on this weeks projects! P.S. I may or may not have gone mosquito hunting. Makes you want to read my next post, eh? Ill be back soon!