The Kids Speak

Thomas: When I went to Lima I went on a airplane I got to sit next to the window. On the seat in front of you on the airplane there is a tray clipped on for you to eat on
P.S. My loose tooth came out.

Elise: There are a lot more poor and/or homeless people here than in Norfolk, and they try to sell you everything from towels to watermelons. You often pass people merely sitting on the sidewalk holding up a cup as you go by. At stoplights people come to the car windows selling candy, begging or even juggling knives.

Thomas: Ther is a lizard in my bedroom and we took a pickchr of it.

Elise: School is GREAT,and all the kids are nice so far. I have a new friend named Luz (which means light in Spanish) who is really nice. There is also a Canadian girl named Emma. Her family is down here because they're missionarys. She comes to school every Tuesday so then I get a nice break from Spanish. All of my teachers are really nice. I miss everyone back at home and at church so much but I am still enjoying Peru.

Madeleine: We have the rest of the week off, because it's Holy Week. Easter is bigger here than the holidays. We saw a parade on Tuesday, showing the 12 stages of the cross. We didn't stay for all of it, though. We passed a shrine to Mary, and Daddy said, "Look, Diana of the Ephesians!" (You can say things like this without offending them, because they don't understand you)

Paul: [Once I offered to type for him, he had a lot to say.] We went on a field trip to the orphanage yesterday. At the orphanage I got sunburned the most. We got to walk down sand dunes and slide down the drifts.

Thomas got a ball for his birthday. He also got a small foosball table top.

The girls' bedroom door got locked and we couldn't get it open for quite a while.

The first time we went to the plaza we saw a man standing on a block. In front of him was a lantern to put money in. And he had painted his face and clothes silver so that he looked kind of like a robot. When he moved he would squeak! When you put money in the lantern, he would shake your hand. Sometimes he wouldn't let go. Sometimes when you weren't looking he would pull out a fake gun and point it at you. It startled me. At the end he pulled a ticket out of his pocket to hand to you but then he would keep moving it just out of your reach. When you finally got hold of it, you had to pull really hard to get it out from between his fingers. While he was waiting for someone to put money in his lantern he would walk in place on top of his block.

Thomas: [I typed for Thomas, too.] For my birthday I got a red ball with a strawberry on it and it smelled like strawberry. We were at the park and we kicked it up against a cactus and it popped. We got another ball and the same day we got it, it popped. It had Winnie-the-Pooh on it but it didn't smell. And it was blue. Well, actually, it was purple.

We were at a restaurant with our friends and outside we saw a lady selling white bunnies for Easter.

There is lots of dogs in Trujillo. In our apartment building there is a terrier who lives upstairs and he is black and little and fuzzy. You can hear him running upstairs. I think it sounds like a piano but instead of strings it has straw. [my note: all you can hear are the dog's nails skittering across the tile.] There is lots of guard dogs and they are a little bit dangerous. If you get too close to them, they'll try to get you.

You have to wear a uniform for school. I have to do a lot of coloring in my room.

We went to somebody's house and went on top of the roof and we saw a pet monkey in somebody's back yard.

Paul: P.S. The cement is really slick here. You can skate on the sidewalks in your regular shoes.

Madeleine: Finding a piano was just like buying one: we prayed that God would help us find a piano for me to practice on, and soon afterwards, a family said they had one I could use! I have only practiced twice so far, but I think I will be able to practice about once a week from now on.

Elise: Peru is really cool. A couple weeks ago we went to Huanchaco and walked along thd beach.Then we walked around on a dock. There were lots of people fishing on it,and most of them were pulling in fish.There were lots of kinds of fish. There were long, short, fat, thin, big and small fish. After that we went to a restaurant where we ate a whole fish!

In Peru there are tons of dogs wandering around the streets, both strays and pets. Most of them are mixed-breeds and they all look interesting. There are also many cats.We all went to Chan Chan where we saw a hairless Peruvian dog. It was pretty gross. The funny thing was that it just had a little bit of hair on the top of its head.

Paul: A couple of weeks ago you asked me about school. Well, there aren't any real bullies, but there is one boy who's not exactly nice. He pushes his way to the front of the line to the door while we're waiting for the teacher. He usually has a big suitcase too. The teacher is very nice and sometimes I understand what she says but usually not. My favorite class is English class. The English teacher is really nice too and speaks quite a bit of English. Another class that I really like is P.E. In P.E. we all go to the gym and do somersaults and cartwheels and headstands and stuff like that. And I have three friends in school. One girl is named Damaris and two boys--Luis and Juan Carlos. They're all seven years old. On Wednesday we had a field trip to the orphanage and played lots of fun games like one where we stood in a line holding cups and the person at the back of the line walked to a bucket of water and waited for the teacher to say "uno, dos, tres." Then he would fill up his cup from the bucket and then pour it into the next person's cup who would pour it into the next cup. When it reached the person in front of the line, the person at the back of the line would run back to the bucket until the bucket was empty. We won second place.

We have a housemaid for our house. She usually makes big lunches after school. Once she bought a chicken with an egg and some yolks in it and she made chicken soup with it. She also bought a whole bunch of big eggs and they all had double yolks.

Elise: I really like Peru so far. Our apartment is really nice exept for the fact that almost every Saturday night our crazy neighbors (I think they rent out their lawn for people to have parties on or something) start playing music at about 5:30 P.M.[my note: they actually start around 10-11 PM] and then gradualy increase the volume or something so by 8:30 it sounds like someone has the radio on, full blast just outside your bedroom door! They keep this up until about 5:00 A.M. Aparently that sort of thing is acceptable.

Thankfuly school is really great ... All of the teachers are very kind and understanding. One of my teachers is named Miss Monica (but the kids in my class pronounce it "Mees Moeneeca") she is really nice. Whenever she says something that the class doesn't like, they all yell, "NOOOO MEEEEEEEES!!!!!!"

A lady named Lucia comes 6 days a week. She washes our clothes (by hand), cleans the bathroom and scrubs the floor. (She also cooks our lunch) Lucia is very short, like many of the people here. (She is only about as tall as me)

Even though I like Peru, I am really looking forward to the end of May when I get to come home.

Madeleine: Since we keep our windows open way more often ,there are tons of mosquitos.Each night before bed, we have a mosquito hunt.As no one wants to scrape the dead mosquitos off the walls,each room has several old,new,dry ,and fresh pressed mosquitos on the walls.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you're still reading, I've got a couple little stories about language acquisition. Charlie has a little drill that he does with the kids almost every day, "[in Spanish] Yesterday was Sunday, today is Monday, tomorrow will be Tuesday." So most of us have the days of the week down pretty well. Additionally, Thomas' class, mostly four year olds turning five, is covering basics like the days of the week pretty thoroughly.
So, last night I was reading a devotional with the children, "'When Jesus came to earth the angels in heaven sang for joy. One of them came down to earth to tell some shepherds that they could find Jesus, God's Son, in a stable! He was a baby then. Do you know what that day was?' Thomas?"
Thomas replied, "Uhh, I can't think of how to say it in English. All I can think of is the Spanish word..."
"Okay, just tell us in Spanish."
"Uhh, martes...[Tuesday]"

Don't know where that came from, but speaking of martes, here's the potty humor. Feel free to skip the rest of the post if you're sensitive about flatulence. Now, keep in mind that though everyone in the family has been known to pass gas with questionably timed execution, we never joke about it or even comment much, unless to give a mildly shaming admonishment. So, this past Tuesday night while Charlie was turning out the light of the girls' bedroom, he was drilling them and concurrently using his own natureopathic method of fumigating mosquitos, "[Yesterday was Monday, today is...] Ayer fue lunes, hoy es..."
Elise interrupted, "[Today is...] Hoy es...FARTES!"

The Kids Are In School!

How are the children adjusting to being in school? Well, besides having to learn Spanish, the hardest part about school for them is getting up at 6 AM! School starts early here for everyone except pre-schoolers and kindergarteners--even the language institute offers classes at 7:30 AM. This way school ends in time for students to make it home for lunch. [Lunch is a little later, typically 1:00 or 1:30, and is a large meal followed by down time. Dinner is a snack or very late if it's going to be another real meal. Restuarants (not cafes, which stay open all day) open at 7 PM. Thus, the city gets pretty busy again in the evening.] Thomas gets picked up a little late and the others a little early so that we can collect everyone at once at 1:00.

All the schoolkids and the teachers have been very nice, warm, patient, and accomodating, but I have to say that this school is not a quaint, little, third-world school with tiny classes and few resources like I had imagined. The Colegio Cristiano Elliot, named for Jim Elliot by his brother Bert, has around 200 students, 3 years old through high school, and probably as many rules, regulations, procedures, and forms. Education in general is a very serious business in Peru, and this school is no exception. There are many, many private schools and institutes. Everything at the school starts on time, and lots of parental involvement is expected. As homeschooling parents used to a high degree of autonomy, Charlie and I have also had to adapt. I must say that, knowing this to be only a temporary arrangement, I have been able to really let go of the kids and their education for the morning and have been enjoying helping with homework and packing snacks. Also, the children don't have all the educational expectations they would encounter at a private school in the States; it's understood that they're focusing on picking up the language.

Interesting cultural note: the bathrooms have no toilet paper, soap, toilet seats, or towels. Charlie found this completely alarming and was arming each child with toilet paper every morning. Eventually, we realized that the students are supposed to ask the teacher for toilet paper before leaving for the bathroom and that towels and soap are personal supplies that each student owns. Still not sure about the toilet seats. A lot of public restrooms don't have them either.

The kids have been forthcoming with their thoughts on attending school in a foreign country. Some of their more amusing comments were in the first couple weeks. The boys both got in touch with their negative sides, though this was just before I realized they were both coming down with Madeleine's fever/cold. Paul--"I learned some Spanish today. I know how to say 'Stop bothering me!'" Charlie told him he wasn't allowed to use this phrase though. It seems some boys were just trying to get him to play with them. Thomas--"I don't like being with people who don't speak my language!" Imagine him, elbows on the table, disgruntled expression on the face cupped in his hands, pushing his glasses up. He fell asleep right on the table after eating his supper.

Madeleine remarked near the end of the second week, "I feel like the class pet. People like to pat me on the head, and one girl likes to stroke my cheek." Some of you may know that Madeleine does not enjoy being the focus of attention and does like to have some personal space. Elise chimed in that everyone likes to crowd around her desk after a quiz and check her score. If it's high, this creates a buzz of excitement among the other students. I guess that would make Elise the idiot savant. She can't speak the language, (though you can imagine how much she communicates by pantomime), and her handwriting is terrible, especially compared to her classmates who all learned cursive quite early. Actually, both girls seem to be able to help out during English class a lot, circulating around the room and answering questions about seatwork, almost like TA's. They both enjoy this--I'm sure it feels good to be capable at something!

As of this week, I can say that we're adapting to the early wake up. Nobody has asked to stay home from school yet and everyone is progressing in language acquisition, at least a little bit.

Coming next: quotes from the kids' letters, more photos, and a little bathroom humor.

Where in the world are the Gibsons?

I know it's been a while since I've posted but this one is worth waiting for. Two weeks ago I was using Google Maps to try to figure out the layout of the city (maps are not easy to come by) and I was thinking, "it sure would be cool if I could put points on these satellite photos for our friends to see where we are." Then today I got an email from Isaac Spencer where he did just that for the stops his ship is making. So I whipped a map up for us. Here it is! It has some key sites from the Gibson Odyssey thus far. I'll add more as I think of them. I'll add pictures later. Let me know what you think.

Learning Spanish

Within the first week of arriving, I'd already had my share of language mix-ups. Instead of "Merpisa" (the local supermarket chain), I came out with "mariposa" (butterfly), and instead of "empleada"
(employee, i.e. Lucia), all I could pull up was "empanada" (meat bun). I'm also prone to resorting to French, which after four years of high school drilling, makes up most of my brain's foreign language compartment. This is especially for little words like "okay," "here," "there," "maybe," "nothing," or at the end of a Spanish phrase that has a French sounding word. Thus, "would you repeat" seems like it should end "podrias repetir, s'il vous plait!" Hmm, that's not right--how about "podrias repetir, por favor."

All to say, I have enjoyed Charlie's little mistakes--telling Lucia's husband that she should take the medicine every "ocho anos" instead of "ocho horas." Eight years instead of eight hours! Another day when we were looking for a place to buy light bulbs, we stopped to ask directions from some nice young jewelry vendors. Charlie asked them to speak more slowly and they bemusedly complied, directing him to turn at the "pared a Maria." "The wall to Mary? The wall to Mary??" Charlie looked at me confused. As if I would actually know anything, I replied without hesitation, "Sure, it's a Catholic country, the wall to Mary...we'll find it, let's go!" Wisely, Charlie asked them to repeat again and they did patiently, and in great amusement. Then Charlie heard his mistake. "Ah! Pared amarilla--yellow wall!" I guess sometimes more slowly can be too slowly.

I must say that at times it feels like my Spanish is getting worse, but I think it's partly because I'm attempting more. Sometimes, there just is so much I want to say and I feel like I almost know how! The first time I took a cab by myself, knowing everything I needed to get where I was going, I eagerly addressed the driver and ended my directions with a bunch of garbled words. He was so taken aback that he didn't even reply, but just waited for me to compose myself and attempt a repeat. I am a mumbler by nature which doesn't help. Indoors tends to be echo-ey with all the tile, cement and outdoor noises from the open windows, and outside is just, well, noisy. There are no monthly inspections or vehicle emissions tests, so riding in a taxi can be quite loud. Anyway, another time I tried to take a cab to the 1200 (doce ciento--twelve hundred) block for church. The driver took me to the 260 block (dos sesenta) and the whole way I was trying to figure out how to say I thought we were going the wrong way.

All to say, I was really glad to start official Spanish lessons last week. I am being tutored for one hour, four mornings a week with Noemi, the pastor's wife from the Arevalo church (more on the three parishes later). She is gentle, but precise, and somewhat formal during lessons. I feel like I would be very embarassed (not to be confused with embarazada--pregnant) to show up without my homework completed. Therefore, it's time to go do some conjugations!

More pictures!

http://picasaweb.google.com/cnrgibson/March2007InTrujillo
Here are some more photos, many of them taken by Andy Sumpter--one of the sons of our pastor when we lived in Maryland and Alaska. He´s been here sightseeing, helping, and checking out Peru Mission this week. A lot of places he and Charlie visited while the kids were in school. Our brand-new camera battery is faulty, so it´s been nice to have Andy acting as the group photographer. I tried to get a shot of Thomas´bulletin board this morning on my own for everyone to see, but the battery was depleted! The class is studying parts of the body, and there have been a three foot high naked cartoon boy and girl on the white board for a week and a half. This is a Christian private school, but evidently, some curriculum is mandatory for the country.

Big news this week, besides Andy´s visit. We found that our payment to the phone company kicked in and now we can dial out local numbers. This came just in time as Andrea, Lucia´s daughter, locked the girls´bedroom door and we could not get it unlocked (the first locksmith also failed). We used our neighbors´ phone a few times, but they had company and it was getting late, so we gave our phone a try and--hooray! Also, Charlie found that he was able to get a wireless connection in the apartment, at least for yesterday and this morning! God hears all our prayers.

Lucia, continued

Well, we´ll see how this entry goes. I´m back close to home now at the Sticky Keyboard Internet Cafe which has a new feature--timers on the computer. I´m a pretty slow and inaccurate typist and the Spanish keyboards seem to have significant rearrangements on top of it all. I´m not sure what happens when time runs out and I only brought enough money for half an hour!

Anyways, to continue, Lucia has been a big part of my life the past two weeks in her presence and absence. First of all, I´m not used to having someone in my ¨space¨all day. Also, we´ve been a little isolated with the kids in school all morning and some of them sick the first two and a half weeks. The missions team here had their hands full with an RUF team of 24 from the States and some of the families have had sick kids as well. Since I wasn´t teaching English or taking Spanish yet, I took the time to go to the mercado with Lucia three times (she´s a pretty shrewd shopper) and to ask her for a lot of vocabulary. She´s been very indulgent and patient, but since I´ve started lessons, I´ve discovered, too indulgent. She´s let pass some significant mispronunciations!

One of the things that amazes me about Lucia is that she is only twenty years old! She is married and has a three and a half year old daughter. They are members of the mission church. Lucia usually works full-time cleaning the main mission building where the language institute, seminary, college ministry, and administrative offices are housed. I think she is enjoying being on loan to us. She said that the work is not as hard and she loves to cook. She´s definitely used to hard work though. Apparently she first started working at eight years old! Her mistress beat her for not washing the dishes properly, so she stopped working and didn´t take another job until she was ten. That employer taught her a lot, including how to read and iron. She said that when she was pregnant she would spend four hours a day walking around the city with her mother, gathering recyclables from the trash for money.

Well, time to go again--I ran out of time at Sticky Keyboard yesterday and am finishing up at the nice internet store near the kids´school this morning. Both times I checked email first, so I ran out of time. More photos to come!!

Help Arrives

We´ve had Lucia for two weeks now and she is terrific. She´s an outstanding cook and housekeeper--hard-working, frugal, patient, cheerful, creative, and kind. She came just in the nick of time, as the merpisa/supermarket where I can shop alone is on the expensive end, especially for packaged items that require less prep time to cook (spaghetti sauce, sandwich bread, cereal...) Also, our laundry pile has been steadily growing. (Madeleine did earnestly try to honor my request to not make a lot of dirty clothes by showing up for the fifth day in a row in the same outfit. I finally noticed, appreciated her attentive efforts, and had her change. Note that days three to five she had been feverish and overall apathetic due to her cold.)

Anyway, Lucia arrives in the morning, tidies up, and sweeps out the rooms, often remaking our beds (I guess they don´t look made to her). Periodically, she rearranges the furniture. We have nice built-in closets and drawers, each section with its own set of doors. She usually shuts all of these, as, afraid of mildew problems, we´ve left them open to air. I´m sure she thinks we´re strangely slovenly, lax about bedding and clothing, but washing our produce with bleach and brushing our teeth with bottled water. She then gets going on lunch which is the main meal of the day. She eats at the table with us and then goes on to more in-depth cleaning or the laundry (hand washing--we have no clothes washer in this apartment, though some do--and ironing).

We´re trying to have the kids help serve and clean up in the kitchen like they did at home and Lucia seems to understand this. Some things she does better (making our beds) or before we get there (setting the table, putting away the ironing). Also, the kids are truly blitzed from waking up early from school, so it would really be difficult for them to help out in the same ways they did at home. I find that I still do a lot when I´m home. I serve breakfast and supper and help wring and hang the laundry (Lucia is too short to reach the line.) I also have to take care of laundry that we need washed and dried on the same day (bedding and uniforms) by hauling it to a neighbors´or a laundromat. Last week she was sick a couple days with bronchitis and we had to insist that she stay at home. She does tons and we´re working on expressing gratitude and consideration, and in Spanish.
So far we´ve had chicken many different ways, all delicious. Peruvian spaghetti and hamburgers, pork, fish, and fried rice have all been on the menu. Most meals have been served with rice or pasta, plus potatoes or yucca. Bread here is not terrific, thankfully, as we´re digesting as many carbs as we can already! There are lots of different variations of ahi (spicy sauce made from local fresh peppers). They are all delicious. Lucia also cooks with lots of limones (a kind of lemony lime) which is very flavorful and refreshing.
Time to pick up the kids--more later!

Really Nice Cabin Camping

Trying to get settled and plugged in! It´s sort of like trying really quickly to move more slowly. Setting up house and schedule definitely take longer, and for as little as we´re äccomplishing¨(compared to what we´re used to), we´re exhausted and spacy!

Here are some photos--a series of us in the San Salvadoran airport, where the electricity for the entire facility went out twice and only Charlie and a few other foreigners looked up. Along this process of moving, leaving, visiting, and traveling, Thomas rediscovered his long-lost ability to nap! Photos also of my only two safety concerns--being in a large tour group in low, narrow catacombs in Lima (I could just hear my friend H.B. saying I´m sure the fire marshal would not approve¨) and our lovely floor-to-ceiling sliding windows that look down 3 floors. Click here for the photos.

We don´t have internet access at the apartment, but there is an internet cafe around the corner. It is very teeny, the keyboard is frustrating and the booth smells like the last three people who used this station.

Things are really going well though. Our phone number is 51-44-280103. Very limited outgoing calls--not even local cell phone numbers. Living so far is like cabin camping (no hot water at kitchen sink, hand wash/hang dry, dull knives, limited pantry and cookware, no window screens, earthy smells) in a terrific cabin (adequately furnished, electricity, gas stove, 10 gallons hot water at a time for baths, nearly the square footage of our house, house help coming Monday). The missionaries are easy folks, the Peruvians are patient. Charlie and I are unplugging, recharging, and thoughtfully reloading. Kids are well, but Mdln has cold with lowish fever which I just caught. Elise is thriving, soaking it all in, leaving the house on every errand possible with us. Thomas lost his first tooth and is a little uncertain esp about going around dark, uninhabited corners of the apt, fastidious about not drinking the tap water. Paul was a big hit with the director in his school interview (went in with his big open mouthed smile and dimples). This is my first time online since we´ve arrived and reading the mail does choke me up though I didn´t feel sad before.