El Primer Día en Chosica

Today was the first full day in Chosica for us trainees. This morning, I woke up unexpectedly at 6am to the family's dog, Orame. Apparently, he has taught himself how to open doors. So, he decided to come open my door at 6am.. ay. So, I woke up to Orame barking in my face. I have never seen a dog do this before..hmm. Anyways, I ate breakfast with the housekeeper, and then it was off to school!

"El Colegio de San Carlos" is the school me and the other interns will be teaching at for the winter. Today, we had a meeting with Dante, the principal (Dante's mother), and all of the teachers. We introduced ourselves and further discussed what our program does. Everyone was very welcoming, and after the meeting, we ate lunch together. It was more "Chifa" food (Peruvian-Chinese) - "arroz con pollo y verduras." It was very similar to chicken fried rice. 

After lunch, Dante took us on a walking tour of Chosica. It is a very beautiful city in a valley of the Andes Mountains. The mountains are huge and covered in dirt. I've never seen anything like it! There are many interesting buildings, old and new, and they all make the city very diverse and beautiful (as you can see in the pictures). But, there are also a ton of stray dogs. And today, we saw a dog fight - not a Michael Vick dog fight, a stray dog fight It was a little scary. We saw the river, which is very dangerous because of the rapids. By the river, we took a short Inca Cola break. Inca Cola is Peruvian soda, and like all drinks in Perú, it is very very sweet. It's like liquid bubble gum with carbonation, except it's yellow. After a delirious siting of Waffle House, we went to "el mercado," the market, which is the equivalent of a farmers market. It had many different Peruvian fruits, vegetables, grains, condiments, etc. Dante bought some coco leaves, which are obviously leaves from the coco plant. Cocaine comes from that plant, so all of us thought Dante was buying cocaine at first.. but no. The leaves are natural energy boosters! Chewing them is like having a cup of coffee or an energy drink. After we saw the market, we headed back to headquarters (Dante's house) for a meeting. He expanded on his teaching philosophy and told us the most important thing is having good relationships with the kids. Talking to them honestly and being very personal with them will make us good teachers. I agree very much with that philosophy, and am super excited to start planning classes tomorrow! Our first official day as teachers is Monday, and I know the other trainees are just as excited as I am. After lots of discussion and laughter, we played a few rounds of DDR and headed back to our host families for dinner. 

I had a nice, short dinner with part of my host family, and then I had my first failed attempt of Face-timing my family in Perú. There were lots of problems with the internet, and all I could really hear is my family telling me they missed me, and my brothers wanted to know where the first places I farted, pooped, and peed in Perú. No surprises there... jajaja. 


**The pictures are on my Facebook page! The internet is not great, and I am unable to upload them right now. I'll do it as soon as I can! Adios!