Lima, Training and Estar con bicicleta

I am sorry that it has been so long since I last blogged however I have been very busy with a host of trips throughout the department of Lima. More noteworthy I have been overcome with extreme bowel movements that the Peruvians have coined as "estar con bicicleta". While I don't understand the connotation of the term exactly I have basically been dealing with diarrhea for about 4 or 5 days now. I am still not sure what I ate or the reason for my continued bowel movements however it started last thursday night when i awoke at 3:3oam sweating and with terrible stomach pain. While the stomach pain declined after giving my offering to the porcelain god I still had a nagging headache and fever. Consequently I took some Vitamin C tablets, Pepto and advil (designed for headache/fever) to try and resuscitate myself before heading to Lima in the morning. Although I probably shouldnt have gone to Lima in the morning after my nights debacle, I decided to suck it up and head with my group to the capital city. After a short trip we arrived in the smoggy condensed city of Lima. I hope my description of the city demonstrates my true feelings toward the city...Following a short tour/lunch in Lima my language group followed my professor to Miraflores, a nice suburb of the city. Miraflores was amazing (great food, atmosphere and location-right near the beach) however my friends and I would regret staying as long as we did...Following a failed attempt to go to a bar with 30+ gringos my friends Patrick, Pete and John decided to head back to Yanacoto in time for dinner. While we realized we would probably be a little late to dinner(dinner is usually at 730) we wanted to make it back in a reasonable hour so that our host parents would not worry about us or waste food on our absent bodies. However what we failed to realize was that by leaving at 6:00pm from Miraflores we would be leaving at prime traffic hours and that a trip of one hour would take more than 3 hours. While 3 1/2 hours in a bus fails in comparison to my bus trip from rio de janeiro to iguazu (30+ hours) the trip is noteworthy due to the fact that all of us except for John had to stand up for most of the time in a crowded combi (peruvian bus). More noteworthy is the sad reality that we jumped on a combi that was on the verge of breaking down (at one point the combi traveled at around 5 mph for 2 miles after having already broken down twice in the city). The combi was in such bad shape in fact that one peruvian lady threatened to call the cops on the driver because he was burning up the clutch so bad trying to get the bus rolling. After 3 1/2 hours of pure hell we finally reached our destination and chugged up the hill to get to bed so that we would get a decent amount of sleep before heading off to the outskirts of Lima at 730 in the morning.

Following another bout of "estar con bicicleta" in the morning I rolled out to chaclacayo to meet with the other gringos and take a bus out to La Agraria. Before heading onto the bus my erratic bowel patterns made me question my ability to be in a bus for over 30 minutes however i took the risk and jumped in the combi. After finally making it to La Agraria I was glad to not be apart of the 70% club (70% of Peruvian peace corps volunteers poop their pants during service...generally on bus rides) however my symptoms made my experience at the botanical college mostly awful. I had the chills, no energy and until I drank some hot tea was probably in the worst mood since I had arrived in Peru. Following my gloomy morning experience at La Agraria some girls and I went to lunch in Chaclacayo, which was an uplifting and fun experience (although my mornings dreary attitude bore the brunt of some jokes). Despues de almuerzo, I returned to Yanacoto to take a nap and have dinner with my family before (stupidly) going out to the bars in Chosica. While going out was not the greatest idea I felt it was a necessary release from the weekly strain of constantly going to training from 8am to 5pm…Lets not forget I have been used to getting up at 10am, eating pancakes, working out and then hanging out with friends for most of the summer so this has been quite the shock for me! After a short night out on the town I decided to get to bed early so that I could possibly revive myself for the upcoming week.

            Little did I know that my host family would be up at 8am on Sunday listening to religious songs! I felt that I had awoken to a living nightmare…After realizing that the songs would persist for awhile I decided to join the family and have some breakfast. Following breakfast I took a short siesta and watched a few scenes of Apocalypse Now before being called to lunch. What I thought would be an uneventful lunch with my family turned into an hour sermon with the “lider” of the church on the 3 tenants of faith in the Evangelical church as well as the obstacles that men face before reaching the gates of heaven. Lets just say I never had any religious conversations with my family while eating…EVER. However, since arriving in Yanacoto I have become quite accustomed to hearing all aspects of Evangelical faith and now believe that I am even stronger in my beliefs that I will never pass my faith/lack of faith to anyone else…

            Following lunch I went to work on my finishing my language homework and began to prepare my excuse as to why I didn’t feel comfortable going to church anymore…Although I want to immerse myself in the culture and strengthen my relationship with my host family, I feel that my time would be better spent improving my Spanish vocabulary and conversing with my friend Pat’s Peruvian brother (who has been quite helpful due to his persistence in making us always speak Spanish in front of him as well as his willingness to deal with our at times mangled Spanish). Well thankfully for me this past Sunday I was able to get out of another reunion (refer back to my first post if u forgot about the peculiarity of Evangelical reunions), which saved me 2 1/2 hours in a church and the strange feeling of holding up a sign in front of about 100 Peruvians. Thank goodness for young host brothers/sisters who need to be in bed by 9pm!

            Well hopefully next week is just as eventful as the previous two…just without all the drama, estar con bicicleta and continuous religious conversations!