I haven't had time to write in a while, so I'll try to catch you up. 

First of all, Raquel got jumped the other day. She was walking home from Dawn's house around 4 p.m. with a German exchange student. The street was pretty deserted and all of a sudden she saw these 2 or 3 guys behind her and there was one in front. One of the guys behind her had a chain, and they all started yelling so Raquel bolted across the street and started looking for people to help but the street was basically deserted and all the stores were closed. They slammed her friend up against the wall and took his backpack and his jacket and ran off. The thing about this incident is 1) she was with a guy, which I thought meant you were pretty safe (granted he was tall and blonde), 2) it was broad daylight, and 3) me and her have walked home from Dawn's house like 3 times at night and this happened 2 blocks away from Dawn's house. Which seems like a relatively safe neighborhood.

But luckily they weren't hurt and Raquel didn't get anything robbed. We're definitely going to be more alert though. 

Thursday:

Went to volunteer in the morning, and afterwards I met up with Maria Elena, Mary and Jessica so we could have an ELAP meeting. Maria Elena loaded us into a cab to go to dinner. It was by far the most entertaining cab ride of my life. The driver was hilarious. He kept telling us jokes stories. He has the same last name as a famous Peruvian writer and he told us that he was his son (I think he was messing with us), and that he liked to write too. He said he writes down a lot of his philosophies of life. He shared one with us and then said that if we liked it he had a lot more, and he would email them to us if we wanted. So he gave us his email address. It was quepasacarajopitufo@..... Which cracked me up. Because carajo is a cuss word with various translations, and pitufo means smurf. Which is apparently his nickname because he's short (unlike other Peruvians...?)

We went to a restaurant that used to be a mansion and now they serve food during the day, and all the money they make, they use to buy food and feed the poor at night. All the servers are church volunteers, as well. It's a really cool idea and we had a really nice lunch. Avocado salad, fish in a really yummy eggplant sauce, and lucuma and mocha ice cream for dessert. 

Then we went back to campus and I hung out in the ISA office for a while before going home. 

Thursday night = Help! night and I decided that this week I would go again, despite my early morning. So Zach, Cristina and Jorge came over around 9:30 and we had some drinks, then called a cab. Help! was fun as usual. It was reggae night. After dancing til about 3, we got our delicious chorizos and called some cabs. I got to bed at 3:45 and got about 3 hours of shut-eye before I was up again trying to cover up the stench of cigarettes in my hair so I could go teach 4th graders English.

Friday:

It was kind of a chaotic day at the school. They had P.E. and 3 student teachers come in, so I only ended up teaching about an hour of English, and then sitting there doing nothing for the rest of the day. One of the biggest troublemakers is suspended for a week, though, so the classroom is slightly calmer.

I got home at one, ate, showered, and then headed to the UP ISA office to go on our activity to Barranco. Barranco is a district by the beach (barranco means cliff in Spanish). It's really touristy but it's really pretty and is the place to go if you want to go clubbing. 

First we went to the Museo Pedro de Osma. This guy Pedro used to live in this huge beach house and he was loaded, so he bought tons of art. He never got married, nor did his sister, so after they died, their collection got passed down to their nephew and now it's a foundation that made the house a museum that displays their art collection and uses the proceeds and some of their huge fortune to support charity organizations in Lima. It was a really cool museum with a lot of paintings from the Cusco School, a room full of silver and a collection of old Inca coins, each one worth more than my life. We saw a lot of stuff, but apparently it was only 40% of the collection. We had a tour guide, which was nice, so we knew what we were looking at. 

After the museum, we walked to the Puente de los Suspiros, or Bridge of Sighs. It looked over the cliff out on the ocean and it was gorgeous. The tradition is, that if you can walk across the whole bridge holding your breath, your wish will come true. I was almost to the end, but unfortunately the old man wearing a wig and a dress with balloons under it to make it look like he had big boobs and a big butt, who was strutting around trying to sell candy made me laugh when I was like 2 steps away. 

We went to a restaurant up on the cliff and ate on the patio outside with a view of the ocean. It was so awesome! They brought us some pisco sours, anticuchos and picarones. Anticuchos are grilled cow heart on a stick. I hadn't tried them yet, but I loved them. Probably one of my favorite things I've had so far. It tasted like steak, but really delicious, tender steak. We were at a nice restaurant though, so I'm sure the ones from the street vendors aren't quite as good. Some Peruvians from La Catolica went with us on the activity, and they all said they were going to salsa night at a discoteca called Sargento Pimienta (Sergeant Pepper in English), so we decided to meet up with them. 

We went back home first and Mary came over to get ready with us. They picked us up and we drove back to Barranco. Sargento was fun, but I was definitely ready to crash around 2:00. Which unfortunately didn't happen because there was a miscommunication and they apparently left without us after they told us they'd take us home, because they thought we had already left. So we called a taxi and Mary and I went back. Asleep at 4, up at 8.

Saturday:

I got up at 8:00 this morning because I had to be on campus at 9:00 for another one of the outings for Activity in Anthropology. 

This time we took taxis to the Parque Universitario, past the street where they sell forged documents, to the Plaza San Martin, down the Calle Quilca where the underground poets and writers hang out, past the book stores selling pirated books, to the Plaza Francia, down the street where the transvestite hookers hang out at night, past the place where you can buy pirated software and stolen hardware, to the Parque de la Exposicion, where we weren't allowed in for some reason, down the Paseo Colon, where all the mansions are where the wealthy limenos used to live, and finally to the Plaza Bolognesi, where we ended our tour and I caught a combi home. 

Still don't have a camera, so no pics of all of that, but I'm going to get one soon. 

Then I came home and hung out and ran and slept til now. Hannah's coming over pretty soon and we're going to go sing some karaoke with the basketball players that we met in the bakery.