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  • Kickin it in Peru
    Finally the day arrived that we drove to Ciudad de Dios to meet the community we would be working alongside for 8 weeks. It was exciting, ...
  • Rio de Janeiro
    Our South America trip was everything I wanted it to be. Our group had an unbelievable time exploring 3 different countries over 9 days, sta...

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Tacky up the Mural

Published on Friday, April 29, 2011 Leave your thoughts »

After being in Peru for a couple of weeks, we were informed that a group of students from UNC would be joining us. They were part of the Nourish International group and all of us worked on the water line together. I would be lying if I said there wasn't tension between the groups (and definitely some run-ins that made for interesting stories), but overall we got along and having the extra hands digging was welcome.


Before we got into the bulk of the digging, I was given the chance to accompany some of the Peruvian professional engineers to survey the water route, which was great for me. The skills I learned at Duke were being put to use (minimally) and that is a satisfying feeling. We also plastered the main wall of the plaza in the middle of Ciudad de Dios to prep it for mural painting. This was one of our community beautification projects, along with creating signs for them designating it as more than just temporary.



The completed mural that I designed in the plaza



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Forgotten

Published on Saturday, April 23, 2011 Leave your thoughts »

The first job I was a part of after we were introduced to Ciudad was helping evaluate the existing water quality (they got their current water after it already traveled through other communities). I worked with Maggie and Carrie in Menocucho to test the streams that fed into the water supply. One day while doing this, the Professor in charge of MOCHE (Professor Billman) forgot to pick us up and take us back to Ciudad de Dios. So instead, we walked about 1.5 km towards the community along the main road and then took a combi the rest of the way. It was quite an experience, especially the combi ride. Combis are very small vans that work like buses. They pick up people at stops and then when you need to get off you pay and get off. Well the one we were one decided it wanted to be a clown car and pack as many people as humanly possible into it. By the time we got back to Ciudad, we only had time to collect water samples from the taps in town.


The next day we did the same testing in the morning, and in the afternoon we were given the opportunity to make adobe bricks. It basically consisted of putting mud into a mold and letting it dry for 15 days. The entire process was "extremely tiring" (according to my journal entry), but I also noted it was a lot of fun. Not every day do you get to make bricks that will be used to construct houses and schools. Since there were so many of us working, we finished early and left Ciudad de Dios by 2:45 PM. Not too many exciting or new things were taking place around that time... and really throughout our trip our daily activities remained fairly constant. I'll write about certain changes in our routine and trips we took/experiences we had that were different from our normal day-to-day happenings.

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Try this! Or not...

Published on Friday, April 22, 2011 Leave your thoughts »


Dos and Donts while in Peru

If you ever find yourself in Peru, in my opinion these are some DOS and DONTS that you should definitely follow:

1. DO take a surfing lesson. I didn't do this with most of the group and regret not taking the opportunity to put on a crazy looking wet suit and show off my mad balance skills in the ocean so that all the locals could laugh at me.


I told you everyone looked silly


2. DON'T eat egg salad sandwiches. They look so delicious and might even taste delicious. but 2 days later your body will be screaming at you for accepting Peruvian food not prepared by your awesome house cook who knows that Americans cannot consume Peruvian water or anything that has touched it! more on that later...

3. DO befriend the people living where you are. Everyone we met in Huanchaco had amazing stories to tell us about surfing and traveling. Our cab driver during our scavenger hunt told us about his 70 roosters that he uses for cock fights. You just don't get that in the U.S.


Us out one night in Huanchaco. Unfortunately I didn't have a picture with any of the locals we met


4. DON'T buy anything full price in local markets. Barter until you can get a more reasonable price for what is being sold.

5. DO drink their milkshakes. I practically lived on vanilla milkshakes.. although one time I got a banana one because apparently my "vanilla" sounded like "banana"

6. DO attempt to travel to other parts of Peru. It's huge! Unfortunately we didn't get to visit Machu Picchu or go on any hikes while we were there. I would love to go back and experience those things sometime in the future.

7. DON'T kick a cactus. Just don't.

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Kickin it in Peru

Published on Monday, April 18, 2011 Leave your thoughts »

Finally the day arrived that we drove to Ciudad de Dios to meet the community we would be working alongside for 8 weeks. It was exciting, mostly due to the fact that we had been sitting around for what seemed like forever in Peru not doing what we came there to do. Don't get me wrong, I loved exploring and getting up with my roommates who insisted on 3-mile-long runs in the morning but I was slightly anxious to get to the dang Ciudad already!

When we arrived we were immediately greeted mobbed by the children and a ridiculous amount of stray dogs. They were fascinated with us (dogs included), and we were fascinated by them... their bare feet, dirty faces, huge smiles, and their sugar cane snacks.



So stinking cute, right?

All of the houses in ciudad were built by hand from adobe bricks ("dictionary defines these as: a natural building material made from sand, clay, water and some kind of fibrous or organic material (sticks, straw and/or manure), which the builders shape into bricks using frames and dry in the sun"), and they had one water spicket in the middle of the town "plaza". For a squatter community though, they were fairly lucky in that they had their own schoolhouse with latrines (well, holes in the ground), and an organized layout of houses throughout the area. That day we met community members and played soccer with the kids. Lots of people talked to me in Spanish because, hey if you come to Peru you better know some Spanish right? Yeaaaa..I just nodded because I had absolutely no clue what they were saying to me. It was embarassing at first but after a while I got used to speaking in broken sentences and only being able to understand the general gist of what was said to me (and repeated over and over).

Adobe bricks waiting to be turned into a house

My initial reactions to Ciudad de Dios were... well I'm not sure. I think it was so overwhelming I forgot to take note of everything I was thinking and feeling. I do remember thinking that Ciudad de Dios was a lot nicer with a lot more houses than I had imagined. To say they had completely different lives than us would be the understatement of the year, and I found myself observing without processing more than anything.



We had been told before going there that some countries and people do not take kindly to Americans coming in a "fixing" things for them, so we should be prepared in case that was true there. If they felt that way, they certainly didn't show it. Everyone was extremely excited to have us there and eager to help in any way possible. That included digging trenches alongside us with shovels that looked like they were made for 5 year olds. Despite the size of their shovels (and themselves for that matter. Peruvians are some small peoples! I felt at home), they put my shoveling skills, or lack therof, to shame. In fact I frequently found myself being laughed at because of the sheer number of breaks I needed to not keel over and pass out. That's another thing I learned on this trip... I am fairly weak and my body does not take to manual labor very well. so 8 weeks of digging trenches in peru? piece of cake....

I couldn't resist one more picture of my favorite little boy

Sidenote: I have found in both of my spanish-speaking country experiences that the children are the most fun and interesting to talk to. Mostly because they patiently teach you the language and understand if you don't conjugate verbs correctly or use the right pronouns. Yes, they laugh, but I would laugh too if I listened to someone speak English as bad as I spoke Spanish. Is that mean? When I flip it around it seems means. Oh well, the teasing didn't bother me. Not even when our housekeeper's son would ask me to read the newspaper because he (along with everyone else) thought my pronunciation was hilarious. Haha let's all watch Brianne butcher the Spanish language and laugh at her while she does it! Yup, didn't bother me one bit.

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Chanfles!

Published on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 Leave your thoughts »

I left for Peru in May of 2008, just after finishing up my Sophomore year at Duke. Our group consisted of all Duke students (mostly engineers), and a Duke Spanish Teacher, Joan. We flew to Lima from the U.S. and stayed at Hostal Torreblanca. It was a small hotel, but very clean and well kept. My journal starts a week into our busy trip so according to my first entry (May 20) we spent the day in downtown Lima, visiting sites like the President's residence, and then touring La Villa el Salvador -- a squatter community that has grown tremendously in the past few decades. While touring we sat down with the locals and despite the language and cultural barriers, they were more than hospitable. It was amazing to see the pride these people had in their community and what they had built with hard work.


Hostal Torreblanca

The next day we left Lima and went to see a monument called El Ojo que llora, The Eye that Cries. We were fortunate enough to meet with the artist who designed it, and she explained how the victims of the Shining Path terror are written on stones surrounding the main rock. The monument was quite powerful, especially when you read the stones and saw how young some of the people were who were killed. Afterwards, we got back on our bus and drove 3 hours to another hostal in Barranca by the ocean.


El Ojo que llora Monument


The following day we arrived to our ultimate destination, Huanchaco. Huanchaco was a beautiful town right next to the ocean, and we stayed in a house all together. Our volunteer work was being done in Ciudad de Dios, which was an hour bus ride away, but we could not stay there because they had no running water (purpose of our trip) and no electricity (they received it right after we left!). Looking back, it was nice to be living in a house with the entire group instead of being split up between local families, which was the living arrangement of another DukeEngage Peru trip. I dealt with a lot of homesick issues during my stay in Peru, and having the group there was a huge help.. especially since my Spanish was limited to Hola and Como estas. I did quickly learn, however, how to say "Can I use the telephone to call the U.S?"


The gorgeous city of Huanchaco, Peru

The first part of the week we were in Huanchaco, we spent exploring the city and getting to know every person in our group. I brushed up on my Spanish with the help of my Duke friend, Magdalena, as well as our housekeeper's son, Robby. We also took a day trip to the city of Trujillo to tour. It is a much bigger city than Huanchaco and has a busy feel to it. In Huanchaco, the beach was right down the block from our house so we spent a lot of time walking around by the water and observing people who live there. The day before going into Ciudad de Dios we split up into groups and went on a scavenger hunt in Huanchaco and Trujillo. Some items we had to take pictures of included "el coliseo de los gallos entre Huanchaco y Trujillo" (cock fighting), "la torta mas bonita en Trujillo" (pretty cake), and "una combi" (a type of car/minivan in Peru). It really helped us understand the area geographically and work on interacting with Peruvians.


Our entire group, including MOCHE leaders, and our Peruvian family

Next stop, CIUDAD DE DIOS!

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Travel

Published on Sunday, April 10, 2011 Leave your thoughts »

In high school I was fortunate enough to take my first serious, out-of-the country trip to Honduras. I went with my church youth group to help build a running water system for a small village. We were there for two weeks and it was quite an experience. Between church services in Spanish, to getting sick, to digging trench all day, I definitely soaked up the culture in the short time we were there.


At the end of high school I went to Hong Kong with my family to visit my Grandpa, and two uncles... and I loved it! The jet lag, on the other hand, I did not love and it kicked my ass. I was falling asleep in the middle of the day and staring at the ceiling wide awake at night. While in Hong Kong, we got to visit the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where my mom went to college. We also got to see where my Grandma's ashes are kept, which was very special to my entire family. The food was incredible, and honestly, I felt like that was all we did. We would wake up and eat breakfast, then sight see for a couple of hours and then it was lunch time. We would spend the afternoons with family and seriously what felt like 10 minutes later, it would be dinner time. Eating with your family is very important in Chinese culture, and meals can last for hours. They like to eat slowly and yell very loudly to each other. I don't understand how asians are so small when they eat so much! I'm hoping to go back to Hong Kong (and maybe mainland China) with my mom this year.

While in college, my biggest trip was to Peru after my Sophomore year. I went with the DukeEngage program for 8 weeks. We lived in Huanchaco and worked in Ciudad de Dios, a squatter community that we rode a bus to every day. Our partner organization was MOCHE, led by a UNC Professor, and a group of UNC students volunteering like we were. Together we built a 3-km water system, and also worked on "public works" projects that included painting a mural and a community sign. My next post will detail my time in Peru, complete with the personal (and not personal) challenges I faced throughout my time there.

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Up until now

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In my life, I've had many diaries and many journals. They contain everything I've ever felt or experienced and are unique to me. Unfortunately a lot of trips I've taken or things I've done have never been shared, and as I get older I find comfort in knowing that there are people in the world who have gone through what I have, or seen what I've seen. I want to put my life's important events, people, and places out there, and perhaps others will feel what I feel when I read blogs.. inspired, comforted, motivated. Knowing there is so much in the world that I can experience and affect puts my problems in perspective and helps keep me focused on making the most of everything I'm lucky enough to have.

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