numero uno, bebe.

I have been wanting to start this thing off with some poetic explanation of life so far, living with people I've only known two months in a foreign land where everything is beautiful and new and warm, to give you my most present thoughts and perspective in Peru; but I can't find my nice pen and my thoughts are still scattered in trying to grasp this new place of breathing.
I am sitting at a black table with my journal on my lap, in the courtyard between the church building and the room we live in, in the pastor's family's house. Above me is the sky, between me and the sun is a green canopy. I just looked down at my white shirt (actually Josh's) and apparently I dropped pizza sauce on it.
We live in a quiet neighbourhood. There are parks in the middle of streets with tall trees and green grass and some flowers. The buildings here are almost like the old western towns you see in the movies, only a rainbow sneezed pastels everywhere. From the roof I can see into many houses and courtyards. I can't even understand how big Lima is. Nine million people. ( uptop is a picture of a shanty town.. just people who carved their lives into the side of a mountain. they all just steal electricity, and its gotten to the point where the government almost acknowledges them, they bring big barrels of water each week for people to draw from. reminds me of the garbage dump village in Guatemala.. )
Tonight we are helping with English class again. The first time was two days ago. Roxy and I are helping out with the intermediate class, mostly working on pronunciation and reading comprehension. The actual class part isn't all that fun because we can't really translate, but class ends at 8:30 and people just hang around and talk, because they are so eager to learn english. On tuesday almost everyone stayed until 10, which is a small sample of peruvian culture. Many of the people on our team know zero Spanish, but we have already learned a lot, and the Peruvians love teaching us.
Yesterday we walked a lot. We went to the beach with Otto and a few Peruvians from ESL class, though where we went was actually an old garbage dump, but at least the wind was nice even if the waves came in with trash each time. Later we walked to Miraflores and had a picnic, which is sort of a tourist area with a a big park called El Parque del Amor.
I'm still getting over this cold which is pretty annoying. On the bright side though, this is the perfect time to get sick because this week we're just taking it easy and not jumping into any ministries yet.
I moved into our bedroom to sit on Lisa's dangerous mattress which sort of sways when you touch it. The room us girls sleep in is a long rectangular room filled with our suitcases and beds, and a small pathway for us to walk through. Behind my bed is a large, open window with white curtains, which separates me from the two parots. One of the parots name is Pancho, and he whistles at us and says 'hola', and occasionally squaks his head off at random, obnoxious times.
The showers here are electric, like Thailand, but we have no trouble with them compared to the toilet. At least I seem to have trouble. The toilets plug easily, and they don't use plungers here. Jackie is the church accountant and lives here, but speaks barely any english. So the other day I plugged the toilet completely, so I went to Jackie and we filled up two big buckets of water which apparently fixes the problem. She gave me one and told me to pour it in really fast. I didn't understand how this is would work without spilling everywhere, but she didn't offer to do the first bucket so I just gave'r. So, I poured an entire bucket of water into the toilet which had barely any water in it, and I flooded the whole bathroom floor. Of course everyone was watching at the time, lining up out the door, so we all got splashed and I was laughing so hard.. (luckily Jackie and everyone else was too.)
Jackie poured the next bucket neatly and solved the problem. I mopped up the floor with a rag on a stick. Good times.
I know we're still in our honeymoon stage, but I am so blessed to be in this place. It's so exciting to think how much is ahead of our team, where Jesus is waiting to meet us, what we will feel and cry over and hate eachother for, what we will sweat over and regret and laugh at 5 years later. The people we will know, that will help us know ourselves and our creator better. To be fully present in every moment is difficult when you have such hope for the next one.