Tengo Hombre...Tengo Hambre

Knock Knock..Whose there?...Papa a la Huancaina-Kandy giving us a knock knock joke, she didn't understand how to do it haha

The weeks seem to fly by here, one minute I’m arriving at the Aldea and the next I’m packing up to leave for the weekend again. However, I feel like this week I got to really appreciate the natural beauty of Peru and develop an even deeper love for the people here. I was eating with house 4 this week, which is the house with the older boys but there is also a little baby there named Fabritzio. Fabritzio is 8 or 9 months old but he can’t yet hold up his own head or do the normal things he should be doing at this age because he was neglected for the first 4 months after he was born. I had the opportunity this week to spend some time helping with this sweet little boy. One night after dinner the Tia had me help her give him a haircut, I’ll put a picture up next week because he looks really cute now! I also got to rock him while being asked to sing in English at the same time by a boy named Jhonathan. I feel like all the kids want to hear us sing songs in English but it always turns out that my mind goes completely blank at that exact moment and I can’t remember any songs in English to save my life. This time, I was however able to remember the words to one song…any guesses as to what it was? I am a child of God, yes this was the only song that popped into my head but I’m grateful for that because it reminded me to stop and see these children in a different way than I had before. I was able to remember how much Heavenly Father loves each and every one of the kids at the Aldea and how they do have a purpose here even if at the moment it’s only to help me grow and become a better person. Another exciting thing happening at the Aldea is that a restaurant down the road is letting us swim in their big stone pool behind it. The Aldea in return had to buy and paint the pool for the restaurant and guess who got to help?!?!

Friday was also my birthday!! Yep I’m officially 21 J I must say this birthday was very different than my previous birthdays and not only because of the difference in physical location. I was woken up at 6 am by my roommates who proceeded to throw a water balloon at me, squirt me with a water gun and shout/sing happy birthday. It was quite the morning to say the least haha. Then I was woken up again by a knock on the door at 7 when I had just gotten back to sleep to be greeted by two of the boys from House 2: Alfredo and Jose Antonio, who said Happy Birthday and gave me big hugs. Needless to say I was ok with being woken up! I then found a tiny play dough birthday cake that Allie made for me..what can I say I have the best roommates! Seriously though I love these girls they are so sweet and so much fun. We’re always laughing and enjoying recognizing differences between what we (the Americans) say versus Allie’s London words. For example: Cheeky we would just say sassy or Knickers for underwear. I’m sure there are better ones but I’ll have to write them down because I’ve become accustomed to this other language and it’s harder to pick individual words out.

My massive Cake!

Trujillo from the roof!

When we got to the Castillos, we got to have a fiesta! The party had been planned by the young adults from Church and it was based on a dance that is typical in Peru, so everyone had to dress in all white! Peruvians love dancing which was proven even more by the fact that the party started at 9 and went until 6 am! We got to learn how to salsa and do some other Peruvian dances, with some Americano music thrown in to provide us with something we felt like we actually could be good at. The other people seemed to get a kick out of our random American dancing I don’t think they’ve ever seen the lawn mower, running man, or shopping cart but they have now. I’m sure they’ll try to incorporate it in all their upcoming parties! The Young adults here are so sweet and they helped to make my birthday one of my favorites!!

Everyone who made it all the way to the end!

"what? we're white? " everyone in Peru likes to point this out