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August 10 Last Week in Lima Friday, I began a busy week of spending time with my Peruvian friends before I departed for the United States. On Friday morning, I took a bus to Parque Kennedy in Miraflores to meet up with Joel, the Cooleys' friend, so we could take a walk along the Costa Verde (the Green Coast, the beautiful clifftop parks which stretch all the way from Chorrillos to Magdalena del Mar). He told me he loves the route, but that he hates to walk alone, and, while I do not mind walking alone, I do not always feel safe doing so in Lima. Since we both had the week off, I proposed we walk the Costa Verde together, which we did, but unfortunately we did not finish it. We only walked about three miles of the coast and stopped just shy of Magdalena del Mar. After that, I had a very strange lunch hour in Parque Kennedy--all the dreadlocked and bath-less North American and European backpackers make for a very Bohemian people-watching atmosphere--and then I met up with Cely and her boyfriend, Lazaro, for an afternoon of hanging out. We went to a mall in San Borja and watched an Eddy Murphy movie dubbed into Spanish. For our meal, they had Burger King, and I had a suspiro a la limena. ("It's so strange how we want food from your country," commnted Lazaro, "and you want food from our country! I don't think I have ever even eaten a suspiro before, and I'm from here!") We also played several rounds of air hockey, in which we all won about an equal number of times. This made it more fun for everyone involved. I made it back to the Cooleys' for English conversation group just in time for it to start. For the meeting, Kelsey had made a US-style apple pie (very different from Peruvian apple pie, which is wider and flatter and less juicy, less flavorful, less spicy, and less sweet than our apple pie). I very much enjoyed my last session of conversation group. There were a lot of new faces, including a guitarist who attends Lima's elite music conservatory. All the new faces, however, meant there wasn't enough apple pie to go around. "Quick," Robert prodded the guitar student. "Finish eating before Maria comes, because we don't have any pieces left for her." Just then, Maria rang the bell. "Maria," Robert began as she walked in the door. "Would you like some soda crackers?" Everyone--including Maria--burst into laughter. It was a good meeting.  I spent Saturday in Tablada. During the morning, I hung out with Liz and her family. Adriel enjoyed "helping" me build Lego towers. She is a real doll. And she is so articulate. She speaks better Spanish than the four-year-old in the house where I lived (unfortunately, though, that isn't saying as much as you would think.). After a lunch of arroz con pollo, I headed over to Corina's, where I helped her decorate Valentina's crib and dream about the moment Valentina would choose to be born. We both hoped Valentina would come before I returned to my country. Of course, that didn't happen, though it should have...  After a short visit to Rosita's house and a lasagna dinner with Corina and Cristian, I headed home so I could prepare for a busy Sunday. I went to Camino de Vida in the morning with the Cooleys and heard an excellent sermon on the basics of the Christian life: faith, hope, and love. After that, we all went to Rustica for lunch, and then I took a micro to the Center of Lima to meet up with my friend Nancy. The micro was barreling down Tacna, and so my stop came up more quickly than I expected. However, as soon as I saw the Church of Santa Rosa, I stood up and said, "Baja" and walked toward the door. The micro didn't stop or even slow down. It kept on speeding along, crossing the bridge over the Rimac River. "Push the button over the door," other passengers advised me. I did. Repeatedly. But the driver wouldn't stop...not until we were a good four blocks on the other side of the river in a decidedly not-used-to-gringos part of Rimac. Even so, I was glad to get off. I hiked all the way to the Plaza Mayor as quickly as I could and met Nancy on the steps of the Cathedral of Lima. We sat there a while, just talking. Then we strolled down the Chabuca Granda, where I bought a king kong (pastry) for a Peruvian friend who goes to my university. She had asked me to bring one back to the States for her, and I was more than happy to oblige her. Then we stopped and watched some dancers doing the Scissors Dance in the street. (The Scissors Dance involves a richly-costumed man doing a legs-crossing-back-and-forth acrobatic dance while keeping the beat of the music with a pair of jangling scissors he carries in his right hand. It is a very impressive spectacle and obviously takes years of practice to perfect.) Then we walked down the Jiron de la Union, with all its little shops and street vendors, turned the corner, and wandered down toward Tacna. Hungry, we stopped by one of the many shops near Las Nazarenas to buy some turron de Dona Pepa. We entered the church's gated courtyard and sat down on the wall, backs to the wrought iron fence, to eat our sweet. "You know," Nancy commented, "the last time I was inside Las Nazarenas, I was Catholic. I had begun to doubt the Christian faith, so I came to the church to pray. Confession was going on, so I entered the booth to talk to the priest, to ask him about my doubts and to see if he could give me the answers I sought about life, death, and our purpose in the world." She paused. "All he said to me after I told him about my struggles was, 'Say five Hail Marys and three Lord's Prayers.' I never went to church again, not til two years had passed and I became an evangelical." Just then, I felt a sharp tug on the hair at the nape of my neck. Immediately, I knew a man had pulled my hair to get me to turn around and look at him. Because the purpose was to draw my attention, I kept staring straight ahead, but I whispered to Nancy, "Someone just pulled my hair." She nodded. "Mine, too." Slowly, we turned around to see a short, grubby, wild-eyed man snickering in a husky rasp on the other side of the iron fence. "Let's go into Las Nazarenas for a moment until he's gone," murmured Nancy. "I guess this will be the first time in over a decade that I re-visit this place." So we went in and listened to Mass until we were sure that Mr. Creepy had left. I could still feel the place where he had pulled--it was outlined in mental chalk on my scalp. I was all too happy to get on a custer and head south to Villa El Salvador for my final service at Shalom Christian Mission. I had thought this particular bus ride would take an hour. And I was sure it would be a pleasant hour, since the cobrador kept shouting, "Pista Nueva! Pista Nueva! (New Highway! New Highway!)" However, "Pista Nueva" turned out to be the most continuously bumpy street I have yet experienced in Lima (and that is saying a lot), and the ride lasted two full hours, plus an additional 15 minutes in mototaxi to arrive at the door of the church.  When I arrived, worship was just ending, and a guest speaker, a Puerto Rican living in New Jersey, gave the message. I understood only about 50% of what he was saying, and those were mostly the numerous English loan words he peppered the sermon with. I am glad I decided against Spring Break in Puerto Rico. Its accent is absolutely indecipherable. It made it even worse when the speaker thrust his microphone in my face to get me to finish a sentence of his at one point near the end of the sermon. I could have curled up in a little ball and sunk into the cement floor quite happily. Unfortunately, I didn't. After the service, I paid a tearful goodbye to the sweet, sweet people of the church, and then I headed home. That is always the way of it--say good-bye and go home. Monday, I woke up quite unwell. I had begun to feel abdominal pain the morning before, but now it had translated into much more concrete symptoms. I took some over-the-counter medicine and went to visit the Cooleys one last time before they traveled to the provincias (part of Peru outside of Lima) with Becky's visiting sister. After that, I took a bus to San Juan de Lurigancho to have lunch with my friends Laura and Vico. We had agreed to meet up at the church. On the way between my bus stop and the church, I passed an open-air market. The security guard was standing near the entrance, and he greeted me in English, "Hay-lo." Remembering never to talk to Peruvian men when alone in a non-touristic part of Lima, I said nothing and continued walking. As I was almost past the market, he popped out in front of me again. "Hey! Hay-lo! Hay-lo!" Scared as much by the memory of Mr. Creepy yesterday as by the unsettling actions of this guy today, I almost ran around the corner in the direction of the church. The doorkeeper was on lunch break, so I had to stand outside for about 15 minutes. When I stood close to the wall, I wasn't as conspicuous as I could've been, but still, with my white skin, brown hair, and tall stature, it was hard to mask my presence completely. I received several whistles--perfectly expected and dutifully ignored--though one passing man clapped his hands and forced me to look at him. That was almost as creepy as pulling my hair, I thought. Soon, thankfully, Laura came by to pick me up, and we sped off to the place where she volunteers, a home for mistreated women and their children called "Casa Pat." I spent a lovely afternoon meeting the women, many not much older than myself, and playing with their sweet, adorable children. One little boy, Jhonathan, was particularly affectionate. He sat in my lap and looked through all 160 pages of my day planner, pointing to the school mascot on each and every page, from front to back. "Here it is...here it is...here it is...here it is," he repeated, flipping the pages rapidly. Too cute! Around dinnertime, Laura and I headed to her home, and I hung out with her daughters until late. We watched the Disney Channel dubbed into Spanish (quality programming at its highest, let me tell you...) and also a Peruvian comedy called Al Fondo Hay Sitio. Al Fondo Hay Sitio is surprisingly well-written. It's all about a family from Ayacucho moving into an upper-class neighborhood of Lima. There are about six or seven different storylines, and they are all very amusing--the lovestruck son of the family from Ayacucho and his upper-class girlfriend/neighbor, his ditzy cousin and her equally ditzy mother, his worldy-wise combi-driving uncle (hence the show's title, which means, "In the Back There's a Spot"), an overbearing madam and her sniveling butler...etc. I hope there's a way to watch Al Fondo Hay Sitio here in the States. Yes, it was that good. Around midnight, Vico came home, and we had tea and crackers before turning in for the night (I had decided to stay over so that I could see the whole family.). I settled in for a good night's rest; however, that was not to be. At 5 am on Tuesday, I awoke to the smell of Laura cooking for her family--garlic, chicken, rice--and it almost made me throw up. I managed to get back to Salamanca, though, where I bought the antibiotics I needed to make myself better. I had told Cely and Lazaro I would go to the Huachipa Zoo with them, and, although I did not feel quite up to it, we went and had a good time. We agreed that the white tiger and the playful sea otters were the most fun animals there, though the open-air aviary was also quite good. We had to rush through the zoo pretty quickly, though, because I had told Miryam and Juan de Dios that I would visit them. We went out for pollo a la brasa, though all I could get down was the chicken breast (no salad or french fries for me!). It seemed very ironic that, in terms of my digestive system, I had been fine my entire two months in Lima, and only now, as I was getting ready to leave, I could not eat anything but crackers and clear liquids. 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