A crash and a comeback

As I mentioned last time, the six month fog has joined the party here in Lima.  It doesn’t bother me much, in fact, it is a nice change from the 12 straight months of sunshine I had experienced.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Going back to May of last year, after graduation I returned back to beautiful San Diego for a wonderful summer.  Then, just in time for “fall” to come around (I put it in parenthesis because seasons don’t exist in San Diego), I made my way down to the other side of the hemisphere where summer was just beginning in Buenos Aires.  I have since experienced stunningly beautiful weather wherever I have journeyed, so I would say it’s about time that a little cloud cover join the mix.  Anyways, I didn’t bring up the fog to make you all jealous, but rather to tell a little anecdote about my bike ride to work last Friday.

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After having spent the past several weeks riding the same bike route every Monday, Wednesday, Friday morning to work, little comes as a surprise.  The ride takes anywhere between 15 and 20 minutes depending on how hard I am working.  Or, to be more blunt, based on how late (or early) I am for class.  So last Friday comes around as usual and it was probably one of the uglier mornings I have seen here in Lima.  Nothing overwhelming, but the thick fog had turned into VERY light showers and as a result, the roads were a bit damp.  It was a far cry from the downpour I hiked through in Machu Picchu and nothing like some of the raging storms I had experienced in Philadelphia, so I simply carried on my way, business as usual.  The last part of my ride is very slightly downhill and besides one turn, it is a straight shot to class.  Well, that one turn was the death of me.  As I was cruising along, likely belting out whatever song was currently playing on my I-pod, I approached the turn.  With no cars at my rear, I was free to take a nice wide turn as not to lose ALL of my momentum from the previously-noted downhill portion of the trip.  Wrong decision.  As I lightly tapped the breaks my rear tire slid out from underneath me and I hit the surface.  Multiple thoughts flew through my head, the first two being, “Oh no, am I going to be able to teach class after crashing my bike!?” and “I hope no one saw me.”  I quickly hopped to my feet and although I knew a car had been waiting to turn on the other side of the road, I ignored them completely, hoping they wouldn’t stop to offer help (they didn’t…jerks). I then realized that I had escaped the carnage almost completely unscathed.  Other than being in a minor state of shock, having a small scuff mark on my pants, and having some crooked handle bars, I was good to go.  Oh, and of course, the small chunk of flesh that my handle bars used as a landing point on my thumb.  After a brief moment of recollection, I hopped back on my bike and rode the remaining 500 meters with a set of crooked handle bars.

The most embarrassing/disappointing part of this entire story (for me at least) was the aftermath.  Due to the fact that I had nothing more than a slightly bloody thumb, when I proceeded to tell my students of my “horrific” accident on the way to class, they simply smiled and nodded.  (And everyone knows smiles and nods mean exactly TWO things: (1) you don’t understand what the person is saying and/or (2) you DON’T CARE) I’m guess it was probably a mix of both.  So with such an anti-climactic ending, you must all be wondering why I bothered telling you this story…well: (1) Because it’s my blog and I can write about whatever I want HA! And (2) to impart words of wisdom for your future endeavors: If you find yourself telling a story and losing interest from the audience…LIE!!! i.e. I am sure if I told my students I flipped head first over my bike, broke my ankle, and broke three fingers, their reactions would have been vastly different, and truth be told, the reason anyone bothers telling a story is for THE REACTION.

Last Saturday was game five of the rugby season which means we are officially one quarter of the way through the season.  With a total of six teams (including us) we play each team in the league FOUR times.  A lot in my opinion, but it gives teams a chance to play a lot of rugby, so hard to complain.  Anyways, game five was by far our most epic game of the season.  We started out right where we had left off the week before, ugly, pathetic, horrific, lazy and unenthused.  Since I am playing fullback (similar to safety in football) I have a view of the entire field and it was obvious that our team lacked energy.  We were missing tackles, dropping balls and kicking way more than we should have been.   Regrettably I was involved in one significant miscue and dropped a kick which led directly to a score for the other team.  ***Side note: Prior to the start of the game, our team had decided to use only positive reinforcement on the field.  No yelling at one another for mistakes or bad plays etc.  While I understand the premise, sometimes it is necessary to get in someone’s face and get them fired up.*** To be honest, the last thing I needed after my mistake was a bunch of guys telling me it was “ok” and not to worry, rather I would have preferred a kick in the butt to get me going. 

After a lackluster first half we were down by two scores heading into the second half.  As the second half began, it took the first ten minutes for our guys to regain our focus, but suddenly things started to click.  We were getting the ball out to the backs swiftly and without delay which led to a few pretty runs.  Our forwards were hustling and getting to all the rucks and we were winning our line-outs and scrums.  It was beautiful.  We went on to win 31-19 and I scored two tries, including the final try of the game to seal the victory.  I must say the last try was a thing of beauty as our pack worked the ball down the right side of the field, sucking in the defense.  After one last crash ball, Gustavo (scrum half) swung the ball out wide to Angel (Fly half) who had called a “miss one”.  The next pass made its way to the outside center, Girgis, which pulled his man in to make the tackle.  Just prior to getting hit, he got the ball out to me coming in from behind the play to support and I had a huge hole to run through.  The fullback on the other team was slow to fill the gap and I blew right by him and made my way to the touch zone for the final score.  It all went just as designed.  After an ugly first half, we played a wonderful second half of rugby and now have a 3-2 record on the season.  We will need to continue to play as we did in the second half tomorrow as we go up against our biggest rival Newton, the team we lost to in our first game of the season.  One final note, I was once again awarded the “game ball” for our last game and have won the award twice in the four games I have played.  It is an honor to be rewarded with such recognition, but of course, I was much happier that we had actually won the game.

All for now, let’s hope I have more good news to report after tomorrows game!

Become Legendary

The Fog Comes Rolling In...

My luck has finally run out here in Lima.  The first three months I was here, February through April, I was gifted with beautiful clear, sunny skies every day and night.  Ok, ok, it may have rained twice, for a total of 45 minutes, and been cloudy two more times, but that is IT.  Prior to my arrival in Lima, I was told many things, mostly how ugly the city was and that there is nothing to do.  I personally disagree, but one thing that I can’t disagree with was the weather forecasts.  It is a known fact that for about 9 months of the year Lima is covered by fog.  It hangs over the city from morning until night, slowly draining the life out of the city, as poor weather has been known to do to even the liveliest of towns.  I was expecting this fog to roll in around the end of March, beginning of April, so as each day of April wore on and the sun continued to shine brightly, I had my doubts.  As the title indicates, the time has finally come.  With the beginning of May came the first few days of fog, intermittently mixed in with days of sunshine, slowly presenting itself to the people.  I am not certain, but as of today, I think the fog has officially found it’s resting point for many months to follow.  Like always, it is necessary to take the good with the bad, so rather than be bothered by the colder mornings and nights, I embrace the fact that I can now ride my bike to work without showing up to class drenched in sweat.  I can also wear one of my favorite clothing items – sweatpants!  And lastly, I can once again come to appreciate the greatest city this young man has ever spent time in, San Diego.

One more thing about the fog.  As I mentioned, with the rolling in of the fog, comes cooler temperatures.  For me, my wardrobe has remained the exact same; t-shirts, shorts, flip-flops etc.  For the rest of Lima, they bundle up as if winter storms are rolling in.  Layers upon layers at night and big, thick blankets to sleep with.  It makes me laugh.  One would think as a San Diegan, born and raised, I would be joining them to cover up.  Possibly due to my stint in Philadelphia, or possibly due to the fact that I don’t get cold easily, and probably due to a little bit of both, I am still enjoying every bit of it.  I have, however, noticed more and more people around me getting sick.  Guys missing rugby training because they are stuck in bed for the day, students missing class because they went home early and most shockingly, Sra. Vilma (my boss) had to take a day off from work because she was sick.  I mention this because it took her taking a day off from work to get healthy for me to realize just how hard she works.  I think I have it tough working six nights a week at the hotel and then teaching English as well; here is Sra. Vilma’s typical schedule.  She works seven days a week, every week.  She normally gets to the hotel between six and seven in the morning, sometimes earlier, and stays until around ten at night (or whenever I arrive from teaching/rugby practice).  During the day she will occasionally take a nap to catch up on some sleep, which she almost never gets enough of.  Furthermore, her breakfast consists of a piece or two of bread with jam (not daily); always a solid, healthy lunch; and nothing for dinner, except, once again, the occasional piece of bread or sandwich.  Lastly, the little amount of sleep she does get while I am at work is often interrupted by yours truly due to passenger requests such as taxi pick-up, payments and reservations.  All of which I have not been shown how to handle / she prefers to handle on her own.  Her missing one day showed me just how much she does to help run this hotel and also portrays how hard working most Peruvian women are! Very, very impressive.

My time here continues to fly by and I officially have LESS than two months remaining here in Peru.  I am yet to book by plane ticket to Colombia, but it will be shortly after the departure of Johnny Mac and Cassey, on or around July 11^th.  As I realized this fact the past week, I also realized that it meant my days of playing rugby in South America are dwindling.  Speaking of rugby, after our first match against Newton, the 20-19 loss, we won the following weekend by a large margin.  Unfortunately, five minutes into the game I badly sprained my ankle.  Thanks to my good friend adrenaline, I was able to complete the game, but the following day was unable to walk.  My ankle had swollen to the point that no bone structure was visible, simply a round ball at the bottom of my foot.  Though I resisted, the family I live with insisted on taking me to the hospital for x-rays.  After spending 4 hours in the waiting room, the x-rays came back negative and the doctor simply suggested I stay off it for about 10-15 days and ice it constantly.  I didn’t practice that Tuesday, but knowing I wouldn’t play in the game Saturday without practicing Thursday I gave it a shot.  I made it through practice, but made the executive decision that I would be hurting the team more than helping if I played that week and watched from the sidelines.  Not something I am accustomed to doing, but in what ended up being a very sloppy game, we won.  That brings us to the past week.  I was able to practice Tuesday and Thursday through some pain and make a start again this Saturday.  I’ll make this as brief as possible: We lost. We played brilliantly for the first 20 minutes of the game, took a dominating lead, and then quit.  We stopped tackling. Stopped passing, thinking, running, TRYING TO WIN.  After 20 minutes we thought we had won, and the other team stuck it to us.  I rephrase, the TWO GOOD PLAYERS on the other team stuck it to us.  I repeat, two good players.  That is all they had, and by the end of the game, those two good players had given their team a three score lead which we never made back.  A game I hope we learn from, and then erase from our memory immediately.

I apologize for the long break in between blogs! With my ankle injury, I was moving a bit slower in all aspects of life and therefore took a bit longer to get my everyday activities done.  I hope to pump out one a week for the following weeks to come and then finish off with a grand account of my time here in Lima! Yet another chapter is coming to an end, but you know what they say...“With every end comes a new beginning.”

Schedule is SET!!!

After just over three months of tweaking and negotiating, my class schedule is finally set.  The final version comes in looking something like this:

Monday: Two classes – (1) 7-8:30am (2) 6:30-8pm

Tuesday: One class – 1:30-3pm; Rugby practice 8-10pm

Wednesday: Four classes – (1)7-8:30am (2)1:30-3pm (3) 6:15-7:45pm (4) 8-10pm

Thursday: Tuesday: One class – 1:30-3pm; Rugby practice 8-10pm

Friday: One class – 7-8:30am

Saturday: One class – 9-11am; Rugby game

There are a few specific details which were finely crafted into this schedule to ensure optimal performance:  

(1)You may notice that on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I don’t teach. This gives me a chance to catch up on any sleep I lose waking up at 5:30 to make my Mon/Wed/Fri class at 7am.  A necessary luxury when also working a night shift at a B&B.   

(2)Secondly, and possibly most important, I have carefully selected only classes close enough to my apartment that allow me to ride my bike to attend.  This not only saves a few bucks a day, but also provides a bit of cardio on my days off from rugby.   

(3)The finishing touches needed on this masterpiece that is my teaching schedule was the optimization of my hourly wages.  As expected, each company pays different hourly wages and of the ten classes I am teaching, five of them are in the highest wage range I have been offered! 
 

Unfortunately I have just under two months left of teaching here in Peru, with Casey and J-Mac arriving at the end of June and my departure coming shortly after theirs, but I will be sure to enjoy the continuity and beauty that has become my weekly schedule here in Lima!