Deepest Darkest Peru: June 11 and we really need to get some more sleep

After almost no sleep we were awoken by my least favorite animal - the rooster - after only a mere five hours of sleep! We were so tired, but I had arranged to meet my English teacher from the school I work at, Gunter Grass, at the plaza to do yoga together. Apparently she's a yoga teacher! We were of course late and by the time the meeting time of ten o'clock rolled around we were still in the mottotaxi on our way there. We then went for our first run here in Peru as we sprinted through the three block no mottotaxi zone around the plaza and got to the restaurant at 10:15. Eleonora wasn't there and we were mortified that she might have thought we weren't coming! We stood outside for five minutes with our heads in our hands, then she came running down the other street! We were so relieved! Yay for mutual lateness! Then she took us to the rented apartment of her 18 year old brother and his kid. I said I couldn't imagine being a mother at my age, and she said her either (she's in her thirties). She also has seven other siblings which is impressive. Families here are a lot larger, especially the poorer ones.

Yoga

The yoga was intense. Eleonora trained as a yoga instructor in a yoga school in Cusco. At the school they did yoga from 3 am to 9 pm at night for an entire month, with only thirty minute breaks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The yoga class today was two hours long and by the end my legs were jello. It was also a big day for Eleonora as she was recovering from a terrible sickness in which both of her legs mysteriously became covered in bruises and were super painful, and she lost over 35 pounds. No doctor could determine what it was and after a month she eventually got better on her own. This was the first day she had returned to practice yoga.

After the yoga we went back to the house for lunch and then we went out to meet Katia in the plaza at 2:30 to help her volunteer at a youth center in the upper regions of Ayacucho. We had to take a bus to get there and it was a pretty scary ride!

The bus ride

The bus was packed and I was so tall compared to most people in Peru that I couldn't even see out of the windows when I stood up. The average height here is 5'4''!

The sprawling city

Ayacucho from high up

The kids at the youth center

The kids at the youth center were putting on a play that would be performed in a festival with four other centers in July. The play is an Incan take on Hanzel and Gretel. The Incan Sun God, Inti, and his two children go down to Mother Earth (Pachamama) and are trapped in a house made of food by a witch wanting revenge on Inti. The children escape with the help of the Sierra animals the condor (the messenger to Inti), the fox and the skunk, before they escape back to the sky.

The sunset

After another harrowing bus ride back down, Katia took us to her mother-in-law's restaurant where we got to meet her husband Uziel, and her adorable niece and nephew Valeria and Valentino.

Katia and Uziel

Katia and Uziel are such a cute couple, she's so energetic and bubbly and he's so calm and cool, they balance each other out very well. Also on our way to the restaurant Katia saw someone she knew outside a church. He was playing accompaniment for a wedding and even let us play the piano in the church!

Eleonora had also invited us to dinner and so after eating a little bit at Katia's we ran to meet Eleonora in the plaza. It's almost like we have divorced parents that are fighting over custody. Which isn't a bad thing :). Eleonora and her friends took us to a cool small restaurant/bar. Her friends are all in their thirties but we all got along really well. Besides us there were two guys, George and Luis. Luis said he was a soccer player and I asked what he thought about Peru's chances in the Copa America as they were facing off against Brazil next. He said he didn't think they were good. We told him to have faith but he said there was a difference between faith and reality. Peru later went on to win! After yet another late night we returned home after 11 and collapsed. We really need to get some more sleep!