Weekend fun in Miraflores!

Saturday morning we headed to Miraflores for a relaxing day in the nicest area of Lima. First we went to Parque de Amor (Park of Love) which is right on the coast and absolutely beautiful.

This is the statue in the middle of the "Park of love."

 

 

The original plan for the day was to paraglide in the morning and then take a chocolate making class in the afternoon. Sadly, the winds were not strong enough for us to paraglide so naturally we went shopping! Melody, our Peruvian friend, guided us into the heart of Miraflores to some great Inca and Indian markets. It was fun to look around. I bought a beautiful scarf with alpacas on it! After some shopping and walking around Parque Kennedy (another pretty park nearby) we headed to the Choco Museo to learn all about the cacao bean and making chocolate. And of course we got to eat some chocolate too.

First we toasted the beans in this pot. I cannot remember what it is called. I wish you could smell pictures because the smell of these beans when roasting was amazing.

 

After the beans were toasted we removed the shells and added the shells to boiling water to make cacao tea. It was delicious!

Next we ground the beans to an almost paste. A machine is used to make the cacao butter and paste.

 

Using our beans that were ground to paste, we made Kakaw which was a drink created by the Indians to be used in place of human blood for sacrifices to their gods. Red powder from flavorless peppers is added to the cacao paste and water to give the appearance of blood. I actually loved the Kakaw, even if it was created for a creapy reason. Then we used the remainder of our paste to make hot chocolate. This was, of course, everyone's favorite. It was simply cacao paste, brown sugar, and hot milk. SOO delicious.

 

Now to chocolate making. In order to speed the process, our beans were taken to be used later and we were given the melted chocolate. I chose to work with 70% dark chocolate. We poured the chocolate into molds and added different local fillings such as candied oranges, puffed quinoa, dried aji (mild pepper) powder, hazelnuts, and coconut. Then we added another layer of chocolate to complete our candies.

Chocolate molds in progress.

 

Then we had to wait awhile for the molds to set. So.....

We had chocolate cake!

 

After the chocolate making class, which I would highly recommend to anyone who is ever in Lima, we headed back to the hotel with bellies full of chocolate. I even had chocolate dreams.

 

Sunday morning so of us decided to go surfing! We were picked up at 9:15 and taken back to Miraflores for surf lessons. We were a little worried, well maybe a lot, that we would freeze since the high for the day was 62 (It is the beginning of winter here). But we suited up and were good to go! Not cold at all! The first thing our instructors had us do was jog down the beach in our wetsuits. I am fairly certain they just had us do this for laughs. We got a good laugh too. After being briefed on the surfing techniques and headed into the water!!

 

Before surfing. We were so excited...and extremely nervous.

 

We had SOOO much fun surfing!!! Our instructors were awesome, the water felt amazing, and the waves were perfect for beginners. Thanks to my instructor, Gustavo (who was adorable but not so great at English), I actually was able to stand and ride a few waves! We all did!

 

After surfing and swallowing a lot of water.

This is Gustavo. We fell in love. He asked me to go dancing but I had to turn him down. It was a school night after all!

 

After the morning fun we were taken back to our hotel which just so happens to be the hotel of one of Lima’s most popular professional futbol teams. The team which shares our little hotel, Universitario, was to play their rival, Alianza Lima. Their rival is like Mississippi State and Ole Miss but much worse. So much so, that the last time they played the crowds got so rowdy that two people were killed. It is crazy. There were police EVERYWHERE and of course we had to have guards at the hotel since the team stays here. Riding back from surfing thousands of people and police lined the streets.

 

 

Many were selling game day paraphernalia and according to the guy driving us back, there were a lot of scalpers. We arrived at the hotel the doors were locked and there was a sign on the door saying the Hotel restaurant was closed today. The security guard had to call someone to let us in. When we finally made it into our rooms we turned on the TV and the news was on showing all of the police in the area.

 

So crazy. The stadium is about a 10 minute walk from our hotel and we wanted to go but the Peruvian students said absolutely not. They wouldn’t even go because the crowds get so rowdy. Melody, one of the Peruvians, told us (half jokingly but also kind of seriously) that 50% of the people at the game were criminals. Milagros said that they were not good people and we didn’t need to be there.

 

The caption on the screen informed us that more than 3,000 police were securing the area

 

Since we could not go to the game Melody took us took us out of La Molina, away from the crowds, to Miraflores. We went to a cute little strip of restaurant/bars near Parque Kennedy to watch the game. Some of the other Peruvians met us there and we had a blast watching the game and cheering with the others in the packed little bar. Universitario won!!!

 

Here was the game winning (and only) goal! Universitario 1 Alianza 0

 

Friday night we took a picture with a few of the players. Of course we had no idea who they were, but come to find out, we chose pretty well. The tall bald guy in the middle was MVP of the game and the guy with curly hair to the right scored the only goal of the game!

It's hard to believe that this was my last weekend in Peru. I have really enjoyed spending the weekends exploring Lima and the surrounding area. Every moment has truly been a blessing. This is a beautiful, diverse, intriguing country.

 

 

Breastfeeding, orphanage, and chaotic hospital visits

Wednesday, after returning from our trip to the mountains, back to the school we went to begin the second module of the course. For this module I will study clinical nutrition. I am already loving this module! We jumped right in to lectures on several topics related to nutrition for pregnant mothers and infants. Wednesday afternoon, after several fascinating lectures, we headed back to Manchay to talk with breastfeeding moms. As my professors here say, "Peruvians are breastfeeding champions!" The majority of moms here breastfeed their babies for at least 6 months, which is awesome!

 

Tuesday morning we took compared samples of breast milk taken prior to actually breastfeeding and compared them to samples taken right after the mother feed her child. The sample from before feeding was almost all water and a tiny bit of fat. The sample after was much more fat. The milk starts as water to hydrate the baby then becomes more fatty to give the baby the nutrients it needs for growth and development and to make his tummy full. I am always amazed when I learn simple facts about the physiology of our bodies. I am blown away by how God created a woman's body to provide everything her child needs from life at conception to several months after birth.

 

Thursday we visited an orphanage on the other side of Manchay.

This was a wonderful orphanage, though it really did look quite similar to the orphanage in the movie Annie. I believe that for the most part it is self-sustaining. Most of the food is grown on the grounds. The have pigs, cows, a goat, and (maybe..not positive) chickens. They also grow corn, all kinds of fruit and berries, avocado, banana trees, peppers, and more.

 

 

The older children tend to the animals and help with the gardening. They have a bakery where they make all the bread for the kids to eat and also sell some for income. The pigs used to be sold for profit but not are only raised and slaughtered for meat.

 

He was such a dapper pig. Loved the camera!

 

One pig was the size of a large bear. He snotted on me while I tried to take a picture by him. He was a handsome pig, none the less.

 

The kids attend chapel once a week in addition to their usual classes and cooking, art, gardening, and music. The orphanage (called Casa de Santa Martha) receives some funding from the government (I believe) as well as private donations.

 

 

The kids were amazing. There are about 75 that currently reside at Santa Martha. They come from the Ministry of Women which is a government program that if I understood correctly is similar to the Ministry of Health but specially for women. Some children have family, others do not. Very few children are adopted from this orphanage and when they are the orphanage is not involved in the process…it is all through the Minister of Women. The kids were so cute, joyful, and full of life.

 

Two little girls I really fell in love with. Wendy and the other I cannot remember. They loved to be loved on. All of the children loved attention of course.

 

We were able to tour the building and see their sleeping quarters, bathrooms, dressing rooms, and their little dentist clinic! I would love an opportunity to return.

 

Friday we visited a public hospital. It was HUGE and quite overwhelming. There were many people and the facility was unorganized and chaotic. There were large wards with several people--no private rooms. Many of the patients are brought in from other towns across the country to be treated for conditions that their local hospitable was not cable of. We were able to see talk with many patients. It was a great and very eye opening experience. I am excited to spend more time in the hospital next week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few wonderful days in Huaraz

Last Thursday, our group from the Institute of Investigation of Nutrition (IIN) traveled out of Lima the city of 8 million and into the mountains to a beautiful, but noisy much smaller city called Huaraz.



 

 

This was the view from the roof of our hotel in Huaraz. This southern girl was SO excited to see snowcapped mountains! Surprisingly Huaraz was almost as noisy as Lima. Peru is just full of barking dogs, honking horns, and car alarms that go off nearly every 5 minutes.

 

The bus ride from Lima to Huaraz was a little under 8 hours but it was an awesome trip. We traveled along the coast for a while.

 

Then the road went a little further inland and the dunes and farmland began to appear.

 

Then the dunes turned to rock.

 

Then the rocks turned to green mountains.

 

We stayed in Huaraz for 2 nights, went further up the mountain to a village for 2 nights, then returned to Huaraz for 1 more night. Here are a few of the highlights from Huaraz:

Our 1st night in Huaraz we ventured into a little Italian restaurant and were treated like queens. Even in the bathroom.

 

Another night in Huaraz we went to a restaurant that had this sticker on the door!

We visited the market where we saw so many potatoes and some other beautiful Andean fruits and vegetables.

We also saw these fellas. He even smiled for the camera!

 

You know traffic is bad when the crosswalk lights show the little man running! This picture was taken in Huaraz, but these can also be found in Lima where the traffic (and driving) is TERRIBLE and life threatening.

 

We traveled up the mountain to a town called Yungay. In the 70's an earthquake struck that destroyed this town and others nearby killing an estimated 100,000 and injuring 200,000. A beautiful cemetery was constructed at the site.

The view from the top of the cemetery.

We found this guy near the cemetery! I finally got a picture with an Alpaca!

From Yungay we travelled even further up the mountain around crazy windy roads with breath taking views (literally...we reached almost 4,000 meters above sea level). This is what we found at the end of the road...

A glacial lake!

As we hiked around this incredibly beautiful lake in my mind I kept singing the Vacation Bible School song, "My God is so big, so strong and so mighty there's nothing my God cannot do. The mountains are His, the valleys are his, the stars in the sky are his too." I imagine the water in the rivers and lakes in Heaven will be even more magnificently blue than this.

And of course, I had to climb this really cool tree.

 

 

We visited a pottery shop in a nearby village and got to watch this guy make a vase. He spun the pottery wheel with his foot while he molded the vase. It was fascinating!

 

 I really enjoyed the few days in Huaraz. It was nice to have a little bit of tourist time and also get to relax.  As I mentioned earlier, from Huaraz we travelled further up the mountain to a tiny village. My experience in this village was so incredible that I have decided to make a separate blog post for those 2 days. Look for it to come soon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Journal for Monday and Tuesday (For those of you reading, this is probably really boring. Scroll to the bottom for the more interesting pictures!)

Monday, June 10

Today we completed our data collection and began analyzing our results! I spent the morning playing with babies and the afternoon reviewing our data and discussing the results. The hypothesis for our study was that mothers of overweight and obese children put more sugar into their child’s manzanilla (type of tea served hot or cold to Peruvians of all ages) than mothers of normal or underweight children. (I should note that we did not choose this study nor did we develop our own hypothesis. The point of the study was really for us to learn the research process by applying it. We also got a lot of practice taking anthropometric measurements of babies and infants!) After weighing and measuring around 50 children 6mo-3yrs of age our hypothesis was not confirmed. In fact, none of the children were obese and only one was overweight. I expected this after the first few children on Friday. Peru is awesome at promoting breastfeeding and the majority of Peruvian mothers breastfeed. Since these children were under 3, I suspect most of them were still breastfeed, especially given the economic status of the people of Manchay. While manzanilla and sugar are extremely cheap, breast milk is free and will keep the baby full! One interesting result of the survey given to each mother was the mother’s answers to a question asking if they had heard any negatives or positives regarding adding sugar to their child’s drink. The majority of the mothers, greater than 70%, answered yes. What was really interesting was exactly what they heard. Some of the interesting answers: Too much sugar in the baby's drink will give him worms in his poop. When my baby has a snotty nose I give him more sugar in his drink to reduce the mucous.

My fabulous research team! Melanie, Katya, Me, Milagros, and Jolyn!

 

This is what we use to measure the height of the moms and infants.

Device used measure the length of the babies.

 

After class most of the girls decided it was time to do some laundry. We took a little walk down the street to the lavanderia where I dropped off 2.5 kilograms of dirty clothes to be washed. That’s actually not a lot at all….I have been wearing and re-wearing clothes all week! We go Wednesday to pick up our clean clothes. We are all really excited for clean clothes!

The rest of the evening was not very eventful. A few of us decided to run to the Metro (grocery store) to buy more peanut butter and walk back. We bought all of the peanut butter in the store. Seriously, no more. Hope they restock before next Monday! Dana and I went through a jar of peanut butter in one week. Easy to do when you have peanut butter for two meals a day! We try to limit our eating out to once per day (usually at the Institute) to save soles ($$) so this leaves peanut butter and banana for at least one meal a day, often two. 

On our walk back I had three jars of peanut butter in a bag in one hand and bag with a 2 liter water bottle in the other, so I did bicep curls and arm raises the whole way back. I don’t know why we got more stares and crazy looks than usual tonight?? I’m already kind of getting sore.

Tuesday, June 11

This morning we walked to the institute for a brief lecture on bias in research. According to Dr. Mary, bias in research creates “rubbish results.” After the quick lecture, we headed to Manchay for a door-to-door survey. This was a really interesting experience! I had seen many of the mothers over the past few days at the community and HELP center but today I went to their homes. To my surprise, the families at every door we knocked on were more than willing to participate in the survey. This would not have been the case in the States. It is very hard for me to imagine everyday life for the people living in Manchay. Even being immersed in their community I still cannot imagine being there every day. It just seems so temporary.  Their houses were built so quickly they appear to only be temporary and many have what we in the States would consider to be part time jobs or jobs that we would only hold while preparing for a career. (This is not all people in Manchay…there are many barbers, mechanics, “convenient” store workers and some of the people commute to the city.) There is also a large percentage of women my age that have children and had to drop out of school and now stay at home. Katya, one of the Peruvians, told me that many Peruvians never actually get married. The government recognizes a couple as married after living together for two years, but many women remain single. There are a lot of single moms.

The people here LOVE their dogs! Many of the dogs, even in the poorest areas, wear sweaters and hats. There are dog saloons and pet boutiques on every street.

 

 

Here is a little fellow we met in Manchay. I call him Pete the Puppy Pirate!

Guiney Pig. It's what's for dinner. These little fellows will soon be fried up and added to the menu at a restaurant nearby.

There are giant cacti everywhere!