The Maximum Security Apartment

Today is a holiday in Peru, the "Dia del Trabajador" or the "Day of the Worker." So the worker takes the day off and celebrates. We figured we wouldn't be able to go visit any of our small business owners today, so we took the day off too. Peru has been full of tiny little surprises for us.

One of the first ones yesterday was realizing that the tank of our toilet doesn't fill up with water. In order to flush, we have to fill a bucket up with water, fill the tank up, and then flush. Some of the other surprises have been tons of cockroaches in our apartment, a shower that only has cold water, and locks that just don't function like American locks.

Today after Heather and I took our cold showers, we were supposed to go over to Jenry and Margarita's house to meet them for breakfast and then go play for the day. When Heather and I went to leave, we couldn't unlock our front door. Our house has three doors--one to get inside the apartment building, one for the iron gate over our front door, and then the actual wooden front door. We were inside the apartment and couldn't get the wooden door open from the inside. We tried all our keys but the door wouldn't unlock. Jenry doesn't have a car, but this apartment has a garage, so we decided to go through the garage door and out of the apartment that way. We got into the garage and let the door from the apartment to the garage shut behind us. Bad idea. Garage doors in Peru aren't nice little doors like in America where you push a button and it rolls up. Garage doors are made up of a middle section which is actually a door that you walk through. You open this door and then move the side panels to the side in order to get your car through. It was work to get the garage door open, but we finally managed. For a moment we thought we were going to be locked in the garage.

Once we had escaped, Heather stayed in the garage to lock the door behind me, and I went back into the apartment from the outside to let her get out through the apartment front door. It took some work for me to get back into the apartment. The keys don't turn the same as in the United States and there's so many different latches...it takes forever. So I finally got back in and released Heather from her prison. Once we were back in the apartment, with the front door open, we locked the front door...but when we went to go out through the front door of the building...we couldn't get it open from the inside. So again, we were trapped.

I went back into the apartment feeling a little defeated...while Heather stood outside. Luckily, someone came along and opened the main door to the apartment building while Heather was still standing there, so we were free!!! When we finally made it over to Jenry and Margarita's apartment, they were relieved to finally see us. They had been wondering what could possibly be taking us half an hour to cross the small park between our houses. We walk slowly, okay?