SLC to Santa Cruz (1/14-1/15)

So we left Utah at 8 am and despite our ridiculous layovers (Denver to Houston to Lima to Santa Cruz), we ended up being on the same flight to Lima with the Peru girls! Cristina's dad picked us up for our eleven hour layover and on our way to their house, we saw a robbery YAY! Luckily, it wasn't us :). I liked meeting her family and eating a real Peruvian breakfast: bread, cheese, ham, and chocolate milk. It was not fun sleeping in a tiny bed with Cristina in the heat, after being all sweaty and hot all day. We managed and slept well for the 5 hours that we had. Her dad took us to the airport, and we had time to spare. The coast and ocean was so beautiful, I wanted to swim. The taxi driver was there friend, I'm going to call him when my parents come to take us around.

We finally did get to our destination Saturday at 3pm and we were glad to see that our manager had gotten our emails and was waiting for us. Looking from the airplane, it is very green and lush. Upon driving, it is older and has some brick roads, and dirt roads. It is poor and a bit dirty. As we were walking to his car, we were told he had good news and bad news, but said we should sit down before he tells us the bad news. Good news: all our workshops are scheduled and ready to start on Tuesday! We will get to go to Cochabamba and have 2 workshops there, and possibly we will get to go to La Paz as well. And, we will begin training people at the center on Tuesday (EKE!! We aren't supposed to do that until we practice the workshops a few times). Bad news: we don't have an apartment yet, both deals fell through and he gave us the option of living with a 70 year old grandma from Uruguay or waiting to find an apartment. Hmmmm, we haven't decided yet if we want to live there or somewhere else..ha ha. For now, we're at a hotel smack down in the middle of town across from the most popular restaurant/playhouse called "Dumbo." it reminded me of Denny's with playhouses and live entertainment. Our manager took us there to eat last night, and we ate Silpancho It's rice on the bottom with a round breaded beef fillet on top of the rice and two fried eggs on top of the fillet. We also had freshly squeezed lemonade to go with it. It was really delicious. It's pretty hot, about 90 degrees and HUMID, cold showers are great!

Also, on the way to the Hotel Cancellier, Luis told us about some of the political problems here. There is a lot of racism between the Collas and the Cambas. The Cambas are the lighter skinned people who have mixed with foreigners, and the Collas are the darker skinned, more Indian-looking indiginous people. But really, it is also a fight between the east (Santa Cruz) and the west (La Paz). The lighter skinned people are wealthier and think the others from Santa Cruz and the campo are lazier and are poor. The people in Santa Cruz want to be their own country and everywhere you go, you see the flag of Santa Cruz. If someone puts up a flag of Bolivia, they will often burn it. Its interesting. It has also been difficult because our manager is from La Paz and hates it here, so we are always hearing how there is nothing to do here and how La Paz is better. (Although, the other day we heard the opposite from our friend Jose). We will see.