Back in Action

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Contrary to Meg´s hopes we haven´t actually fallen off a mountain, but the internet situation here was letting us use the blog. Luckily for you all, with the help of our speedy internet in the house we can keep you all updated and in suspense of all of our Peruvian adventures. Since a month and a half has passed we are going to send you all a few updates to catch you up on our lives here.
Here´s what we had written when we were in Lima......
we´re alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ok, ok, stop celebrating. we are in Lima, living with four sisters, who are fabulous. it´s really like living in the middle of a sister act movie...jules and i are already planning to write the next sequel. so, the flight was good. i (kerry) had to be "wanded" at JFK and that time I had to wait like 10 minutes barefoot while Jule watched our bags (she was NOT allowed to touch mine...in case she slipped me any weapons or anything) then finally a woman came to feel me up. it was quite a process. anyways, after that we had a good flight. we watched "fever pitch", tried to sleep, but that wasn´t too easy, watched a gorgeous sunrise, and ate some delectable airline food. we get off, went through customs, and got our bags with no hassle at all. and then two little white sisters came skipping through the airport towards us, hugging us, and introducing themselves. one of them haggled with the taxi driver for a cheap price and we rode for about 15 minutes to our nice abode in the city. there is a wall in front of the yard with a door in it(that´s locked), then a cute little garden, then the front door of the house. the house is beautiful, but the wooden floors are REALLY slippery and we almost wiped out several times. then we said prayers quickly with all the sisters (in spanish, which was a tad difficult on no sleep and considering jule and i don´t really KNOW any prayers in spanish, but that´s ok). then we got fed some fresh bread and tea. then they let us sleep...YAY naps! anyways, after a bit more resting and some much needed showering, one of the sisters showed us around the neighborhood. since we´ve been here, we´ve visited the us embassy (to register), we´ve toured downtown Lima and made a "pilgrimage" to all of the cathedrals there. we went to mass at one of them. i was one of the tallest people in the packed church. we also got to experience the amazing talents of peruvian men at cat calls. their whistling skills are unbelievable. we´ve also been told that several men love us, think we´re beautiful, think we should be queens and Miss Universe. many also think we´re sisters. they´ve also invited us up to their offices and restaurants and we´ve gotten a couple of business cards. one of the sisters (who´s in charge of all the sisters in Peru and Colombia) who is from New Zealand and has a fabulous accent, LOVES to talk to strange men. she stops so many of them on the street, resulting in jules and i getting kissed and caressed by many men. one of them even pinched my cheek (the one on my face...get your minds out of the gutter) however, another guy did go for my cheeks on the other end...he wasn´t so much caressing me as pick pocketing me though. it was all ok though. i grabbed his hand, but he pulled away, then realized that it was only house keys and the card of one of the guys who had tried to pick us up earlier so he threw it back at me....yay, i got my stuff back! also, it was really funny cause the nun ran after him, yelling, " What do you think you´re doing?" She was totally scolding him, it was great. jules also got honked at by the driver of a bus, while we were riding a different bus. oh and speaking of the buses, they are CRAZY!!!!! they´re like vans or dilapidated old school buses, but minis. i actually barely fit on them and have hit my head several times. we also somtimes have to jump onto and off of them while they´re still moving so they don´t stop the flow of traffic. one of them also had holes in the floor, thankfully we did not fall through.
hmmm, what else....oh at a university here (La católica) they´re having a week of human rights events, so we´ve gone to see several movies about the terrorism and guerrilla warfare that was going on here from like 1980-2000. It´s pretty heavy stuff, but very interesting.
as for Lima itself, it´s a strange combination of wealth and poverty. You walk past the beautiful governmental palaces and then see homeless people and run down old apartment buildings. there are also kids who have to work all the time...selling stuff on the buses or on the streets. its pretty sad. there is also a strange presence of american industry here, like KFC and Pizza HUT and awful, ostentatious casinos built where the majority of people living there can´t afford their products. however, we did indulge in the presence of dunkin donuts today. sadly though, we couldn´t have iced coffee bcse we´re not supposed to have ice, cause the water will make us ill. however, our stomachs have mostly held out so far...keep your fingers crossed that the runs don´t come our way. also, they have a very unique kind of crossing guard here. they are people our age, dressed in yellow and blue with their faces painted like mimes and they actually do direct traffic, while at the same time being mimes/clowns. like they pull the cars forward with a pretend rope and make strange faces at the people who they are keeping on the side walk. we were very much amused by them.
so poop, a favorite topic of conversation... well we can do it in the toilet, but the toilet doesn´t always like to flush our poop (or anyone else´s for that matter) so sometimes we have to pour a bucket of water down the toilet to carry the poop down the pipes. also, we are not allowed to throw toilet paper in the bowl, instead we gotta wipe then throw it in the garbage and then in the afternoons they burn the poopy paper in an oven thing in the backyard, mmmm delicious.
oh and then last night, one of the sisters came home from a class she was teaching at the marist brother´s place and she brought back one brother (Sandro) and four postulants, who are the guys studying to become brothers. Their names are Juan Carlos, Pieru, Javier, and Jaoquin. They´re all 20 except, Pieru, he´s 18. They are hysterical. They´re all from Peru, mostly from the north, where we´re going. It was awesome to sit around and chat with people are own age (although, trust us, the nuns we´re living with leave little to be desired in terms of entertainment) and it was also a new challenge to really keep up the conversation with native speakers. i think we did pretty well considering it was only our third day here. they were asking questions about the music we listen to, they even asked about backstreet boys, hehe. they kept joking around and the brother they were with kept teasing them that he was so embarrassed to have brought them here and that they had no shame and when he found out i worked with special kids, he asked if i could try teaching them. it was an amusing expererience. they were all really nice and patient with us, especially me trying to speak. they invited us over for lunch tomorrow. we think they´re making ceviche, which is the semi-raw fish thing made with lemon...yikes! but i guess we´ll be eating it, don´t want to be rude to our new friends.

End to part 1
love
jule and ker

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