31-1-2010

The local pueblo, Cuiva

Centro de Lima

The busy street in Lima overlooking a mountain with colorful habitaciones

Me and Noelia, the volunteer from España in La Plaza de Armas de Lima

Weekend in Lima was fine except that I didn't get to accomplish a lot of things. But at least I got to use high speed internet although i still hadn't completed everything! On Saturday night, Noelia and I travelled back to Cañete as she wasn't feeling too well, and we had a birthday party to attend in a town nearby called Cuiva, where we stayed at the home of one of the local tias, Sonia whose daughter was going to be 7. The town is very rural and poorly constructed. Because of that the roads are very dusty. Sometimes there's water suspension, and it happened on the Sunday morning when we were there. Kids was wearing rags basically, and their clothes were quite dirty. Each room there's a big hole on the ceiling, which serves as natural light in daytime. After visiting the local town, I appreciate a lot more of what we have in the home, which is by all means not luxury. But at least everything is clean and sufficient. Nonetheless, the people are awesome! When we got off the bus, there's quite a long path we had to walk to Sonia's home. But we were lucky enough to bump into a señor who was driving a truck back home, and offered us a ride. At first we were a bit cagy, but he kept telling us "confianza" which means confidence. So we hopped on, and he told us he's the school mate of Sonia's father and they're still good friends. Then we met Sonia's family: her daughter Melany, her elder sister Rica, her nephew Daniel and her parents. They are all super hospitable and down-to-earth people, and told me their home is "mi casa" too. I helped them with some chores, which made me become fast friends with them. Sonia's dad was particular fond of me and treated me like his relative.The birthday party was fun too. We danced in Peruvian music, played games, had snacks and dinner. The kids surely had fun, as I don't think they have such abundant resources that often. The next day, they made pisco sour for us to try, which is a typical Peruvian cocktail composed of lemon juice, sugar, ice and pisco, a local liquor made of grapes and is as strong as tequila. Overall it had been a wonderful experience in which I saw the real rural Peru, and got to experience the generosity, hospitality and kindness of Peruvian people.