Coming soon
More posts and photos are coming soon!! I am working on moving my archives over (ie stuff from Nigeria and London) but it is a slow process, and a bit of a mess.While cooking today, I couldn’t get little Stellan off my mind. I decided to take a photo for his Mom to add to his name gallery. Get well little guy!!
Thought I’d deserted the blog again?
Nope! Still here.
Our poor boy is sick tonight. He had a shower after swimming and was very, very cold and crying. I took him into our bed and covered him up and he was so warm and toasty he fell asleep.
He started crying again 30 minutes later and I noticed he was very hot to the touch (more than normal for being covered up, I should mention!).
He had a temp of 100.5!!
After some Tylenol though, he is resting comfortably. Problem is, he went to sleep around 5pm, so any guess on when he will be waking up????!!
First, I am so excited to see several of you are still reading along, given my horrible lack of updates over the last months!
To answer James’ question, I will tell you how I make “moosh” – at least that is what I call it! It is simple, and unglamorous, but yummy.
Take a bowl and put into it:
Couple of eggs
Slices of bread torn into bitty pieces (same number of slices as number of eggs)
Milk
Grated cheese
Chopped up bell pepper (I use reddish green ones, because we usually have no other color choices)
Chopped onion
Anything else that floats your boat
Melt butter in a skillet and then throw the whole lot in (except the bowl!) and cook as you would scrambled eggs, stirring with your spatula. It is a great way to add a few extra things to eggs, and the bread makes it super tasty.
So, many, many times I have explained that we currently live in the middle of nowhere in Peru, and I thought I would show you, with some poorly caught photos, what I actually mean by this.
Look closely, can you see our little neighborhood, aka summer resort, aka housing compound, aka tsunami-bait? It is the white looking stuff in the right corner of the photo:
Here, try again. This shot is a little better. I took this from a bus window:
The remote location aside, we do get some absolutely beautiful sunsets here.
Is there anything in particular that you would like to hear about, or see photos of? Leave me a comment!!
I’ve decided to try and remember to bring my camera along on outings and capture images of our daily life for the blog.
Today we went to town. Usually, when we catch the bus to Lima, my hands are full of the kiddie bag (toys and food), a car seat, purse, and cooler…oh and a kiddo:
In town:
The bus today took us to a decent mall with many shops, some of which are recognizable (like Apple, Tommy Hilfiger, Timberland). One particular store is a favorite - Sam seems to be getting a lot of haircuts these days!
Grocery shopping. A friend offered to drive Sam around in a “car”t while I did my shopping. We met up in one of the aisles along with the Cheesy tiger (they don’t actually have Cheetos here). My friend had to hastily remind me to take this photo – those of you who know my camera obsession might find this hard to believe!
The day was pretty uneventful otherwise, until the ride home. Outside of Lima, around kilometer 58, our driver said something. This is unusual because he normally says nothing at all. We started slowing and I looked ahead to see cars stopping ahead of us. I saw people running towards us, along the side of the highway.
Lots of people. A disturbing amount of people. My initial thought was that they had blocked the road and there was a riot or protest going on.
Then, I saw the mangle of cars. We inched slowly by and I could see one quad-cab truck with a trailer, only now it was a two-seater with metal for a trailer. The people seemed ok, they were looking for their papers in the glove compartment.
The SUV that had been hit on the front was worse off, crumpled. There was a little girl covered in blood sitting inside (which I had the fortune not to see, but was told about) and then I saw the driver.
Older man with glasses. Motionless, slumped. No one was attending to him. And I understood.
Our driver spoke again. A friend translated his words as “the people come for accidents, they take everything.”
We knew the driver was very hurt, or possibly gone, and we were all quiet. But, the image of those people running, all 50 or 60 of them, like they were in a race, running to grab what they could, that distressing image is one I won’t need my camera to remember.
When I came to Peru, I couldn’t cook. Well, I could cook – anything that needed to be heated up or came out of a box, but it wasn’t inventive and definitely wasn’t tasty.
Turns out, I love to cook from scratch. I’ve slowly been learning because I have no choice here. The options are much more limited (no boxes of broth, no Campbell’s soups, sometimes no fresh milk or cheddar cheese…and on) than I have ever experienced before.
I now make all kinds of beef and chicken dishes, and Sam is fattening up quite nicely (not to be cooked, don’t worry!). The chicken is especially lovely and plump and healthy here!
I was talking with my maid today. I have started to really enjoy our conversations (or perhaps the fact that I am being spoiled?) because I am constantly amazed at how well we communicate even though we don’t speak the same language. In fact, I know more Spanish than she does English.
I talk to her like a first grader probably would, but she understands me. And I use a lot of hand gestures.
In addition to the two days a week she comes to clean, I’ve somehow gotten her to agree to come another time just for ironing.
Today, she saw me whipping up some scrambled egg concoction (that I’ve adorably named “moosh”) and asked me about it. This led to a discussion about food, and cooking and I asked if she would she help me learn to cook Peruvian food?
“Si, senora!”
Last night, I was sitting up late while everyone else slept. Actually, I was on the internet, if you can believe it (ha), when I started hearing sirens out the window.
Loud, repetitive. And someone shouting on a loudspeaker.
I ignored it for a while before deciding to go and check. I went downstairs (2 flights, so I was really curious!) and out the back door. Part of me wondered if the alarms were something we should pay attention to (like a tsunami alarm??). I mean, we do live in the middle of nowhere and it is not normal to hear noises outside of our camp.
Turns out there was a big log jam on the Pan American highway. I could see, over by the mountains, a trail of tail lights and flashing emergency lights.
Oh. ok, going to bed then.
[Turns out the sirens and such were due to a bus fire. One of those double-decker things that seem to have maniac, speedy drivers and no recent maintenance. It was burned to a crisp, no people hurt.]
It has happened before – this strange noise stuff out the window. Last time though, it was wailing. I went to investigate and found a lone 4 or 5 year old Peruvian girl crying desperately in the middle of the parking lot.
“Esta bien?”
No answer.
“Donde esta Mama?”
No answer.
Then I motioned for her to follow me, which she did. I tried to explain to her that I would take her to the camp cafe (hubbub of all activity around here) but she didn’t want to go.
So, I led her to the sidewalk in front of our house, ready to search for home. But, as soon as we hit the sidewalk and she heard children playing in the playground…she was off. All things remembered.
Sorry if this is poorly written, has been a while.
And, now Sam. This one is called : Do not disturb me, this is my chair – NOT YOURS!
heh
Wow, it has been a while since I’ve updated.
We are all doing well here in Peru.
What do you want to hear about?
More, soon, promise.
Made a call to the doctor first thing to tell her about the new spot. She was not available to see, but decided to call in a prescription to get him started and told me to call her again the next day.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Took 2 tries to find a drugstore that carried his medicine, ran to the bank for more cash and a roll of quarters to do the laundry (reminded me of college days) and then went back to the hotel and actually did the laundry before getting bored and heading to the Galleria again.
We aimed for the bookstore. Sam loved the children’s section – books and all.
He decided to line all of the horses up on the floor:
I have to start the story by telling you this: Stu and Sam have both been granted residency in Peru, but I have not. In order to do this, I have to surrender my only original marriage certificate (with a high probability that it won’t be returned), so I’ve not followed through with the paperwork.
Going on, Sam and I arrived at the Lima airport for our flight and breezed through check-in. Then, we headed to pay the airport tax (required at $30 a person) and then through immigration. I have found this airport to be the hardest one to pass through in all my travels. The nice thing is that they have priority lines for people travelling with children.
When I got to immigration, there were suddenly a lot of questions in spanish that I could not answer. So, the man took me to see another immigration officer who spoke english. We talked as he continued to process other people, which was incredibly awkward.
He asked me where my permissions were. I was very confused. He told me that since I wasn’t a resident, I had to have a signed, notarized letter from my husband (the resident parent) giving me permission to take my son out of the country. Peruvian law, he said.
We argued for a while – I gave the usual: I am his mother, what do you mean I can take him out? He is a US citizen, blah, blah, blah. No dice. I was refused and told that we could not leave or board our flight. I was BREAKING THE LAW.
I persisted and threw out the bit about how he had an appointment at a hospital in the States, and so forth.
Did I have a copy of the appointment? No.
But, I have my hotel reservation and a copy of the lab report showing what is wrong with my son.
More talks. Supervisor consulted.
Finally freed.
I’m not being dramatic when I say that I was emotionally exhausted as I found our way to the gate. The flight left (late as usual) just after midnight and we both slept.
Our arrival in Houston was uncomplicated and the first thing I did was to ask the car rental lady how to get to the closest Sonic. I needed one of those big, frosty Cokes.
Since we couldn’t check into our hotel until the afternoon (trust me, I went there and asked twice in the morning) and our appointment was being scheduled but I had not yet been notified of the time, we tooled around and got to know the area near the Galleria.
Got back to the hotel for check-in at 1:30 to urgent messages from Stu, the hotel, the hospital and both parents (yikes) that my appointment was at 2. I then called and they said that if I got there by 2:30 it was ok.
The hospital was huge, and impressive. Sam loved the waiting area with several fish tanks, toys and stuff. Then, we were ushered into the Genetics and Infectious diseases area and after a quick check-up, we got to spend over an hour with the doctor. She was great and answered all my questions, as well as performed an assessment of Sam. She tooks a swab (which made him giggle) and sent us for blood tests (which made him scream).
In a nutshell, she said the prior test results show Sam has the hospital-grade type of staph (this is the more serious of the two). She hadn’t even heard of 3 of the medicines he was priorly treated with, but once she looked them up on the internet she said they wouldn’t have had any effect what so ever. The antibiotic he is currently on might or might not have had an effect and the only way to know for sure is to take him off of it. As for his leg – she declared it clean and the residual marks are more likely scars and not the infection festering inside.
Now, we are in wait-and-see mode since he was taken off his antibiotic. If the spots come back, he’ll then be promptly treated by the doctor here, and if they don’t come back and his test results are fine, we are cleared to go.
Two of the ladies in our camp came by to see Samuel today, since they knew we were leaving. They kindly brought over little Halloween goodies.
One of which was a freshly baked dark cupcake with orange icing and a spider on top.
Sam loved it and promptly licked all of the icing off.
Now, we are in the hotel in Lima waiting to be taken to the airport for our big flight to Texas and Sam has just said to me:
“Pupcakes! Pupcakes! I want more Pupcakes!!”
heh
I worry the most at night.
I never go to sleep without checking on you. The other night you were fast asleep on the floor, one hand still on your favorite helicopter.
The spots have come back. And your Daddy thinks your leg may be swelling.
Sometimes I crawl into your bed to watch you sleep, and I listen to you breathe. I have to touch you to reassure myself that you are still ok, that it hasn’t gotten too serious.
The doctors are expecting us in Houston soon. The best care we can get you.
During the day, your smile, your happiness, and your funny words and phrases keep me going. Even so, every moment I look into your gorgeous face with those beaming blue eyes, I am thankful.
And so very afraid.
We are going to beat this thing, my son.
Where did I leave off? Oh, yes, the kitchen! And no, Milton, I’m not taking cooking classes but I am doing a lot of good cooking!
Here is our downstairs living room. It is set up to be Sam’s room since we have a separate one upstairs. As a note, the house comes furnished and we just had to add our touches.
On the other side of the room, you can see Sam’s toys!
And this gorgeous hand-made table we bought in Lima to replace the highchair:
Downstairs toilet(s). Don’t laugh at the fuzzy toilet seat cover!
A funny face, for sure, but this shows you where our stairs are hiding. Let’s go up!
Master bedroom! Isn’t he such a ham?!
Master closet. I didn’t realize how messy it looked in this photo. This is it – all the clothes we have!
Shower.
I only included this to show you the way we do our water for teeth brushing. Since the water out of the tap is a no-go, we keep this cooler topped up with water.
Spare bathroom!
Hallway between bedrooms. The view is from the master bedroom down to the spare room. You can’t see the entrance to Sam’s room which is on the left. The white machine in the foreground is one of our dehumidifiers. In the winter, now, we have to run it almost all the time to keep our clothes from molding and our bedsheets from feeling wet.
Sam’s room just after we moved in, when he was still adjusting to going from a cot (which didn’t move with us) to a big-boy bed. Here he is showing you how he loves to jump and play on the new bed!
Daddy did some painting – the top part of the wall is blue for the sky, the bottom green for grass. We hung a few posters and Winnie the Pooh stuff. Also, he graduated to a proper sized bed.
I love his tree hanger!
Me: What’s up chuck?
Boy: No! I’m Sammy!
****************************
Boy: Mama! Guess what?
Me: What?
Boy: Guess what!
Me: What?
and repeat, repeat, repeat!
****************************
Sam likes to count. He counts to 10 in Spanish and English although he usually just likes to stop at 8. heh.
I loved this: http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/
In other news, tomorrow, the guys go back to work. They haven’t been able to do that since early last week. There has been a strike of local union workers at the jobsite. It started a week ago Friday when Stu called me from work to say that they all had been moved into the jobsite camp (where the guys on single assignment stay) for safety reasons due to union unrest. They ended up coming home just after lunch. Saturday through Monday were quiet due to a Peruvian national holiday, so they went back and forth from work with no problem.
They anticiptated more unrest on Tuesday and would not allow the guys to go to work. After that, there was change. The locals had blocked the entrance to the site, and then set up camp.
Stu was luck enough to be trapped home, some of the poor guys were trapped in the jobsite!
It was a long week, haha. Actually, Stu couldn’t relax too much because he was constantly waiting to be called into work, so it wasn’t holiday-like entirely. This was the first time that he has been able to experience what the wives go through day after day here in the camp. Usually, when he is home it is only on the weekends, so it never gets boring and monotonous for him. He saw first hand this week how creative you have to be not to lose your mind here, haha.
Sam loved it! He played every day with Daddy, and I’m wondering how he is going to react tomorrow when Daddy is gone.
It is late. My guys are in bed. I’m watching the movie Kramer vs. Kramer, which I’ve never seen before. Not a good late night, all by yourself movie.
Once you enter inside, you see that the bottom floor of the house contains the main living room (which belongs to Sam and his toys), the kitchen, and a small bathroom.
This is how our kitchen looked when we first moved in. Shortly after, Stuart went on a business trip for 2 weeks and I attacked the kitchen with some paint. 
It turned yellow! We also had a huge 8 seater table removed from the living room (that took up half the room) and two of the bar chairs. 
My little model is showing off the room, as well as starting to beg for a snack. He loves cereal bars but for some unknown reason has named them “bookies”.
In this photo, you can see our dandy new oven. I like it, but right now the oven is cooking at almost 70 degrees Celcius lower than it should. We bought an oven thermometer in London to keep an eye on it.
The kitchen sink. This is where I spent a great amount of my time. As you may be able to tell, we do not have a dishwasher. Well, actually that is not true – I am the dishwasher. The problem is that our water is not safe to drink because it comes from the river, and it has a higher bacteria count that our bodies cannot handle. So, when I wash the dishes, I then have to boil water in the kettle, fill a plastic tub in the stink (no stopper) and dip all of the dishes into the boiling water (using gloves, of course).
You can vaguely see our boiler on the wall outside the window. It provides continuous hot water on demand, which is great. But, it doesn’t always fire properly and if you aren’t paying close attention (or are sleepy, as in my case) and turn off the water and start again because it isn’t hot – the boiler will ignite all the loose gas with a boom and shake the windows. 
My new fridgie!! We had one before that was a bit larger, but it was damaged in an earthquake (before we arrived) and the main door wouldn’t close all the way – so I had bugs and warm milk. If you look closely, you can see the backdoor has a lock on it about adult eye level – that is to try and prevent a certain escape artist from sneaking out! 
Looking from the kitchen back into the living room (and front doors). I was in the middle of doing mass laundry after a trip, which is why there are 2 laundry hampers there. Also, to the right of the hampers you can see where I hang my fly swatter – the most important item in the room!
Let’s take a little drive, shall we?
Head out of Lima going south on the good ole’ Panamerican Highway.
Watch out for road repairs due to prior earthquake damage (specifically the big 8.0 last year):
After an hour and some, when you see the V cut in the mountain ahead, you know you’re almost to our house! (I believe the oops truck is carrying bananas):
***********************************************************
Closer now. You can see “Asia” written on the mountain to the right:
***********************************************************
Round the curve:
***********************************************************
Aha! Here is our neighborhood! Slow down to take a turn in to the right:
***********************************************************
Entrance gates (which were subsequently painted lime green in the summer):
***********************************************************
Drive down the main road in our subdivision (hehe). The little hut looking things are actually placeholders for the land until the area is built up (or so I’m told, but I don’t see that happening any time soon). In the distance straight ahead, is the Pacific Ocean:
***********************************************************
The road comes to a T. Prepare to turn left. I have to admit – the first time I made this trip, when we were moving here, I started to wonder where the houses were going to fit since it seemed we were running out of land:
***********************************************************
After the turn, a short travel down a portion of the old Panamerican highway:
***********************************************************
Turn again – our driveway! You can finally see where we live. Notice all the grass and trees, and neighbors! (hah)
***********************************************************
Into our complex:
***********************************************************
Park the car at our backdoor. This is our building and our windows are the brown one (Sam’s room) and the one above:
***********************************************************
Walk around the building to the front and see our house! It needs some paint touching up.
***********************************************************
Sam checking out his kit (and my gnome):
***********************************************************
Open the glass doors and come inside!
Home tour manana! Ciao! (they say that here instead of adios)
We have broadband now! Whee! It’s not wireless, so I’m anchored, but it’s much more dependable than that pesky old dial-up. This means I can start doing more photos! Aren’t you excited?
Me: “Sam, do you want to go play outside now?”
Sam: “Yes, but first I need my jacket. It is cold outside!”
I am constantly amazed at how well his language skills are for a 2.5 year old. The other day he wanted me to follow him, so he said, “Mama! Come!” but I wasn’t fast enough. So he repeated himself and said it to me in SPANISH: “Mama vien! vien!”
Knocked.me.over.
The other morning I woke up about 8 am and was listening to Sam (on the baby monitor) play happily in his room when an earthquake struck. Since I panicked over the last one we had, and I was pretty tired, I decided to wait it out and see what happened before I jumped up. It was all over in the amount of time it took me to think that through anyway. heh.
Just a rumble, rumble, rumble, SHAKE, rumble, rumble.
Sam was quiet for a minute and then spoke up in an alarmed voice:
“Momma? You comin’?”
“Momma? Sammy’s room is broken!”
Heh. He couldn’t think of any better way to describe it, and it just made me laugh!
The following comes from a great website that I follow (as well as everyone else out here). It is amazing to see how many earthquakes happen worldwide on a daily basis.
Check it out: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/ (click on the maps for details)
Earthquake Details
| Magnitude | 5.2 |
|---|---|
| Date-Time |
|
| Location | 12.412°S, 77.687°W |
| Depth | 35 km (21.7 miles) set by location program |
| Region | NEAR THE COAST OF CENTRAL PERU |
| Distances | 75 km (50 miles) WSW of LIMA, Peru 145 km (90 miles) S of Huacho, Peru 205 km (125 miles) NW of Chincha Alta, Peru 270 km (170 miles) NW of Ica, Peru |
As a point of reference, we live 107 km S of Lima, so we weren’t too far from the epicenter.
Dear Sam,
Please, please, please do NOT lick the fly swatter!
Love,
Momma
Stuart usually goes to work in my dreams, around 5:45 in the morning. Most days I wake briefly when he leaves, and remember it all in a blur. This morning was no different until the phone rang at 6:45 am.
“Hi, its me. I’m by the back door…can you let me in?”
(We have no key to our back door, for some reason, and he has to leave me the key for the front)
As winter closes in, the weather is becoming more humid and wet, and there is an incredible amount of fog. Apparently there was a huge accident on the Pan American highway early this morning, and the road was blocked in both directions. Stuart and the other men in our housing camp ride a private bus into work every day ( it is a 45 minute journey) and they made it less than half way before the driver was called and told to turn back due to the accident and resulting 15 kilometer traffic jam. The highway where the accident occured is high in the mountains where the fog is a problem even in the summer, and it is only one lane in each direction.
Here is the road as it looks in summer with minimal fog (and dry!):
Another bus of Stu’s coworkers was caught up in the traffic jam, and the men actually had to get out of their bus and walk back to another bus that could transport them back to our camp.
At 10:30 am, the call came that the road was clear and guys could board the buses and get back to work. Turns out it was a false alarm because Stu came home 10 minutes later. Yes, the road was clear to allow some traffic to flow…err…while they got a crane in place to help clear up the mess, at which time the road was closed back down.
They never did make it to work today.
We’ve made it home to Peru in one piece, after a very long journey. It went pretty well though, and Sam tolerated the long flights like a champ, considering.
I only had to catch vomit in my hands once.
We also got our luggage back. It eventually made it to Johannesburg just in time for the return trip, and the possibility of losing it again. We have since discovered that some items were kindly removed from the bags, which is highly annoying. Most notably, they took my Levis, my tennis shoes, a bit of my makeup, some of Sam’s winter clothing and his tennis shoes, as well as some gifts we were taking for the girls.
Bye bye shoes!
The weather in Peru has changed since we’ve been gone. It has gotten cooler overall, but the days are nice and warm (as opposed to searingly hot).
I really like it, and don’t want it to keep cooling down.
We are currently in South Africa, sans luggage, visiting the girls.
Many photos coming.
I know there is a big chunk of the story missing, the bits about arriving in Peru for the first time and our adjustment to life here. I will catch up on this, promise.
Sam and I have been back in Peru this week after a two-week trip to Dallas. We are settling back in and waiting for Stu to return from Chile and join us. Sam is very happy to be back – he missed his friends, and his playground, and his bed. For me, it’s not so easy.
This morning I woke up about 8:15 to the sound of Sam shouting to me over the baby monitor: “Mama…mama…wake up! Mama…come here now!”
As I got up I realized that we probably needed to catch the bus to Lima today in order to get more water (and beer, but I’ll let you decide which is more important) because we won’t be able to go again until Monday.
Deciding at the last minute meant getting ready in a hurry. I threw Sam and I into the shower, dressed, shoved our breakfast into a backpack, grabbed the stroller and carseat, and rushed out the door to get to the bus stop by 9.
Halfway there one of the drivers ran over to me.
“Senora, lada lada lada NO BUS lada lada lada lada.”
I understood enough and turned around towards home. Grumpily.
Later, I found out that there were major strike activities planned for today with tire burnings, marches and demonstrations expected along the Panamerican highway so the buses were restriced due to security reasons. In fact, the early morning bus from our camp, filled with the guys going to work, had to turn back after it was set upon and had things thrown at it.
(There is a fly on my leg, it will not leave me alone. I did not miss the flies, did not want to come back to all these flies. Have killed over 10 of them today, one was especially messy. This one does not have long to live.)
The fun part was that Sam got to play with some of his “uncles” and his godfather, since they were home for the morning. Everything cleared up before noon, which is good, but still no bus action for me today.
It is very quiet here, almost stunningly so. I was prepared for it, so I thought, because I knew the summer locals weren’t coming back after Easter, but it feels really bare here. Imagine that Sam and I have gone into the movie “The Shining” again, and we’re holding up the hotel for the winter. The halls are empty, folks.
After lunch, I put a bag of popcorn into the microwave and stepped out the door to put laundry on. Burned the heck out of it (the popcorn, of course).
So, I promptly put another bag of popcorn on, popped into the loo, and burned this second bag worse than the first.
Ah well.
We are in Peru! Unfortunately, I do not have an internet connection at the house, but I’ve discovered a free wireless connection in Lima at the Starbucks. Sam and I have travelled into Lima by bus (provided by the company) to do some interneting and grocery shopping. Stu is back in London for two weeks, so we are holding our own.
This is where we live. It is in the middle of nowhere. I will have more to say later and may update again on Thursday with more photos. I love it here – it is such an improvement from Nigeria. The food is excellent and we love our little house. I am slowly learning a few Spanish words, but I have a long way to go.
Sam is loving it here also. He spends a lot of time playing outside and has befriended some children.
More soon.
