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The whole concept of time in Peru is very different than western standards. There really is no “on time” or “late.” Things just sort of happen, and they happen much slower than I am used to. Luckily, it’s not as slow as Spain, where you can barely accomplish one errand a day. There is no 4-hour siesta here, but stores do randomly close during the day and I have yet to see any posted hours. Matt and I tried to go to a bar last night and on the door read a sign: If the outside light is on, come inside. The light was off, so we headed to another place. We just wanted a burrito so we returned to the place we had our anniversary margarita in. The same 8-year-old kid was serving us and we ordered a drink and a burrito to share. Well, he must have made the drink himself because the cook wasn’t even home (the restaurant kitchen is the house kitchen). We finished our coco loco and waited…and waited. The restaurant is also a surf shop and a group of people came back from a surf trip while we were waiting. One of the guys happened to be the cook’s son and we started talking and realized that his mother wasn’t home and he had no idea where she was. The kid didn’t tell us any of this and just assumed if he waited she would show up and he wouldn’t have to tell us anything. In the US this would be unheard of, a cook missing and a little boy taking in orders like she’s there. We must have waited a half hour before she finally showed up to make us a burrito.

But in Peru, no worries. Time does not matter like I think it does. Hopefully I can adjust.

Another interesting thing is that most houses and restaurants (which are really people’s homes) are open-air. There’s usually a roof over the kitchen and bedrooms, but our whole hallway in our house has no roof. I find this amazing because everything here is painted with water-soluble paint. Huanchaco does not rain and people have faith in that because if it did, anything that was painted would melt right off.

I had my first day of work today and I showed up and sat down to speak with Marilyn, the head of the restaurant (who I think is just a few years older than me). We talked for a bit and then she told me she didn’t need me today. So I have another day off (the restaurant is closed Monday and Tuesday), but I shouldn’t be frustrated because it’s on the Peruvian timetable. Hopefully I’ll work tomorrow and today I’m just going to rest because I’ve had a nasty head cold for the past few days. Sra. Wilma cut a giant stalk of her aloe plant in the garaje and soaked it in water. I’ve been chewing up the pulp and gargling it. She swears by it. I still feel sick, but I’ll keep trying.

Today we settled into our new home and walked around the town. We will live with Wilma for the next month, who is an older woman who lives alone in a nice house one block from the beach, and about a 5 minute walk to both our volunteer sites. She has a nice garaje, which is more of a courtyard filled with chairs and a garden that I saw a hummingbird visit this afternoon. We have our own room and a kitchen (yay!). The only other lodger (from Pittsburgh) left this morning. Wilma’s getting her kitchen painted because somehow salt water rises from the ground and marks up the walls, at least that’s what I understood. So for now, we are sharing the kitchen with her, which is fine. She made us breakfast this morning (toast and jam and tea) since we didn’t go shopping yet. When we walked out the door there was a produce cart, so we bought enough produce for the next few days. apparently it’s cheaper to buy produce from the cart than the mercado. I would think it’s fresher, too. Wilma watched us pick out what we wanted and when I grabbed a head of lettuce she yelled at me not to get it. When we were ready to pay, she came over and inspected our purchases and yelled at the guy that our spinach was limp and he shouldn’t sell it. Once the quality and price was approved by our new Senora, we brought our stuff inside.

It’s nice to already know the language. I may not be fluent, but I know enough to ask questions and understand her. No more going without hot water for a week like I did in Spain. (her water is heated by electricity but we only get water from the town from 7am-3pm. After that there’s a reserve tank on the roof but we are encouraged to not use it). We walked through and around and through town again, trying to find the lavanderia to wash our clothes. The girl who left this morning gave us some helpful tips about a lot of stuff, one of them being the lavanderia. There’s really only one in town with a sign, that charges sl. 5 to wash and sl. 6 to dry (Mr. Phil’s). But on the other side of town there’s a place called Chill Out that will do a bundle of laundry (wash and dry) for sl. 5. Chill Out also has a swimming pool (which is an in ground tub about the size of 4 bathtubs, but deeper), free wi-fi (hooray for Matt), food and happy hour from 6pm-12am (3 beers for sl. 10). We tried to bring our laundry there, but their dryer was broken and we couldn’t get our clothes until tomorrow. So we had to go to Mr. Phil’s for now, but we can hang our clothes to dry in our garaje.

We also (finally) found the grocery store that has the best deals- El Hornito on the street La Ficus. It’s a tiny jam-packed store full of almost anything you want, except nuts. They were almost out of fresh bread, so we grabbed a few rolls and now know to get there earlier in the day. We bought TP, soy milk, jam, quinoa cereal (the photo looks like oatmeal, we’ll see tomorrow), maca cereal, rice, quinoa, beans I’ve never seen before, the giant corn called chocle, spaghetti, sauce and swiss cheese that tastes more like cheese curds-it’s high in water content and tastes a little sour. The holes in the cheese are very small. I like it better than Swiss cheese. Tonight we meet with Peter and Juany, who run the show, to take care of our schedule.