The city is warm, even though the air is cold.

Buenos tardes,

These last couple days have been rewarding.

Saturday, I checked out the plazas downtown. And even though there's not a lot to do in the plazas, it's neat to see how Peruvians like to just relax outside and talk to each other. There's literally hundreds of people in the main plaza, which is basically just a fountain surrounded by benches and grass. A girl named Yessica approached me wanting to practice her English. She was very nice, and talked me into taking a bus with her up to the top of nearby Cerro San Cristobal. It's a hill with a cross on top of it that overlooks Lima. It had just gotten dark, and the view of Lima all lit up was pretty wowing. At some point, the cross itself lit up, which was great! I didn't get any good pictures of the city with my camera unfortunately, but I got a few cool pictures of the cross, and I'll put one up later. It was fun hanging out with Yessica, and I appreciated that she was willing to spend her evening taking me up there. As both a teacher and a student, she's normally very busy!

Sunday, I met up with Rosanna in the morning, and we spent a little time hanging out before heading to her parent's house. Her parents were waiting to greet me with open arms as well as with potatoes, meat and vegetables. They really were the nicest people, and even though there were some communication challenges it was a great cultural experience for me. Rosanna's mom made fun of my jeans because they had holes in them, and called me "pobre." From her dad, I learned about all the things that Chilean's say came from Chile, but really came from Peru. Her brother, who is a student in the university, was taking pictures and videos of us the whole time. By the end of the meal, however, they were calling me part of their family. And they really meant it. Their willingness to give of themselves, and the love they showed me was amazing.

I spent a good portion of the rest of the day walking around the markets and shops of Salvador with Rosanna. Salvador is the village outside of Lima where they live, and it's considerably poorer than the districts which I've been visiting so far. Rosanna told me about how they got no help from the government to build this hospital, and how their community had come together to build it themselves. There are actually a lot of skilled craftsmen in her village, and many of them make their living by making and selling high-quality wooden furniture that they craft. Rosanna herself has dreams of getting out and travelling the world, but has very limited opportunities to do so. I learned from her parents that it's actually a lot easier for them to travel, because being older it's expected that they'll return to Peru. For Rosanna, the government figures that there's a much greater chance that she won't. Rosanna and I had learned to communicate a lot better since the first time that we'd met, and it was very hard to say goodbye even after such a short time.

I was considering leaving Lima today, but seeing as to how it's already 3pm (I was fairly lazy this morning), I'm just going to see a few more sights, and then schedule my departure for tomorrow. I actually don't want to leave, but I've got more things to see. I hope not, but rather think so, that I'm trying to see it all too fast.

Chau,
Esteban