Catching up!

So I've been a bad blogger….I've been meaning to blog about my weekends and I have failed to do so. I will make it up to all you readers out there by elaborating now. March is here which means that summer is over, according to the school schedule. Kids went back to school on Monday, and our teaching schedule changed to Friday-Tuesday. We teach on the weekends so that we can do more than just weekday afternoons. The school day runs from about 8am-2pm, so we can't conduct classes during those hours during the week. Needless to say, it is a lot for kids to do, attend school and our programs on top of that. However, we are providing a service that is not generally offered for free: English lessons. Long story short, our weekends our now Wednesday's and Thursday's, so I'm taking time out of a lazy Thursday to catch up on my blog.

I'll start with my weekend in Huacachina, the second-to-last weekend in February. Huacachina is a lagoon in the middle of this desert south of Lima. It's a pretty touristy place, with activities like sandboarding, riding sandbuggies, and wine tours. Two other volunteers, Connie and Elizabeth and I went for a two day visit. We got in late on Friday night and went straight to the hostel to go to bed. Our two days were relaxing and cheap as we all agreed that it was going to be a weekend on a budget. We ate two meals a day, and splurged more on breakfast than dinner. The first morning we ate at this adorable outdoor café and the second morning we ate gigantic fruit-filled crepes at a restaurant alongside the lagoon. The first day we hung around the lagoon and checked out the small shops with all kinds of objects for sale. We toured two local bodegas (or winery's) and tasted wine and the Peruvian beverage, pisco. That evening we came across an Argentinean folk band playing by the lagoon, and stopped to listen and dance for a while. We ended up chatting with the members after they were done playing and then all decided to climb up one of the enormous sand dunes. It turned out to be one of the hardest climbs of my life! I know I'm not in the best shape, but scaling a huge hill of sand was much harder than it looked. The next day we enjoyed being lazy by the pool and having an entire day of no plans. It was a very chill weekend, but I was looking forward to getting back to Huaycan. 

Dunes that surround the lagoon in Huacachina

Lagoon with (super steep) dunes--where we climbed

Giant crepe filled with fruit and topped with caramel!

Coffee at the outdoor cafe

Contraption that squishes the grapes

Using bamboo to retrieve wine for tasting

The pool that looks like something from paradise in this photo

This last weekend (the last of the "Saturday-Sunday weekends") I got to meet up with Beth from the church in Lima, Agua Viva. The second weekend in Peru, I was able to meet her and attend the church thanks to my Aunt in Florida. The church that my Aunt Sharon attends in Orlando is connected to the church here in Lima and the grand-daughter of the church planters, Beth, is who I was connected with via facebook before coming to Peru. Meeting Beth and going to church was such a blessing. She introduced me to some of her friends and we went out for food after the service. So last weekend I got to meet up with her again, on Saturday and go to church a second time. This time she and a group from the church was going to a nearby park to invite people to church and to do the Lifehouse "Everything" skit. (This link is another very talented group who performed the skit in Louisiana). It was really great to be a part of their latest campaign "una oracion por ti" (a prayer for you) and get to know more of the women in Beth's discipleship group. The church service was really good, it was so cool to sing songs in Spanish that I know in English. I also enjoy translating the sermon in my head, realizing that I can understand quite a bit. It's really in conversation that I struggle with, speaking in past-tense gives me problems. But now I've met many more Peruvians to practice with. Since the weekends have changed, I won't be able to attend church with Beth, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to make it to her Friday night cell group (what they call their discipleship groups), so I'm looking forward to that.