The next day, my alarm went off at 6.20 and it was time to start another week. Monday was a slow day, since I wasn’t involved in any particularly interesting classes and had a free period. A new teaching assistant, Alexandra, who’s German but who’s lived all over the world, arrived that day, which was interesting at least. I finished early that afternoon and, after walking home, discovered that no one was there, and had to wait over an hour for anyone to arrive. Luckily, as always, I had my book with me, but waiting on the stone floor in the cold corridor wasn’t ideal.
I spent the rest of the day booking various elements of trips I have planned for the next few weeks and communicating my plans to other people. When Omar returned from work at 4.20, we had to rush to the clinic, which closed at 5, to get my vaccinations done for the jungle. We drove all the way there in the horrendous Lima traffic only to discover that the vaccination section was only open from 8 until 2. So, after a wasted hour we went to pick Nicole up from hockey at school. When we got back, I spent the whole evening on my Year Abroad and still didn’t finish, and went to bed completely stressed.
The next day wasn’t any less stressful. Pily had kindly agreed to take me to the clinic again first thing to get my Yellow Fever injection, which meant leaving at normal time to drop the others off and get to the clinic for 8. It took us over half an hour to find the clinic, which was in a run-down wooden-fronted building coated in chipped blue paint. I’m glad Pily was with me because, on my own, I would have doubted the clinic was actually a safe place to get vaccinated.
Fortunately, I trust my Peruvian parents entirely and if Pily said it was ok, I knew it was ok. In the waiting room, we chatted amicably, about her family, about Lima, and about a hilarious documentary she’d seen on Discovery about a gringo learning to drive in Lima. The American presenter had come to Lima to document his experiences learning to drive the various forms of transport in the capital, and couldn’t believe the absolute chaos on the road. An extract from this same documentary then came on the news on the waiting room television; it seems the whole country is loving the idea of this naive gringo and his hilarious attempts at living like a peruano.
After a long wait, it was finally time for me to go in (at least, I thought it was, but the pronunciation of my name was less than convincing). I felt it necessary to double check my name and the name of the injection with the nurse when I went in, not wanting to take any chances with mixed-up vaccinations. Once I was certain I was in the right place, I followed the nurse’s instructions; it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d been warned and, at any rate, I’m still alive.
I got to school only an hour late and I had my favourite class that morning, the First Graders, who are adorable and spend the whole lesson hugging me, giving me things and plying me with compliments. To make things even better, I got full marks on my French test - which I was a little overly proud of considering I left school three years ago.
At 1 o’clock we were meeting Shadia - not to go to Pamplona, as she was ill with a stomach infection, but to go to Plaza San Miguel, where she’d promised to help us make our payments for the Machu Picchu tour. The whole thing involved yet more stress because, although Shadia seemed experienced at it and relaxed about it all, I’d never done anything like it before and was terrified it was going to go wrong. Not only that, but the Amazon tour I’d been planning had suddenly started to sound suspicious so I had to abort at the last minute.
Then, it was back to the drawing board with my jungle plans, so I got Shadia to drop me back at the school so I could work on their computers for the rest of the afternoon. I managed to email Loki Travel, who I’d booked the Machu Picchu tour with and who Shadia assures me are 100% reliable. Then, typically, the computer system broke down so I barely got any work done yet again.
I met Natsumi as I was leaving school and, after waiting in the cold for the bus, decided to walk and meet her back at the apartment. We ended up meeting halfway as she got off the bus. Once back at the apartment, I spent the rest of the day working, finally finishing at just before midnight.
Today, I woke up at 6.10 to talk to my mum before going to school. She’s saving my life yet again by printing off and posting my Year Abroad Project, which involves an immense amount of stress for both of us. The university system is a nightmare even for the students, so handing in someone else’s work must be unbelievably stressful. I literally don’t know what I’d do without her.
Once at school, I checked my emails yet again - still no reply from Loki. After my lesson with my favourite class from Upper School, who were making posters in English about religion, I dashed back up to check again - still nothing. I wanted to get it booked and out the way, so after French, when there was still no word from them, I found the phone number in my free period and gave them a call from the school office. By the end of the hour the tour was reserved.
After the next break I was assisting in another Upper School class, who were performing presentations on religion. Their level of English is really quite impressive considering they’re only in the equivalent of Year 8 or 9. The main thing they struggle with is pronunciation (‘Hinduism’ and ‘Judaism’ caused real difficulties). Even the teachers are constantly asking me the pronunciation of things - as well as vocabulary and grammar. I never quite know what to do when they make a mistake in front of the class. The good thing is that they seem grateful for my help rather than resentful of it.
We decided to get our lunch at 2.50 today, after our last classes, which seems to be the peak time amongst the staff. The lunch staff apparently even praised Eleanor for ordering our food a bit later than usual. It was nice getting chance to sit with some of the staff, and we had a long conversation with Ursula before school ended. She wants us to think about what we can do as a presentation for the school - this, on top of the YouTube video that one of the other teachers has asked us to make. Apparently, all the volunteers do this, but I’m personally not too convinced I’m going to like appearing on film.
After school, Alex’s Peruvian mum offered to take us to Western Union to make our payments for our tours (Alex for Machu Picchu, me for the jungle). After a lot of stress trying to find out if I had the right amount and the correct account details, we stood anxiously in a huge line to make the payment. I didn’t even have time to get out the extra money I needed, so Alex’s Peruvian mum lent me $100 dollars on the spot, without a second thought. I couldn’t believe how trusting she was, and promised to pay her back the next day.
The payments successfully completed, I was dropped back at the apartment, where Natsumi was waiting to let me in. It turns out she has a spare key which she forgot about, so I’m going to use that in the future.
Since then I’ve been finalizing my travel arrangements for the weekend and catching up on work. Tomorrow morning I’m going to talk to my mum on Skype about my project and check that everything is ok before she sends it off. It seems that after a few stressful days, everything is finally falling into place.
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