Sometimes, it would be very helpful to have 4 stomachs like cows do....

Today, instead of going to the clinic, all 4 of us went to a local orphanage to volunteer. It was definitely a humbling experience and Mom and Dad, I can't thank you enough for keeping me although I am a bit crazy ;) The orphanage does a really great job of keeping the place clean, taking care of the kids, and the kids are surprisingly very well disciplined. (Well, it IS girls only - sorry boys! hehehe,  unless the baby is under the age of 2. Boys >2y/o get sent to other orphanages. Many of the kids have been abused, so they generally don't allow male figures in the orphanage to prevent traumatizing the girls)

JS and I were sent to a room with three 1y/o babies. It was very strange as there were two other care takers that never left the room, while MK and JL were sent to rooms that may have used a bit more of the extra help. Regardless, JS and I probably made a big fool of ourselves with our wonderful lack-of-spanish-even-with-a-spanish-dictionary. I am sure the attendants got their amusement for the week out of us. Oh well, at least we were helpful in something. One of the kids we watched closely resembles me when I was a baby. She likes to play with her food, is IMPOSSIBLE to feed (I am very very sorry Dad/Mom, I feel your pain, but thanks for feeding me anyways), she can't sit still, and I could go on and on, but that would list too many of my flaws, so in order to prevent continuous embarrassment of myself on my own blog, I will stop there. =D

The nuns were very very sweet and insisted on giving us lunch, even though we told them we had lunch waiting for us cooked by the our wonderful Mama Rosa. They said that everyone ate lunch together, and asked us how much we wanted. We told them "un poquito," which means, "very little," but that "very little" was more rice than I would EVER eat at home. They literally gave us a full meal, and I felt really bad I could not finish it all.

Here is a "pre-meal" picture with the 2 attendants (the 2 in front) we were with. They were like 17y/o? 18y/o? I think

We then went home and had a second lunch because no one wanted to tell Mama Rosa we already ate when she had already prepped us lunch. As always, her food is delicious, so it wasn't painful to eat =) After all, my brother DOES call me a vacuum cleaner for a good reason. But, "Dear cows, may I please borrow one of your 4 stomachs when I go travel? You have so many, you shouldn't be missing one too much. Please and thank you!"

We all went to spanish class today, and thank God there was no dancing. Whew! They took us to the botanical garden and told us the spanish names of plants/herbs/crops/you name it, - don't ask I don't remember anything. I did, however, take pictures. It was a gloomy day however, so I didn't try to take any nice pictures =)

I have never seems a banana tree (are they even trees?) upclose

Us and Lisa

Some more pictures from MK's camera. Thank you!

One of my favorite picture. and no, I did not highlight my hair red. The color is the remainder of my hair coloring form last July

To see a few more pics and read about the botanical garden, click here 

That night, we met up with everyone else, including some of the kids from Florida, and went to a Karaoke bar, the place was names "Rustica." It was a bar, discoteca, karaoke, restaurant, hotel, and maybe some other things all at once. Karaoke in Peru is different than what I am used to, not that I have ever gone karaoke-ing. It is in a room with different tables, like a restaurant, and they give you a song book and little slips of paper to fill out your song choices. Surprisingly, they did have English songs (but no, I didn't sing). The TV monitors will display a table number, then proceed to play ~2 songs that the table chose. The waitress would bring the mic to the table, the table sings the song, then it is another table's turn. It was great when you are in a room with good singers, but sometimes, they are just horrible and you can't keep from laughing. I really don't like this method because it takes forever. It was nearly 2 hours before we got to sing one song. One table, a table of 3, 40-50y/o men, kept choosing sappy-post-break-up songs, it was quite amusing.