Another week in Arequipa!

Because school has been in swing for two weeks now, my days have a sort of routine to them. In the morning, we all get on the bus about 8:50. Some days we are serenaded by a band, which then goes around selling little pieces of candy.

Me and my friend Sarah have began making our way around the bakeries sampling chocolate cakes, "pudding" (kind of like a dry bread pudding), and mil hojas (flaky pastries layered with manjar, which is kind of like caramel. It is the orange part on top of this cake).

Since we are all tired of eating out where we are served potatoes, rice, and meat with every meal, we decided to go to the big market about 30 minutes away and stock up on veggies. I wish I took a picture of all that I bought! I spent around $5, and I bought a head of broccoli, 4 tomatoes, a clove of garlic, 5 potatoes, 8 carrots, about a pound of a delicious cut of meet, and an onion.

Wednesday night, our friend and fellow volunteer Yohan invited us to the bar where he works because there was a reggae concert that night. The club is called "Circus" and it really look like a circus on the inside: umbrellas covering the ceiling, everyone wearing ridiculous hats, and the walls are all bright yellow, red, or blue.

The music wasn't too awesome (basically peruvian version of Bob Marley songs) and we had to get up early, so around midnight, we found ourselves buying street hamburgers. She cooked it really well, and it had tomatoes, lettuce, and little french fries on it along with ketchup and a spicy sauce.

My lesson plan at school this week was origami! The kids had a lot of fun with it. First we all colored our squares, talked about geometric shapes, and folded! Some of them memorized how to do it and could do it by themselves, which was really cool.

Friday was a special occasion! Since Chris and Kenzie bought shoes for all of the kids at the school, we had a party to celebrate those shoes and their last day. Me and Sarah were in charge of making the fruit salad, and we had quite a nice expereince with it! At the market we had to buy 30 bananas, two pineapples, and 15 mangos, and then we had to carry it all back to our hostel. Then commenced the 2 hours of fruit cutting!

We had a big assembly in the middle of the school and then we handed out the shoes. The children and mothers were really excited!

To say farewell to Kenzie and Chris, we all went out to a chocolate cafe (very fancy and modern, and they always play music like MGMT, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Beatles, etc.). Since they are known for it, I had a coffee beer, which was quite interesting!

The evening was spent packing for my trip to the Colca Canyon, which left at 3:30am on Saturday morning. That blog soon to come!

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Written by HOOP Peru Volunteer Lead Teacher Morgan Lehr

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