Today! Speaking of today, today is my father’s birthday so let’s all wish a hearty birthday wish to Bob Wolverton. You may have to speak up, he’s getting old. And before you all riot in the streets, I did bring a camera to Peru. I have been taking pictures of Peru. I have been taking pictures in Peru. In our volunteer sites, we aren’t supposed to take photos. If you go to the website of where I work (http://www.inabif.gob.pe/) you’ll even find some of the photos have blurred out the faces. I’m not entirely sure why. I’ve heard that since these kids aren’t coming from very good homes that some people could actually be hiding from other people. I don’t know the reason. It’s for their safety. So we aren’t supposed to take photos. However, the volunteer I work with that’s been here for 7 weeks now has taken at least a hundred photos of the children he told me. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think anyone would have batted an eye, if at the very least, I took out my phone and starting taking some snapshots. Why today you ask? Why not every day? Well for one, I’m not sure how many photos one would want to see of a frustrated me trying to get kids to hurry up and stop playing around in the bathroom. They are very enamored with buckets. I’m not meaning to ramble on and on about what I wish I could have taken photos Tof without doing so. Today, we had another fiesta. The second fiesta in two weeks! From what I gathered, a local high school (apparently a more affluent one) did a toy and food drive to help the less fortunate children of El Salvador. I’m talking every single kid here got a toy. There were Barbies (or the equivalent that thereof), monster trucks, dinosaurs, action figures, baby dolls, Hello Kitty, race cars, you name it and a kid probably was lucky to get it. They even had bags of canned and dry foods for the children to take home to their parents.  [I should add here that I had written another 500 words and it magically up and deleted itself. I’ll try to capture the tone I had going there.]

I don’t know the living situation of the children that I work with. What I do know is that the district I’m in barely has paved roads. I can’t say with certainty if this is the only Christmas gift they’ll see all year or not. What I can say is that it was just a magical moment. To see children rip open a wrapped package and to see the look of glee upon their tiny faces. It’s a moment that you cherish until reality comes crashing down when you get punched in the genitals for just touching one of their toys to admire it. Still, it was good times and I’m glad I’m getting to take part in all of these big events. Especially since I barely have a grasp of the language, I can just smile real big and point at things and say Muy Bueno and hope for the best. It seems to work. They care about the toys more than me anyway. So it goes.

Stray Thoughts:

• For seven dollars or less, I can get all my laundry folded and washed for me! I think that’s totally a good deal. I also realized that my bill was 3x larger than anyone else. What can I say? Style is heavy.
• Don’t worry, I’ll have Christmas cards for everyone. Isn’t Christmas in July still a thing? After watching one person try and fail recently to send a package internationally I’m not sure if it’s worth all the trouble until I have a translator that just follows me around or I become fluent. I’m not sure if any of those are happening in the near future. I am getting small knick knacks and things here and there that I will divvy up as gifts eventually. I’ll just have used them for 6 months and hope no one notices when I bequeath them as “gifts.”
• Coca-Cola seems to have cornered the market on Peru. Even the water here is distributed by them. I did plan on mentioning that earlier because lo and behold, I saw my first Pepsi truck today. Compared to the 40+ Coke ones it doesn’t seem to be but a drop in the bucket but look out. The competition is real.
• Coming up this week: Archaeological museums, a journalist in Peru guest speaker, more Spanish lessons, a farewell to the Pharma family, and much much more.