random thoughts

YUM

a family tradition...taking a bite!

"Happy Birthday to you..." (hence Maggie's face)

Gorgeous cake!! Delicious too!

February 22

From Sue

Since I have been having trouble sleeping lately, I think of the things I should be writing on the blog while I lay there. Our apartment is not laid out with the thought of privacy in mind. We can pretty much see our neighbors kitchen from our bedroom, a distance of about 15 feet. The floors are all tile since carpet would mildew quickly and therefore sound travels quite well. Sometimes it is hard to tell that they are not in our apartment! I would wake Eric and ask, "Where are they, in our living room?" Maggie hears a lot of birthday parties from the front room where she sleeps. It is also a night time culture, so our neighbors are eating dinner when I go to bed at 10:30. Anyway, I am sure we "get them back" when Elijah and Rebekah get up at 7:30:)

Eric is teaching a mini-course at the university today. He will lecture in the morning and then they will do field work in the afternoon. Tomorrow they will dissect and look at the data. Eric is still working hard on learning Spanish and our Peruvian friends say they notice an improvement. His major victory came when we were out walking somewhere and Peruvians stopped and asked him for directions. He gave them the directions in Spanish and we felt almost Peruvian ourselves!

We celebrated Emily's half birthday yesterday again. (You can't have a birthday without cake!) She picked out a chocolate mousse cake from the store and it was a work of art. It was also delicious! Elijah is a much "cheaper date" than Emily. He wanted Pizza Hut and a box cake.

The parks near our apartment are absolutely gorgeous. They are well-maintained and someone is always sweeping or watering. Peruvians appear to be hard workers. Many work 12 hour days, 6 days per week; like our security guards at our apartment. The folks who work at even the fast food places, seem almost offended, if you throw away your own trash. They are right there to serve and seem to take a great deal of pride in doing so. There seems to be much more of a hierarchy here than in the US.

We continue to encounter the phenomena of someone trying to sell you something wherever you go. I think the hardest part for me is when it is the kids. We just don't see that in the US. Last week, on Valentine's Day, we saw a young mom with 3 or 4 kids selling roses in the park. It was so hot but they were all wearing long sleeves and pants, probably all they had. In many ways, we think that the folks selling would do a lot better if they were organized in some way and not all trying to sell the same things to the same people. Eric said her read somewhere that nearly 80% of commerce done in Peru is by people who are "under the radar", no license or place of commerce.