volleyball

Its not only about futbol down here in cajamarca there is a great passion for volleyball as well, and they will string up a net where ever posible, even in the middle of the street. Considerate though, to stop their game a lift the net just high enough for a car to pass through. This game happened to take place on a very steep street, good thing they have pretty quick reflexes or they will be half way to the center of town before the catch a loose ball!

The fam

Heres a photo at Vaca Loca (the crazy cow) resturant here in cajamarca. They have the best pizza, and plenty of room for 8 big gringos. The Pacha family joined us for dinner that night as well. The people here definitly loved seeing us walk around town together, especially Shawn´s da sporting a super sweet mustache and cowboy hat. people cant grow facial hair all that well here.

hiding shy

just another photo i couldnt pass up to post. the kids really are the cutest here, shawn and i are thinking about stealing a couple....

Priceless Cumbemayo

This Picture is above all my Favorite. Taken at Cumbemayo of Luz and her older sister. I traded them Trader Joe´s chocolate granola bars for their photo.

On Thursday morning of the famiy trip ( i think nov 9) we headed up and up into the mountains to walk around Cumbemayo. It was a breathtaking place to see and we met some of the cutest kids here. With only a population of 20 families, we weren´t piled with cheap souviners, instead trade money, or in my case all the snacks i had, for photos of the local people there. Here didn´t seem to be the traditional "ruins" as in other places we visited, but massice rock formations, and much like watching clouds our guide pointed out different firgures in the rocks. There was a quite impressiva canal the Incan Channel which had been built by the former inhabitants, most likely for watering their crops. If you want the real story ask shawn´s mom she was by far the best listener on all our tours, the rest of us were like elementary school kids that just want to look and play reather than listen, but we had a lot of fun here. In the picture of Shawn with the little girl he is talking to here about the yarn she is spinning, all over the area of cajamarca you will see women with a big fluff of wool on a stick in one hand, and spinning it on to another stick in the other, it is really quite amazing, and even though this girl hadn´t perfected the art, it was stil great to see.

ancient Cemetary

Otuzco. These are some incan ruins near Cajamarca. The first time Shawn and I went we walked all the way there in the rain, and made it most of the way back opting for a taxi near the airport. Its prolly a good 5 mile walk or more from our apt. The hole you see in the side of the rock were to burry peoples remains. the bodies were left out for some time until the flesh and skin came off and then the bones were put in one of these little caverns and sealed with cement or something of the like. In Otuzco, the same as every tourist site we were bombarded with little kids that wanted to be our tour guides, or sing for us or sell us fossils, or just give them money. They are cute, but that doesnt make it hard to say no when there are 15 of them dancing around you. The picture of this girl, whom I actually met twice, was taken the second time I went to Otuzco when Shawn´s family came to visit. The rocks on the blanket in front of her are actually fossils that the local people find in the hills across from otuzco, pretty amazing that there are shells and starfish fossils definitly from the sea, Noah´s ark time i figure. How else do they get in to the middle of the Andes? Anyway I thought she was a beautiful girl, and she even remembered me from the first time we came. We had a lot of fun on our tours of the area around cajamarca.

A Latin Temple

Our Thanksgiving was spent eating tuna sandwiches and oreo cookies during the first of two horribly, uncomfortable bus rides; no leg room or airconditioning and the people here don´t like a cold breeze so we couldn´t even have our window open! The buses were far less comfortable then the one we originally traveled to cajamarca in, HOWEVER we quickly learned the sacrifice that the members of the church make to attend the Lima temple once or even twice a year. We were happy to be able to be with people from our ward and another ward in Cajamarca. The bus in the picture of Shawn and I is definitly not our bus, it looks nice and comfortable. The family we are with in this other picture in the Pacha´s. He is the Bishop, she is the Primary President (i am now a counsler) and Ceilo is their beautiful, about to turn 9, daughter. We get to spend a lot of time with them and we have a lot of fun. Yanet is my favorite and only friend here, she is the one who got me the teaching job at Cielo´s school, which i quit about a week ago. I didn´t like the lack of structure in the school, and because none of the kids understood english and my spanish is far from great, it made it very difficult to communicate and teach. Unfortunatly the teacher before me returned to teach english, which he doesnt understand, but at least he can communicate better with the students, even if he thinks it´s important to teach them words like; golf stick, vaulting horse, dorsal and zodiac signs no less. Obviously things you must know in order to communicate in english! I get a good laugh at it. I sure miss those kids, but since I have taken a few other private teaching jobs and making more with less hours, so Shawn and i get more time together.

the Picchu

These pictures are from the top of Huayna Picchu. You can see Machu Picchu below us in the picture on your left.4 of us from the group including Shawn and I decided to get crazy and hike Huayna Picchu which is the taller of the mountains you see in this picture.

This Blog might be a little backwards, but its been a long week. We have done alot of touring in the past couple weeks, but our last trip was by far the most magnificent. Shawn´s family came to visit us, it was so nice to have people to speak english with. We did a whole lot of touring right here around Cajamarca, and a whole lot of shopping to go with it. Then we all flew to Lima and then Cusco last friday and saturday and finally we reached our final destination of Machu Picchu. I had been reading a whole lot about it before our trip and it is true that you can never describe it through pictures or words, no matter how good you are, it feels unreal even when you are standing amoung those ruins! It was truly amazing.

I tried to take a lot of pictures, but wasn´t able to capture what i wanted.

The Incas probably didn´t use these opening for seats, but they sure came in handy for a rest.

I will post our other adventures from cajamarca and cusco soon...

love stina

Ricardo Palma

I teach english, I don´t know much, but monday through thursday from 8-1 i teach 1-10 graders at Ricardo Palma Elementary. These poor kids don´t know alot of english, so that makes me feel better for not having a teaching certificate (not that i need one here). Their last teacher was a Peruvian who taught french and english, but i am not sure he had a certificate either, but hey i got one on him for being a native speaker, i didn´t know that "What it is time?¨ was a corredt sentence, but in one class i have he marked student´s notebook correct along with 17 other completly wrong sentences. I have a lot of work to do, first fixing all the mistakes and then hopfully helping them retain good pronunciation and communication skills....we´ll see.
I am learning a lot of spanish due to the fact that the majority of my students don´t understand more than ¨what is your name?¨ in english. I get paid just under $100 a month, not much but it gives us more than plenty of spending money for here.
I have taken on private lessons too. No students from my school, but a few from shawns patients. and i make a lot more doing that. I am having a blast spending time with kids here and getting to know them, they are vey patient with my lack of spanish, and i with their lack of english. we have fun.