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| Sunset over Miraflores |
Author Archives: Jessica
!Feliz Año Nuevo!
Happy New Year from Lima!!
We decided spend the holiday relaxing in Miraflores and bringing in the new year at a local restaurant overlooking the Huaca Pucllana ruins. While Lima doesn’t have a formal city wide firework show nearly everyone was on the streets setting off their own, with some serious (and slightly frightening) ones down on the beach.
We only have one week left here, it’s gone incredibly fast and has been, thus far an incredible experience. For me, it couldn’t be more different than CCS-Tanzania. And I’m grateful for a new experience. There’s only two of us at placement next week (down from four), so we may get a little bit more “hands on” or interactive tasks with the abuelos.
Last, here’s a few extra photos in no particular order.
Week 2, Thus Far.
After returning from our vacation, routine was relatively back to normal. For the most part. The group has become closer and has “settled down” a bit. I’m finding myself more comfortable around everyone (generally) and am enjoying everyone’s company much more. Granted, I haven’t ventured to the casino with everyone (it’s like a mini-vegas here), which a group has been doing every night this week (strange?). But overall, I’m quite happy with the changing dynamics. There is, a slightly unfortunate reason for this new and sudden bonding. Last weekend, and “incident” occurred. With out going into too much detail essentially one volunteer who does not appear to be emotionally or mentally stable enough to be here (and has a rough history) claimed she was assaulted on her walk home one night. No one knows if its true or not, her reaction seemed genuine enough, the time frame doesn’t add up. By the end a few volunteers who had taken it upon themselves to take care of her had to walk away, the attention seeking, self-destructive behavior she was exhibiting was far too much for them to take on. Personally, I just hope she gets the help she needs, in whatever form that entails. Our group has of course bonded over the incident, and tighter friendships have formed for all of us.
Weekend Trip: Huacachina
Guest Post by: Alex
Jess and I had originally planned to stay in Miraflores on the coast in Lima for Christmas weekend since we had already taken our major trip before starting CCS, but also didn’t want to be in the house for the holidays. Once we got to CCS we learned that people were planning trips for that weekend so we decided to be social and change our coastal vacation to New Years and join the group. About half the group were thinking about going to Nazca for sand boarding on the largest sand dune in the world. After looking into it further we found out that the bus ride is 8 hours (flights are expensive so that was vetoed). Jess being Jess starting looking and found Huacachina just outside of Ica, which is about 4 hours south of Lima. Huacachina is actually known for their sand boarding on the dunes versus Nazca, which is more known for the Nazca lines. Turns out that Huacachina is an oasis town of about ~100-200 people that used to be a destination for the Lima elite around the turn of the century, but the government has recently abandoned it and it has now become known for its sand boarding and partying. The town has two streets and is centered around a lagoon and then completely surrounded by huge sand dunes. We wanted to go there for the sand boarding and relaxing, which was good because since it’s low season there wasn’t much of a party scene at all.
Colliding With The Earth 