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!

The Tall White Chick

WARNING: This may not be the most entertaining post, but it will give you a good idea of what I've been working on. I have to get up to date, so here it goes...

So yes, I am the tall white chick that people whisper about here. I've heard it a couple times. Not only do I stick out because I'm white, but also because I'm tall; much taller than Peruvians. Piura is not touristy at all so it is very rare to see white people walking around. People whistle and blow kisses at the girls in our group all the time. A man last week even asked if he could take a picture with me (after we watched his kids brake dancing in the street). He proceeded to point to the sky referencing to the fact that I was super tall. It just makes me laugh. At least I can make people happy, right? That's what I'm here for.

So I've been here for almost 2 weeks now and it blows my mind! We have done so much already which is why it has taken me so long to blog...no time! I've been trying to keep a journal, but let's be honest, there has never actually been a time in my life where I was consistent with a journal, and we all know I'm not going to be able to keep up with that AND a blog so I chose the blog as my first priority since they are pretty much the same thing but more fun. 

We're getting settled in all of our projects. Some of them haven't started yet, and some are still trying to get off the ground, but we've definitely made some progress. Here's what we have already done:

• We partnered up with the Liahona Foundation and held Health Screenings in Catacaos, Sechura, la Unión, and Castilla for local kids under the age of 5 and pregnant women. We will be doing this again either this weekend or next weekend in Ecuador! Boom. Add that to the list of places I've been! The Liahona Foundation is working to get an assistant in each of these areas to provide health plans for the kids and women as well as do follow ups with each family every so often to make sure they are staying healthy.
• We worked with the Red Cross and held a Health Clinic down the street from where we live. At the health clinic we did physical therapy, and taught the locals about Dengue Fever, which comes from mosquitos and is very prevalent in the area. Some of the adults were actually frustrated that the government hadn't told them anything about it, only tested them, so they were very grateful that we were willing to help their community and advise them about the dangers of this disease. 
• We have started teaching English, Piano, and Zumba at an LDS Stake Building nearby! We weren't exactly sure what to expect attendance wise the first couple classes, but to our surprise, attendance has been awesome! We do this every T/Th evening. I have really enjoyed teaching so far because it forces me to practice my Spanish more. The student are super fast learners and are so excited to work with us!

We've got some amazing things going on so far, and many more new projects starting this week! I'm loving it here and look forward to the next 2 1/2 months. Days have been flying by! Here's my review in photos:

The English Institution where we will be helping at starting in June.
(separate from the classes in the church)

These kids live in a small pueblo called Noe which is basically in the middle of
nowhere. They never see white people and some even cried when they saw us.

In awe of Cecilia's cell phone.

El  Parque Ecológico de la Urbanización

Red Cross Health Clinic

Isn't he adorable?? One of the boys at the Health Screenings with the
Liahona Foundation in Sechura.

Weekend dancing crew.

A small restaurant/house where we ate after purchasing pottery in Chulucanas.

Something I love about Peru is that each city we've been to is extremely different even though they are relatively close to each other. So here are some of my favorite photos solely to show to beauty of Peru:

Not a great photo but this is the street we live on.

On the drive to Chulucanas.

A beach near Paita.

This is a common sight in a lot of places we've been to.

Paita, a great spot for fishing!

Found a lucky seahorse on the beach! Apparently people search their whole lives
for these because they bring you the best luck.

As always, if you would like to donate towards the projects we are currently working on, it is much appreciated! The people here are extremely appreciative towards our efforts to help them and I can promise your donation is going to good use! Click Here and make sure you select "Support a Volunteer or Intern" and put "Zoe Theobald" in the memo line like the photo below! 

If you prefer not to donate online, you can also mail in a check to the following address and make sure you designate it as well or else donations will be sent to other locations:

455 North University Parkway

Provo, Utah 84606

Chao!

Estoy aquí!

Well, its crazy to say, but I am FINALLY here. I've been planning this trip for months and can now say that I live in Piura, Peru! It's been quite an adventure already. I flew out of Phoenix because I spent a week there with my family. I had a layover in Dallas, and then Lima, and now I'm here in Piura. On the flight from Lima to Piura, we had to walk up a thing of stairs from outside like they do in the movies. I don't know why I thought that was cool because I guess people do it all the time, but I liked it! The flight to Peru gave me plenty of time to think about everything that was about to hit me. I didn't sign up with anyone I knew because I wanted it to be an adventure of my own, similar to when people serve missions. I know this is going to be a huge learning experience for me. When I lived in Hawaii, I learned a lot about myself and my personality. I learned about culture, found new hobbies, and made goals for myself. I hope to come to similar realizations while I'm here in Peru, that will expand my knowledge of the world, and open up more opportunities for me later in life. I have met a lot of amazing people already that I know are going to challenge me in a good way. I'm looking forward to learning the language better. It's hard to not be able to say what I want, whenever I want! 

We are living in a house owned by Mary and Pedro. They have 4 young boys that I have already fallen in love with. They are hilarious and are going to teach me some of their sweet dance moves. I stole this picture of their family from my director Angela.

One hard thing about being here is knowing when it's ok to whip out a camera and when it's totally not. My mind just see's things like it's a photograph and there have been so many times that I wanted to stop and take a photo, but I don't want anything bad to happen! I did put myself on a limb today and walked around with some friends to take a few photos. I probably make it sound like a super sketchy place, but its not. We just have to be careful because we already are a target because they think we are rich white people. Little do they know I'm just a broke college student. I like taking photos of people. Im not very good at composition of landscape, so here is one I took today! -->

Once I nail the language down, things will become much easier. I understand most things people say, which is an awesome feeling, but I cant keep up and speak just as fast yet! I've realized that Spanish has opened up a whole other world for me. There is so much for me to learn, and so much more I can do for these people because I speak their language.

Yesterday we met with some people around town that have projects for us to do once everyone is here. I'm excited to get started on them! After meeting with several people, we had lunch with the home owners. Mary made us aguacate relleno con camarones, which is shrimp stuffed avocados. It was so good! Last night we stopped by the YSA stake center here and said hi to some people and then went to dinner with Mary and Pedro. When we got back, we played soccer with the little boys and some of the neighbors for an hour or two. I can definitely get used to that. I haven't played in a while but I love soccer and want to get back into it. I would not mind playing street soccer every night! Today has been chill too because some of the people in our group are still arriving. We walked around a lot and stopped by some markets. I'm beginning to get a good idea of the lifestyle here. The people don't have very much but are happy and very lively. There are people and moto taxi's everywhere you look. Its fun to cruise around because there are literally no traffic rules, but somehow theres a pattern that everyone follows because amongst all the craziness, all the drivers know what their doing.

I've only been here 2 days and I feel like I've already been through half of the clothes I brought...probably because I kind of have. The next three months will be something I will never forget! Im excited to get to know the people and the language more. Next month we are spending a couple days in Trujillo, a couple days in Lima, and 6 days in Cusco to see Machu Picchu!

As always, if you would like to donate towards the projects we will be doing, click here and make sure you select "Support a Volunteer or Intern" and put "Zoe Theobald" in the memo line like the photo below! I will post more updates on projects soon so you know what it's going towards!

If you prefer not to donate online, you can also mail in a check to the following address and make sure you designate it as well:

455 North University Parkway
Provo, Utah 84606

Muchas gracias! Adiós!

10

It's hard to believe that I will be leaving for Peru in 10 DAYS. 

I want to thank those that have contributed towards the programs I will be working on this summer! Thank you for being supportive in my journey. I literally would not be able to do this without you all! When I started seeing all the donations come in under my name, it was such a humbling experience. There are so many good people in this world and I hope that one day I can be as generous as you all have been.  

Thank you to the following:

Kelly Jennings

Steve and Joni Smit

Tom and Katie Kauffman

Russ and Melody Berg

Kirk and Toby Guthrie

Carlos and Kathleen Rojas

Ed and Laura Packard

Geoffrey and Susan Waldrom

Ernie and Gina Baird

Ben and Meg Tahyar
Ryan and Katie Millar

Thank you again! I hope to continue adding names to this list, but I wanted to make sure these people were recognized!