So, on Monday, I got ready to leave San Juan de Lurigancho for the last time (at least, my last time as a social scientist).  As Laura was getting out the car to drive me to my bus stop, her sister's big dog bolted out into the street, overjoyed to be in the open air.

    Laura and I spent the next fifteen minutes chasing the big dog around as she frolicked in the grass with other neighborhood dogs.

    It must've been quite a sight, the two of us and that dog.

    By no small miracle, she suddenly skipped back into the garage, right as we were closing it.  We were thus able to drive to the bus stop in relative tranquility, though we did have muddy paw prints on our pants (at least I did.).

   

    After arriving back in Salamanca, Kelsey and I moseyed over to visit her parents, who had just gotten back from their AIM project in Villa El Salvador.  In fact, one of their participants, a Singaporean Yale doctoral student, was still hanging out with them, as was the church's pastor (named Levis) and his cousin.

    So I was able to meet cool people and set up a time to meet a batch of people from my last interview set.  (My last set of interviews will be sampled from Levis's church.) 

    Tuesday, I spent the morning catching up on all the stuff I hadn't been able to do the last few days--blogging, recording the main points of the interviews in my spreadsheet, etc.  After lunch, Kelsey and I again went over to hang out with her parents.  We looked at the photos from their project, and I got to have a very delightful conversation with my brother, John, on their Vonage phone. 

    We ended the evening by going to Jockey to see a Don Cheadle movie that was allegedly about detectives.

    It ended up being about terrorists in the Middle East, but oh well.  IMDB, why did you fail me?    Traitor was really good, though--well-acted and with a solid plot.  The only complaint I had was that the shaky camera pans made me feel seasick about halfway through the movie.  I had to keep my eyes closed for most of the rest of it, but it was exciting, nonetheless.

    Wednesday, I did some laundry in the morning and then headed to the Center to pick up some maps of Lima for Debbie.  She hadn't remembered to do it during our AIM project in June, and I was more than happy for the outing.    I walked around the narrow, old city streets and chose a menú of avocado salad and pescado a lo macho (fried fish with a seafood sauce over it).  I saw the sign right after I prayed that I'd find a yummy menú with avocado and fish in it.

    I was quite pleased. 

    Then, I bought the maps, topped my lunch off with a small ice cream cone (mint chocolate chip) and ambled down Jirón de la Unión.

    Jirón de la Unión is a lot like what I imagine Champs de Elysees to be--a broad, pedestrians-only street filled with nice clothing stores, accessory shops, and eating establishments.  It was a pleasant 12-minute walk to the Plaza de San Martín--pleasant except for the numerous street hawkers who tried to sell me tatoos and piercings by talking to me in half-English/half-Spanish.

    I simply kept walking and ignored them.  When you live in Lima long enough, you learn to do this.  However, I could still hear about half of them mumble to themselves after they passed about folks that couldn't speak Spanish...

    I just laughed to myself.

    When I got home, Kelsey asked me if I could take Sammy on a walk-- "emergency he-must-get-to-sleep" situation.  I gladly obliged, though after our 20-minute, round-the-park-four-times-and-more outing, he didn't look any sleepier than he did at the beginning.

    -sigh-

    Oh, well.  At least I enjoyed it.

    After the walk and dinner (picadillo, diced beef, potatoes, and vegetables), I headed on over to Villa El Salvador to begin working on my last set of interviews at the Shalom Christian Ministries church.

    But that is a topic for another post on another day.