So I thought I'd write a little bit about our adventures on Sunday night even though Heather has posted what we did tonight (Monday). When Heather and I arrived in Trujillo, the airport is really tiny. It's one room with a little conveyor belt to pick up your luggage. We exited the room to a huge crowd, which included a little band, some people with posters, a bunch of taxistas, and a whole group of people who felt like they needed to direct us and tell us where to go as we looked around for our ride. Our flight was the last flight of the evening, so they were turning off the lights of the airport and the parking lot was emptying. We tried calling our contact back in Salt Lake, we tried calling our parents, to no avail. Our cell phones, which supposedly would work with high rates down here didn't work at all, so...we kind of just stood there and tried to decide what to do. As it was, our flight had arrived probably a half an hour late so there shouldn't have been a problem for our contact to be there.
A lone taxista approached us and told us he could take us to a hotel where we could stay. Kind of suspect. But what are two gringas in a foreign country supposed to do? Probably stay put, but...we had no idea where the communication breakdown had occurred and we were basically going on two days of close to no sleep. At that moment, I remembered the words of a blessing my dad had given me before we left and I actually felt like we would be okay. So we decided on a hotel and went with the taxista. The hotel was a nice one located right off the Plaza de Armas of Trujillo. We had checked in and had tried to use the phone to call people (which we couldn't figure out how to use to make international calls) so then resorted to using the internet when we received a phone call from the front desk. Our contact here in Trujillo, Jenry (Henry), had located us at the hotel where we were through some great detective work. Actually, it's not too hard to imagine, but some of the taxistas here work for certain hotels to try to get people to stay with them, so when Jenry went to the airport, they described with whom we had gone and which hotel he worked for and it wasn't too hard to find us. There had been a simple miscommunication about what day we were coming in. Jenry happened to call our Salt Lake contact about the time we arrived and realized that he should have been at the airport right then so he ran out to find us. Of course Terry and Jaime and Jenry and everyone was worried about us, but Heather and I were just relaxing in a 4-star hotel, kicking back, watching programs about plastic surgery, and nibbling on chocolates. :) Okay, it wasn't quite like that. We had just gotten there, but since we had already checked in, it seemed simpler to stay.
It was fun to stay in the hotel. The funny thing is this hotel wasn't anything amazing, but you could tell it was a nice hotel for the area. It reminded me of when I went to Manhattan last November. The hotel where I stayed was a W, the room was tiny, it was in Midtown Manhattan surrounded by high rises and brick buildings, and it wasn't really what you would consider the best place, but knowing that I was in Midtown in a clean hotel room the size of a closet with Voss water bottles, fine mahogany furnishings, M&M's that cost $6, and people in the bar downstairs that were so full of their own beauty...I just knew I had reached the pinnacle of social perfection. Kidding. This hotel wasn't snobby, but it was the same in that it was pretty, in a nice location, and our first two water bottles were on the house, so...you know it's the big time.
We actually stayed up pretty late checking our email and eating the finest Peruvian cuisine that room service can offer. In the morning, we slept until about 9 a.m. and debated for 40 minutes if we should go down for breakfast. We were so tired we really just wanted to lounge for the next three weeks. But at 9:45 it suddenly hit that we were starving, so we tried to make ourselves look presentable...alls I gotta say is look at our pictures of us in Lima, imagine us that same way only after having slept for 8 hours so our hair is even messier, and then imagine us wearing black fleece jackets, me in my black velour pants that everyone I know hates and Heather in warmups. Everyone else in the dining room was dressed up because this isn't the Motel 8 with the free donuts for continental breakfast, but...we only had five minutes to get ready and ten minutes to eat. So we pretended that we thought we were normal and ate scrambled eggs, pancakes, chorizo sausage, bacon, fresh fruit, fresh juice, cheese, ham...we were hungry, okay?
After breakfast, we got to shower again. I don't know what it is about traveling but every time I get to shower, I feel like it's a decadent luxury. So hooray for showering! After we got ready, Jenry came to get us and bring us to the place where we will be staying for the rest of our time. We are actually sleeping at the office. We're pretty much workaholics so that's why they set it up that way. Either that or real estate is an even more precious commodity here. Jenry lives across from us and works at the office during the day. The office is made up of a big training room, a couple of offices for Jenry and his assistant Miguel, and then another empty room in the very back of the offices that is being used as a bedroom by us. There is a bathroom in the front of the office and then we have our own bathroom equipped with...that's right...a shower! So it's going to be nothing but decadent luxuries from here on out. The office also has a kitchen that they're going to set up for future interns, but they've only been in this location for a couple of days, so we'll probably spend most of our time eating with Jenry y familia.
Our room has a bunkbed and we have wireless internet. Pretty much we're set. The only thing that is really sad for us is the lack of a kitchen. For anyone who has spent time with Heather and me late in the evening, you know that time is measured only by man and not by the hunger of woman. Heather will often eat at 10 and call it her fourth meal and I'm pretty much down with choco-latay any time of day. We went to the supermercado tonight with Jenry and his family to get potable water for the place. Heather and I were both conservative and didn't buy anything there, but sure enough...at about 11, we were feeling sad about not having a secret stash of anything...except water. I think we learned our lesson, though, and we're going to stock this place with crackers and chocolates for tomorrow night.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Family Home Evening
Tonight we were invited to FHE with Jenry's cute little family. Their little 3-year-old boy, Adrian, was incharge of conducting the meeting. He welcomed us to his home, he let us know who would be incharge of the opening prayer, the opening hymn, the lesson, and the closing prayer. He gave himself the assignment of giving the lesson. We sang a song neither Danielle or I had ever heard of before, listened to Adrian's cute little self-appointed lesson about Jesus, listened to a lesson given by Jenry about the importance of temples, and then closed with another song and a prayer.
Although in Spanish, and although in another country, I couldn't help but notice all of the similarities between this little family's attempt to have family home evening and that of my family when we were all super obnoxious, hyper-active kids. A dad trying to give the lesson over the sound of a screaming child, both parents trying to get everybody to sing while a child is mad because his hymn wasn't chosen, and a mom doing all that she can to get everybody through the evening with smiles on their faces.
Whether in a home with 5 rowdy kids in WA or an apartment with 1 rowdy kid in Peru, the gospel is taught to children by their parents in the home. And that is a beautiful thing.
Although in Spanish, and although in another country, I couldn't help but notice all of the similarities between this little family's attempt to have family home evening and that of my family when we were all super obnoxious, hyper-active kids. A dad trying to give the lesson over the sound of a screaming child, both parents trying to get everybody to sing while a child is mad because his hymn wasn't chosen, and a mom doing all that she can to get everybody through the evening with smiles on their faces.
Whether in a home with 5 rowdy kids in WA or an apartment with 1 rowdy kid in Peru, the gospel is taught to children by their parents in the home. And that is a beautiful thing.
Daniel and Javier in Lima
So Heather and I learned that our names aren't very Spanish. We already knew that. People can't seem to say Heather. If we spell it for them (Jeder), they usually do better. My name is a boy's name in Spanish (Daniel in Spanish is pronounced how Danielle is in English), so I've just been telling people that my name is Daniela.
We arrived yesterday morning (Sunday) at 5 a.m. and after passing through customs, we collected our luggage at the airport and were met by Eduardo Marquez. Eduardo is a member of the church here in Lima. He took us back to his house with his family where we were able to sleep two more hours. That was great, but even after sleeping, we were still exhausted. We got up, showered, and got dressed. His wife made us a great breakfast of tamales, onions, and herbal tea and then we went to church. After the three of us fell asleep during sacrament meeting, we decided to drive around the city a little bit.
We went to the Plaza de Armas de Lima where we sort of watched the changing of the guard at the White House (what they call their White House :). In that same plaza is the mayor's house, and a cathedral that they call La Catedral where Francisco Pizarro, one of the Spanish Conquistadors, is buried. There were tons of people in the Plaza and apparently a little miscommunication as to who had the right to be there, so there were police there kind of sectioning the areas off and doing a little bit of crowd control. There were a few Andean groups waiting to come into the Plaza and dance in their native costumes. We walked around for a bit and then took off in search of food.
We went to a part of Lima called Miraflores. It's a wealthier part of town. In truth, when we got off the plane, the part of Lima where the airport is situated is super poor. We passed miles of buildings that that early in the morning just appeared to be abandoned because of their state, but later in the day, there were tons of people bustling about. The streets were totally dusty; in fact, in that part of town, I don't think they were paved, so everything seemed covered in dust. Miraflores was definitely a contrast, but it really just seemed kind of like a normal place that you'd find in the USA. It didn't seem particularly wealthy. It did remind me a little of Santa Monica, California with narrower streets lined with tall buildings and cool boutiques just minutes from the shore.
We ate in a restaurant called La Bruja de Cachiche. It was typical Peruvian food, but it was definitely a nicer restaurant. It was frequented by the European-looking set that you find in places like Spain or Italy or...Napa Valley. The people who wear really expensive jeans with leather boots, button down shirts and sweaters wrapped around their shoulders. The food there was great. I know my family would be totally interested in food details, but I'll spare the rest of you.
After lunch, we drove a little along the coast, which is called La Costa Verde (the green coast) for all the green vegetation in the area. It really wasn't lush like Washington, but compared to the other coastal parts of Peru like the rest of Lima and Trujillo, I guess it's fairly lush. Driving along the coast actually reminded me again of Santa Monica and Malibu and driving up the Pacific Coast Highway. It had the same sort of feel. We stopped at a beach just to get out and look around and the waters were dotted with the same black dots that you see in Santa Cruz, that is, surfers. The coast of Peru is supposedly world famous as a great surfing spot.
We also drove up to the temple and the Peruvian MTC just to get a look at them. The church has pretty high security here. The walls are totally cement and you can't see through them near the entryway to the MTC, but the guard opened a metal door for us (at Eduardo's request) and let us glance in. We didn't even get to pass the threshhold. It seemed really beautiful there. As usual, the church takes really great care of their property.
Finally, we went to collect our things and headed to the airport for a dinner of crackers and chocolate that we picked up at our friendly neighborhood airport convenience store. And did you know that Peru has an airline tariff that you pay on top of your regular ticket price and fees? It cost us $6.05 to fly to Trujillo, but supposedly it'll cost us $30 to leave the country. The beauty of that is that we have a layover in Peru on our way out of the country before we even leave Lima, so we'll get to pay twice the taxes.
Lima was great. I really don't think we got to see very much of it, but our layover in Lima on our way back to the US is another 12 hours, so...we might check out a few more hotspots. :)
We arrived yesterday morning (Sunday) at 5 a.m. and after passing through customs, we collected our luggage at the airport and were met by Eduardo Marquez. Eduardo is a member of the church here in Lima. He took us back to his house with his family where we were able to sleep two more hours. That was great, but even after sleeping, we were still exhausted. We got up, showered, and got dressed. His wife made us a great breakfast of tamales, onions, and herbal tea and then we went to church. After the three of us fell asleep during sacrament meeting, we decided to drive around the city a little bit.
We went to the Plaza de Armas de Lima where we sort of watched the changing of the guard at the White House (what they call their White House :). In that same plaza is the mayor's house, and a cathedral that they call La Catedral where Francisco Pizarro, one of the Spanish Conquistadors, is buried. There were tons of people in the Plaza and apparently a little miscommunication as to who had the right to be there, so there were police there kind of sectioning the areas off and doing a little bit of crowd control. There were a few Andean groups waiting to come into the Plaza and dance in their native costumes. We walked around for a bit and then took off in search of food.
We went to a part of Lima called Miraflores. It's a wealthier part of town. In truth, when we got off the plane, the part of Lima where the airport is situated is super poor. We passed miles of buildings that that early in the morning just appeared to be abandoned because of their state, but later in the day, there were tons of people bustling about. The streets were totally dusty; in fact, in that part of town, I don't think they were paved, so everything seemed covered in dust. Miraflores was definitely a contrast, but it really just seemed kind of like a normal place that you'd find in the USA. It didn't seem particularly wealthy. It did remind me a little of Santa Monica, California with narrower streets lined with tall buildings and cool boutiques just minutes from the shore.
We ate in a restaurant called La Bruja de Cachiche. It was typical Peruvian food, but it was definitely a nicer restaurant. It was frequented by the European-looking set that you find in places like Spain or Italy or...Napa Valley. The people who wear really expensive jeans with leather boots, button down shirts and sweaters wrapped around their shoulders. The food there was great. I know my family would be totally interested in food details, but I'll spare the rest of you.
After lunch, we drove a little along the coast, which is called La Costa Verde (the green coast) for all the green vegetation in the area. It really wasn't lush like Washington, but compared to the other coastal parts of Peru like the rest of Lima and Trujillo, I guess it's fairly lush. Driving along the coast actually reminded me again of Santa Monica and Malibu and driving up the Pacific Coast Highway. It had the same sort of feel. We stopped at a beach just to get out and look around and the waters were dotted with the same black dots that you see in Santa Cruz, that is, surfers. The coast of Peru is supposedly world famous as a great surfing spot.
We also drove up to the temple and the Peruvian MTC just to get a look at them. The church has pretty high security here. The walls are totally cement and you can't see through them near the entryway to the MTC, but the guard opened a metal door for us (at Eduardo's request) and let us glance in. We didn't even get to pass the threshhold. It seemed really beautiful there. As usual, the church takes really great care of their property.
Finally, we went to collect our things and headed to the airport for a dinner of crackers and chocolate that we picked up at our friendly neighborhood airport convenience store. And did you know that Peru has an airline tariff that you pay on top of your regular ticket price and fees? It cost us $6.05 to fly to Trujillo, but supposedly it'll cost us $30 to leave the country. The beauty of that is that we have a layover in Peru on our way out of the country before we even leave Lima, so we'll get to pay twice the taxes.
Lima was great. I really don't think we got to see very much of it, but our layover in Lima on our way back to the US is another 12 hours, so...we might check out a few more hotspots. :)
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Time zones
By the way, I think all our posts so far are on Pacific Time because Heather's mom set the blog up for us and she's in Washington State. I think Peru is on Central time and currently we're on Eastern time. One of these days, we'll update our settings so that it shows our actual time. :) In Miami, it's almost midnight...
Bienvenidos a Miami!
Heather and I are sitting here in the Miami International Airport. Two words, Miami: moving walkways. Actually, in spite of my lack of sleep last night, I’m not that tired so the walking isn’t a problem, but I do think that international airports should have light rail to get around the airport quickly or at the very least moving walkways. It’s the principle of the thing, people.
It has been a long day already, but not a bad one by any means. My sweet dad dropped me off at the airport this morning, where Heather and I met up and proceeded to crack ourselves up telling ridiculous jokes, which is what happens when you’re both giddy from no sleep. It was a class act comedy hour. Everything one of us said provoked a laughing fit from the other person.
The day has been semi-uneventful. We ran into my brother Martin’s friend Lance in the airport in SLC. And then later on our flight to Dallas, another one of Martin’s friends, Andrew, was there with a whole crew of people going to Costa Rica. We all had trouble getting to our connecting flights when we got to Dallas. Our plane sat around in Salt Lake for close to an hour as they “[dealt] with a mechanical discrepancy with the plane.” The pilot was sure to let us know it wasn’t his fault. It was kind of random that he felt the need to say that. Heather and I had to sprint along with about 5 other people heading to Miami for a family reunion, but we made it.
So now we’re in Miami and in about 6 hours we’ll be in Lima hablando the espanol. It’s exciting. It’s this crazy mixture of feelings knowing we’re going out to this cool project, feeling a little bit nervous about having to switch into 100% Spanish after years of not speaking it regularly, being completely out of our comfort zones in a foreign country…but we’re both really excited and I’m so happy I have Heather with me. I already wrote this before, but Heather really is such a great friend and such an easy friend to be with. She just has this rad personality that meshes well with the likes of me, so that makes all of the other crazy transitions that much easier to deal with. We’ll probably board in a few minutes…I’m starting to feel tired emotionally and physically. I just hope we can get to a sacrament meeting tomorrow during our layover in Lima…
We miss everyone and have thought and talked about you guys all day. So much love to all our family and friends and congratulations to Casey for winning the Country Music Marathon in Nashville, Tennessee...or for at least finishing in great time! :)
It has been a long day already, but not a bad one by any means. My sweet dad dropped me off at the airport this morning, where Heather and I met up and proceeded to crack ourselves up telling ridiculous jokes, which is what happens when you’re both giddy from no sleep. It was a class act comedy hour. Everything one of us said provoked a laughing fit from the other person.
The day has been semi-uneventful. We ran into my brother Martin’s friend Lance in the airport in SLC. And then later on our flight to Dallas, another one of Martin’s friends, Andrew, was there with a whole crew of people going to Costa Rica. We all had trouble getting to our connecting flights when we got to Dallas. Our plane sat around in Salt Lake for close to an hour as they “[dealt] with a mechanical discrepancy with the plane.” The pilot was sure to let us know it wasn’t his fault. It was kind of random that he felt the need to say that. Heather and I had to sprint along with about 5 other people heading to Miami for a family reunion, but we made it.
So now we’re in Miami and in about 6 hours we’ll be in Lima hablando the espanol. It’s exciting. It’s this crazy mixture of feelings knowing we’re going out to this cool project, feeling a little bit nervous about having to switch into 100% Spanish after years of not speaking it regularly, being completely out of our comfort zones in a foreign country…but we’re both really excited and I’m so happy I have Heather with me. I already wrote this before, but Heather really is such a great friend and such an easy friend to be with. She just has this rad personality that meshes well with the likes of me, so that makes all of the other crazy transitions that much easier to deal with. We’ll probably board in a few minutes…I’m starting to feel tired emotionally and physically. I just hope we can get to a sacrament meeting tomorrow during our layover in Lima…
We miss everyone and have thought and talked about you guys all day. So much love to all our family and friends and congratulations to Casey for winning the Country Music Marathon in Nashville, Tennessee...or for at least finishing in great time! :)
Mas informacion al fin...
I've been packing for hours and I thought I'd take a blogging break. The thing about me is there are a lot of things that I'm pretty indifferent on, but the stuff that I have opinions on--watch out. Because I'm pretty precise and pretty methodical. I've been studying my bookshelves looking at all of my books trying to decide, "Will I need that in Trujillo? Will I need that in Morristown?" After that, I looked at the junk in my bathroom: "What perfume should go to Trujillo? What perfume should go to Morristown?" It's sort of ridiculous. And I think I'm taking way more kitchen stuff to my internship than most people. I'm taking a food processor, a blender, a vegetable spiralizer, water bottles and smoothie cups, at least ten cookbooks...and the funny thing is my place is furnished, but people please. Is their blender a Blendtec (www.willitblend.com) and is their food processor a KitchenAid?
Tonight Heather and I had the opportunity to meet Jaime and Terry Figueroa. To be honest...I don't know if they own Eagle Condor, are major donors for Eagle Condor, fly like eagles and condors...whoever they are, they're major players and have been key contacts through the process. Jaime just got home from Peru today and he and Terry stopped by Provo on their way to Manti. They explained the project to us more and showed us pictures.
Basically, the 20 families who have recently received microcredit loans just became 40. Jaime explained that they would like for us to go visit every family/business, make an assessment on their business and do a write-up with suggestions. Some of these suggestions, we can obviously share with the families, but Jaime and Terry stressed that these people are in the most extreme poverty just starting a business and that they really do need baby steps to progress. So we'll share a few things and then next summer, a large expedition will go down and help with major improvements, probably in the way of physical changes (tiling baking areas) and training. So we're going to write up forty reports and share them with Eagle Condor and with two other interns from Eagle Condor.
One of the interns, Dan Ash, Heather and I met earlier this week. He and his friend (Clint?) are going down there a couple of days after us and they'll be primarily in Cuzco. Hopefully, we'll meet up with them to go to Machu Picchu. Because that's what Peru is about. It's just a big vacation for the four of us. Just kidding. But Dan and Clint are going to be doing documentation regarding some of the families and their businesses in the Cuzco area and then after Heather and I leave Trujillo, they'll come through and do more documentation of progress--picture taking, more reporting--so it will be really useful for them to have our write-ups.
Jaime and Terry also asked us to really try to help the people learn marketing, so we're going to create a training to teach basic marketing principles. As all BYU MBA students know, learning marketing is like drinking from a firehose, but...better than drinking from the Peruvian tap, from what we hear.
Jaime and Terry shared with us pictures of some of the families we're going to meet. It's really exciting. I know Heather and I are that much more pumped to go. They also told us where we're going to stay (in the office). We'll have a kitchen but no fridge yet, so we're going to be eating almost every meal out or at someone's house and we're going to have bunkbed and we should have internet in the house. Those are the exciting details so far. And we hear that Jaime and Terry have an "adopted" son down there who is single. Unfortunately for me, he's only 28, so he's too young, but Heather's gonna jump all over that.
It was really great to meet Jaime and Terry. The only sad part is that by the time we were done talking and I made it up to Darcie's graduation celebration...it was over. I was pretty sad. I'm leaving for four months and it would have been nice to hang out with my family for a little bit. Afterwards I called Tali Nay and vented about how no one but other MBA students really understand how relentlessly stressful our lives are because no one thinks we're cool enough to make shows like Grey's Anatomy and ER about us. Hmm, Darcie graduated in film, so I might have her help me remedy that. But the thing is MBA students are so busy there probably isn't anything interesting for the layfolk to watch. At least medical residents have time to date.
So...I better get back to sorting my lotions and my shoes and my sweaters. Right now I have 8 pairs of shoes laid out for Trujillo. I know it's wrong, but it's just so hard to choose.
Tonight Heather and I had the opportunity to meet Jaime and Terry Figueroa. To be honest...I don't know if they own Eagle Condor, are major donors for Eagle Condor, fly like eagles and condors...whoever they are, they're major players and have been key contacts through the process. Jaime just got home from Peru today and he and Terry stopped by Provo on their way to Manti. They explained the project to us more and showed us pictures.
Basically, the 20 families who have recently received microcredit loans just became 40. Jaime explained that they would like for us to go visit every family/business, make an assessment on their business and do a write-up with suggestions. Some of these suggestions, we can obviously share with the families, but Jaime and Terry stressed that these people are in the most extreme poverty just starting a business and that they really do need baby steps to progress. So we'll share a few things and then next summer, a large expedition will go down and help with major improvements, probably in the way of physical changes (tiling baking areas) and training. So we're going to write up forty reports and share them with Eagle Condor and with two other interns from Eagle Condor.
One of the interns, Dan Ash, Heather and I met earlier this week. He and his friend (Clint?) are going down there a couple of days after us and they'll be primarily in Cuzco. Hopefully, we'll meet up with them to go to Machu Picchu. Because that's what Peru is about. It's just a big vacation for the four of us. Just kidding. But Dan and Clint are going to be doing documentation regarding some of the families and their businesses in the Cuzco area and then after Heather and I leave Trujillo, they'll come through and do more documentation of progress--picture taking, more reporting--so it will be really useful for them to have our write-ups.
Jaime and Terry also asked us to really try to help the people learn marketing, so we're going to create a training to teach basic marketing principles. As all BYU MBA students know, learning marketing is like drinking from a firehose, but...better than drinking from the Peruvian tap, from what we hear.
Jaime and Terry shared with us pictures of some of the families we're going to meet. It's really exciting. I know Heather and I are that much more pumped to go. They also told us where we're going to stay (in the office). We'll have a kitchen but no fridge yet, so we're going to be eating almost every meal out or at someone's house and we're going to have bunkbed and we should have internet in the house. Those are the exciting details so far. And we hear that Jaime and Terry have an "adopted" son down there who is single. Unfortunately for me, he's only 28, so he's too young, but Heather's gonna jump all over that.
It was really great to meet Jaime and Terry. The only sad part is that by the time we were done talking and I made it up to Darcie's graduation celebration...it was over. I was pretty sad. I'm leaving for four months and it would have been nice to hang out with my family for a little bit. Afterwards I called Tali Nay and vented about how no one but other MBA students really understand how relentlessly stressful our lives are because no one thinks we're cool enough to make shows like Grey's Anatomy and ER about us. Hmm, Darcie graduated in film, so I might have her help me remedy that. But the thing is MBA students are so busy there probably isn't anything interesting for the layfolk to watch. At least medical residents have time to date.
So...I better get back to sorting my lotions and my shoes and my sweaters. Right now I have 8 pairs of shoes laid out for Trujillo. I know it's wrong, but it's just so hard to choose.
Friday, April 27, 2007
This is it! We're going!
I'm going to have to pull an all-nighter tonight. My house is still pretty much in disarray. Heather said I can't sleep until we're on the plane from Miami to Peru because it'll be better for me to sleep at night and not during the day during our SLC-Dallas or Dallas-Miami flights. Nice try. After finals week and all this mayhem, I'm going to be sleeping once I get to my seat in Salt Lake. Wake me up in Trujillo.
Heather and I met with this really great man, Alberto Puertas, today. Alberto is from Trujillo, but he is now an administrator at BYU working in the Career & Counseling Center in the Wilkinson Center. He has been really helpful. We went together to a Peruvian restaurant, La Carreta, in Orem for lunch a few days ago with another student, Dan Ash, who will be in a different part of Peru. Today we just talked about places to see in Lima during our layover, places to visit in Trujillo, who to contact in Cuzco...he even is having one of his friends who drives a taxi meet us in Lima so we can have a more guided/safe visit of the city. He told us that he'd be a darker complected, Incan-looking guy. Sounds easy to pick out! Actually, Mom Tucker and Mom Palmer, don't worry too much. He'll have a sign reading, "Daniela" (since Heather isn't Hispanic enough), so we'll be sure to go with the right guy.
I'm starting to get SUPER excited. I can't believe this is finally happening! My dad served his mission in Peru, so I've heard a little bit about it over the years. It'll be great to go down there and experience it myself.
So...I'm really just trying to get this all together. It's pretty insane. And I'm missing my little sister's graduation today. :( And I haven't had time to eat anything since the smoothie I made six hours ago. But I don't really have time to find something healthy to eat. Heather was telling me that she's going to try to help me learn how the other half (the people who live calmer lives) live while we're in Peru. "First you make a to-do list, then you make a schedule..." Just kidding, but I really think it will benefit me to see what it's like to not constantly be running from one chaos to the next. Heather is really good at getting everything done and not at a frenetic pace, so it'll be great for me to witness that. :) I'm really excited to be going on this trip and to be going with Heather. We didn't plan to apply together--though we knew the other person was applying--but I'm so glad it has worked out this way. Heather is such an amazing person. She genuinely desires to be good, she works hard, she loves other people, and she's such a sweet friend. Especially with us spending our summers in New Jersey (me) and Texas (Heather), it'll be fun to start the first three weeks off together.
All right, onward and upward! Showering, packing, more meetings, graduation celebrations, all-nighters...
Heather and I met with this really great man, Alberto Puertas, today. Alberto is from Trujillo, but he is now an administrator at BYU working in the Career & Counseling Center in the Wilkinson Center. He has been really helpful. We went together to a Peruvian restaurant, La Carreta, in Orem for lunch a few days ago with another student, Dan Ash, who will be in a different part of Peru. Today we just talked about places to see in Lima during our layover, places to visit in Trujillo, who to contact in Cuzco...he even is having one of his friends who drives a taxi meet us in Lima so we can have a more guided/safe visit of the city. He told us that he'd be a darker complected, Incan-looking guy. Sounds easy to pick out! Actually, Mom Tucker and Mom Palmer, don't worry too much. He'll have a sign reading, "Daniela" (since Heather isn't Hispanic enough), so we'll be sure to go with the right guy.
I'm starting to get SUPER excited. I can't believe this is finally happening! My dad served his mission in Peru, so I've heard a little bit about it over the years. It'll be great to go down there and experience it myself.
So...I'm really just trying to get this all together. It's pretty insane. And I'm missing my little sister's graduation today. :( And I haven't had time to eat anything since the smoothie I made six hours ago. But I don't really have time to find something healthy to eat. Heather was telling me that she's going to try to help me learn how the other half (the people who live calmer lives) live while we're in Peru. "First you make a to-do list, then you make a schedule..." Just kidding, but I really think it will benefit me to see what it's like to not constantly be running from one chaos to the next. Heather is really good at getting everything done and not at a frenetic pace, so it'll be great for me to witness that. :) I'm really excited to be going on this trip and to be going with Heather. We didn't plan to apply together--though we knew the other person was applying--but I'm so glad it has worked out this way. Heather is such an amazing person. She genuinely desires to be good, she works hard, she loves other people, and she's such a sweet friend. Especially with us spending our summers in New Jersey (me) and Texas (Heather), it'll be fun to start the first three weeks off together.
All right, onward and upward! Showering, packing, more meetings, graduation celebrations, all-nighters...
Thursday, April 26, 2007
The Realization Hits!
It's several hours later and I'm back at my house with 15 boxes, a bunch of bubble wrap, and an incredible mess. I haven't folded clothes for days, a semester's worth of dry cleaning is still lying in its plastic bag across piles of unfolded clean clothes on the side of my queen-size bed that I don't sleep on. My desk is covered with stacks and stacks of papers, as are my dresser and any place on the floor where I don't need to walk. There is the stack of textbooks I meant to sell back to the Bookstore and cases I meant to read. Tons and tons of articles about framing arguments, hiring back old employees, understanding organizational culture, making creativity a routine, Groupthink, Mt. Everest tragedies...litter EVERYTHING. My parents' dining room table--which easily seats 8--is also completely covered with anything and everything: notes about personality tests, accounting gibberish (a lot of good it did me when it came time for the final), packets of information I have yet to read about preparing for Peru, my laptop, empty notebooks, a kleenex box, an exercise about calculating the cost of absenteeism, a book from a professor called Rearing Responsible Children (he's probably wishing he had given it to my parents 30 years ago), syllabi, a ream of printer paper...AAAAAAAH! This place is a mess and my poor, sweet mother hasn't said anything about it. I know this kind of stuff drives her crazy. I don't even know where to start to organize my things for four months away.
And to add to my misery, I looked in the mirror yesterday and realized I've put on quite a bit of weight during this stressful semester so I decided after my organizational theory final yesterday that enough was enough and I worked out for 2+ hours, which leaves me completely sore today and limping around this disaster area at a slow-as-a-snail pace feeling totally incompetent.
I'm so overwhelmed. As Heather, our friend Erin Whitelock, and I wandered around stores this evening at 6 p.m., it suddenly hit me--I HAVE THINGS TO DO! So now I am here at home...blogging. At least some things never change. :) I better get back to my sore hamstrings, sore triceps, sore glutes, and this ridiculous mess. It'll be a miracle if Heather and I make it on that plane on Saturday at 1, but we're gonna do it. We're gonna make this miracle happen somehow...Trujillo, the gringas are comin'.
And to add to my misery, I looked in the mirror yesterday and realized I've put on quite a bit of weight during this stressful semester so I decided after my organizational theory final yesterday that enough was enough and I worked out for 2+ hours, which leaves me completely sore today and limping around this disaster area at a slow-as-a-snail pace feeling totally incompetent.
I'm so overwhelmed. As Heather, our friend Erin Whitelock, and I wandered around stores this evening at 6 p.m., it suddenly hit me--I HAVE THINGS TO DO! So now I am here at home...blogging. At least some things never change. :) I better get back to my sore hamstrings, sore triceps, sore glutes, and this ridiculous mess. It'll be a miracle if Heather and I make it on that plane on Saturday at 1, but we're gonna do it. We're gonna make this miracle happen somehow...Trujillo, the gringas are comin'.
The final countdown...
Two days till Trujillo! We actually have three days till Trujillo, but we leave in two. We just got done with finals yesterday (Heather) and today (me), so we're just jumping from one stress to another. So you're probably wondering what we're doing now to be highly effective business students. The answer is we're sitting around talking and working on our blog for a trip that we haven't even started yet. We're not packed yet for our internships this summer nor are we packed for Peru. Let's be honest, a little bit of procrastination is taking place, but...we're going to call it "decompressing" from the semester. We're going to get busy any second now, but first we have to go out to lunch...
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
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