"Somehow you'll escape
all the waiting and staying.
You'll find the bright places
where the Boom Bands are playing."
- Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Saturday, August 6, 2011

July 23: We’re riding cama cama style! (FBT Day 7)

Saturday morning we went back to Bello Horizonte to paint a mural with the kids at Ian’s site. The mural is a wonderful picture of cartoon mountains hugging their little town. Richard drew it to help with the medio ambiente theme they were working on. This activity was probably the most stereotypically “peace corp” I’ve felt yet. We were wearing ratty clothes and slowly getting covered in paint while we helped elementary school kids paint a rugged, brick wall. It was amazing! For lunch we went to the one restaurant in Ian’s site for pollo a la brasa….which is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. We also got to try some red pineapple that Kelsi had brought along from her site. That was a fun new treat; imagine a regular pineapple but good and tart. Look in to it.
Back in Trujillo we kidnapped Ian and Kelsi to take them to a Starbucks and surprise them with the cards from our group. Then Lindsay surprised all of us with yummy chocolate treats. There are many, many reasons why Lindsay’s TAPs group is the best, but the fact that there is always food around is probably in the top five :-P We bummed around the mall for a bit and then headed back into Trujillo to kill time before catching the bus home. We traveled overnight so the bus didn’t leave until 10:30. Nick, Sabrina, Jessica and I walked around downtown Trujillo for a while and snacked on some street food for dinner. We had an 8 hour bus ride in the near future and didn’t really want to sit down, so Nick and I just wandered the streets of Trujillo looking at all the cool colonial buildings for a while. At the bus station we realized we were actually riding back to Lima on the cama cama beds! That means the seat leans all the way back flat and there is a foot part that comes up to make the rest of the bed. They even give you a pillow, a fleece blanket and dinner. Yeah buddy! We got back to Lima around 6:30 in the morning, and then had to catch a cab back to Santa Eulalia. We had a little bit of trouble when the two cab drivers taking the 8 of us back realized that they didn’t actually know where Santa Eulalia was. It’s farther from Lima than they thought so they tried to change the price on us half way through the trip. Luckily our driver was reasonable enough to realize that it was their mistake, but the other driver pulled off the highway and flagged down another cab to make the girls change cabs because he refused to drive all the way back. It was annoying but not terribly alarming, so after that little snafu we got all the way home. I went promptly to sleep.
Over all FBT was absolutely fantastic. Everyone says that it’s one of the best experiences of training and they are absolutely right……Kelsi and Ian, you guys planned one excellent FBT. Lindsay, you’re the best TAPs leader ever and quite the dancer if I might add. Kelsay, Amanda R, Jessica, Kerry, Sabrina, Kidist, Jenny, Richard, Brice, Nick and Adrian….we all know our TAPs group was the best. En tu cara, other groups! Thanks for the memories La Libertad.
I’d like to sign off with the immortal words of one Brice Corts, occasionally know as Super Man or the sole member of Team Brice, “thank you for your happy.”

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