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 11th. 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.”
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