No hablo Espanol (but I am trying....)

Cassie and friends have inspired me to start a blog while I am in Peru for the next 7 weeks. So here goes my first entry, which may be kind of lengthy because so much has happened in the last few days....

We arrived in Lima 2 nights ago (Saturday). After leaving my apartment a little before 4am and 20+ hours of traveling we finally reached our apartment in the Miraflores district of Lima. Upon arrival a whole family was waiting in our apartment to give us our keys and show us around the apartment. It was strange, because only one of the two daughters spoke English, so they all just stared at us from the living room as we looked around. It didn't help that we were all too exhausted to speak in English or Spanish, and in my case, too tired to just speak English. As soon as they left I completely crashed and left putting all of my things away until the morning.

Sunday morning I felt a little better. We waited for the woman renting our apartment to come give us an extra key and to pay her our rent. She was supposed to come at 11 but didn't show up until half past 12. By this point we were starving, since we didn't have much food to eat for breakfast. After she finally showed up we walked over to Mrs. Montesino's apartment. Mrs. Montesino is a good friend of Dr. Valdivieso, the doctor who is overseeing our project. She served us a delicious breakfast and took us on a tour of an outdoor shopping mall that overlooks the ocean. Then her friend Lily picked us up and drove us (well her driver drove us) to a sports club, the Peruvian equivalent of a country club. It was a huge complex with "any sport you can think of", 3 beaches lined with empty chairs (it is winter here) and multiple restaurants. Lily's grandson also joined us. He 1 and a half years old and adorable. They had a babysitter who took care of him the whole time. It was strange that a babysitter accompanied them everywhere. They didn't speak to her very much, but did buy her dinner.

On the way home from the club we were all very tired again. We stopped at the supermarket and bought a few things for breakfast and dinners. Some foods were very cheap compared to American foods while some were really expensive. For example, some of the fruits and vegetables are very cheap, but a box of cornflakes was $6 or $7 dollars - probably because it was imported. We skipped out on the cereal and ate  toast for breakfast. I may go through cereal withdrawal while I am here.

Today we started our first day of work at DIGESA (La Direccion General de Salud Ambiental), they check water quality throughout many of the districts in Peru. After being introduced to a lot of different people we were shown how to prepare water samples for the lab and to ship back to our lab at Michigan. By the end of the procedure I was falling asleep - we had just watched water filter through a vacuum to collect on a membrane to try and grow H. pylori colonies, and then watched serial dilutions. It was interesting to see how their lab techniques differed from when I worked in a lab. In the US there is so much emphasis on using gloves, but here none of the lab technicians wore gloves. Instead they wore hair nets and face masks. It was very hot breathing my own air for almost 2 hours. There was no other work for us to do today so we went to lunch with the director. Em, I am sorry to say that you may have to eat fish while we are here. At most of the restaurants there are not any other options besides fish and meat with potatoes and rice. They love their yucca and rice here...it comes with almost every dish. So bring lots of granola bars and we can cook at my apartment or you can make a peanut butter and banana sandwich to bring with you everywhere we go.

After getting out of work early we took the bus back (our taxi in the morning was 16 soles or $7...way more expensive then 3 soles both ways on the bus). The bus system that we took was really clean and convenient. They run down the middle of the streets, kind of like the trains that you pass in Chicago. At major intersections there is a bus station and ramp down into the middle of the road where you can take the bus either north or south with the swipe of your bus card. There are stops close to DIGESA and were we are staying in Miraflores. Hopefully, we will be able to take the bus to Hospital Cayetana Heredia as well, because it is much farther than DIGESA and will probably cost a lot if we have to take a hired car.

Before heading back to our apartment we visited Kennedy Park. I thought the sign in front commemorating the park would describe why it was named for JFK, but instead it simply said the walkway around the outside was for selling souvenirs. Kind of amusing. I was surprised by how narrow the park was - much smaller than a "major" park in the US is. It was more peaceful than the rest of the city and there were lots of little kids running around. I miss seeing little kids and all of their energy. I often forget how many of them there are while living on a college campus. We ordered coffee and chatted while enjoying the sun that popped through the clouds for a couple of hours today (more about the weather at another time...). On our way home Sarah bought the cheapest guitar at a music store. The clerk told her jokingly it is for "los ninos"(for kids) because it is so small. She is playing it now and it sounds great to me! Maybe I will learn to play some guitar before I come home, but I should probably work on my Spanish first.

We cooked our first meal together - stir-fry vegetables and rice. So delicious! I didn't bring my camera today, but Sarah did so I will try to steal some of her pictures soon.

I am looking forward to getting a tour of the water treatment system tomorrow morning and doing more work in the lab tomorrow afternoon (hopefully we will actually get to help tomorrow). Time for some hot chocolate and soon I will update on why I actually came to Peru......