Vamos al mercado!

Walking through the market.

We have spent many days walking to and from B Group school and passing by the sight that you see above. We knew there was a market of some type located one block away from school, but never really ventured in to see the different shops or look for anything. 

One Saturday, Monique and I decided to check it out while waiting for Aimee and Erin to finish class. As we began walking through the market, we realized it was MUCH bigger than we had previously anticipated! I thought it was - at the most - a couple blocks long. We made it about one block before we realized that the Carmen de la Legua market stretched down side streets and into a building as well!

A sidestreet of the market.

Looking into the market building. This was packed full of shops, too!

You can find just about ANYTHING at the market. There are clothes and shoes, fresh fruits and vegetables, mini restaurants serving ceviche or other typical foods, plants, cleaning products, school supplies, and whole chickens to be purchased, DVDs and way, WAY more!

An advantage of purchasing items at the market in Carmen de la Legua compared to going to a larger supermarket is that you can barter with the shop owners. Because of this, you can typically find much cheaper prices AND your money goes to local families!

One crazy aspect of the market is that at the end of each day, every shop is taken apart and carted away by the owners. This means that everything you see in these pictures is gone by the evening, and brought back the next day! I cannot imagine packing and unpacking my shop EACH day. That's a TON of work!

Beautiful plants and flowers for sale.

A cevichería - where you can purchase different types of ceviche. People will sit on the stools in the front and eat right there!

Another side street of the market. This section was specifically clothes.

You can buy just about every type of rice and corn here! I didn't even know that this many existed!

This picture captures only some of the varieties of fruits and vegetables you can buy here!

Need some cleaning products? They are available here!

Pick a cereal, any cereal! They will fill a bag with whatever you want!

Lots of shoes to choose from. :)

Echevela, the Berrospid family helper, shops at the market daily. She purchases most of the food that we eat at the market! This includes meat, fruit, vegetables, rice, and potatoes. She has also found some exotic Peruvian fruit that we have tried... pacay, granadillas, and tuna are a few. I'll have to show you pictures another day as I'm off to get my nails done for Yanina's wedding tonight! Can't wait to tell you all about it!

La Marcha

Yesterday was one of the best days yet! Since we arrived, Daniel has been talking about la marcha, a day when all of the schools in Carmen de la Legua compete in a marching contest. At B Group, students have been practicing for the march for weeks. Each day, students spend time marching on the roof of the school. Only the best marchers are selected to participate, so students invest much time and energy into practicing and rehearsal. The school competes in the primary and secondary levels and the B Group teachers march with each group as well.


There was no school on Thursday, as students and teachers alike met to practice, practice, practice! Monique, Aimee, Erin, and I went with the teachers to watch them practice marching by the river. As we were watching, Daniel approached me and asked me if I would like to participate in the march with the other teachers! I immediately said YES and away I went to practice. :) 

Marching with with the other teachers during practice. The woman in front of me is the director of the elementary school. Janina, an English teacher at the Language Center is to my left.

Daniel takes the march very seriously, as you can see here in the picture!

After about an hour of practicing the march, we went back to the school and starting making arrangements for my uniform. Just like in the military, everyone needs to match! I ended up borrowing Sofia's (another English teacher from the Language Center) clothes and shoes. We are the same size!

Thursday night, we also made signs for B. Group. Aimee, Erin, and Monique proudly displayed them during the march! It was nice to see the signs so I knew where they were sitting. 

One Spanish and one English sign! Everyone got a big kick out of them. :)

We woke up early Friday morning and had breakfast with Daniel before heading to the main plaza in Carmen de la Legua. When we arrived, there were bands playing, many students in their uniforms, schools practicing on all the side streets, and lots of excitement in the air!

Me with some other English teachers from B Group. This is after they helped me finish getting ready. I needed a bun cover for my hair, black socks, and the flag pin! Thanks, ladies!

Even the smallest kiddos participated! Here is group dressed as little sailors. There were wee ones dressed in many different outfits, including army soldiers, traditional Peruvian clothes, nurses, and many more!

A picture with a couple of the girls from B Group in their uniform! They are from the primary school.

We got to the plaza around 8:30 am. At this time, Erin, Aimee, and Monique went to the bleachers to watch the march from there. Unfortunately, yesterday was a SUNNY day in Carmen de la Legua and they felt it! Everyone got quite a bit a sun while waiting and watching the march. 


As for the me and the other teachers, We were able to see the behind-the-scenes action! Because the primary school WON last year, they marched last of all the primary schools. We waited, and waited, and waited... Finally, we started inching closer to the plaza. It was encouraging to hear the crowd bursting with energy and excitement as we neared the march. We marched with the primary around 1 PM.

The other teachers at B Group patiently waiting to march with the primary school.

Almost ready to march! You can see the crowd to the left. The important people from the community sat on the right.

When they announced B Group, the crowd went CRAZY!  There were flags that said "Yo Amo B Group" (I Love B Group) and the crowd threw pica pica into the air. I was just bursting with pride, even though I am not Peruvian! It was definitely an experience I will NEVER forget. 

We marched through the street, in front of the crowd and all the important members of the community. I could definitely tell that this was a very important thing for B Group and for Carmen de la Legua. All the teachers and students had worked very hard and wanted to WIN!

After we were done marching with the primary, we walked back to march with the secondary students as well. We did the same thing as with the primary, but the secondary had very official flag carriers and even alumni that marched with the school!

The B Group flag carriers. These were the BEST of the BEST marchers from the secondary school. I had 4 students that carried a flag! :) This was taken after the march.

Once we were finished, we went back to B Group to wait for the results. Monique, Aimee, and Erin joined the rest of the teachers at the school later and brought me some new clothes - I don't think I had ever been so happy to see jeans and tennis shoes in my life! :)

Then the news came - the secondary school WON FIRST PLACE! There was a large celebration with all of the teachers of B Group in the lobby of the school. Parents and other students began to congregate in the street by the school, waiting for the students who marched to return.

When they arrived, there was a HUGE party! There was lots of pica pica in the air, loud horns, and cheering. Daniel and the march coach both gave heart-warming speeches, and the students began chanting for a day off on Monday. :) 

The marchers with the happy crowd at the school.

I am so thankful to have had this opportunity to march for B Group! Winning first place was just the icing on the cake. Congratulations B Group Secondary School! I am so proud of you!

Callao of many colors

One of my favorite things about the region in which I live is that the town is always changing. There is construction on almost every street and houses are constantly being improved. It is fun to watch the changes and also to learn about the different construction techniques!

As you have seen before, wood is rarely used in construction because of the frequency of tremors and earthquakes here. Concrete is used to build nearly everything! Currently, the BG9 Language Center is being built just down the road from us. They hope that the second level will be laid before we leave, but so far just the first level has been finished. This will be the new location for all of the language classes at BG9, currently held at the primary school after hours.

A picture of the language center BEFORE the first level of concrete was laid. There will be a pool in the basement!

The first level of concrete has been laid! This is almost the same view as the previous picture - the stairwell is directly in front of me.

What the language center will look like someday... so fancy

!

Another favorite feature of mine is all of the beautiful colors of the houses. You rarely find a white or tan house - rather, bright blue, orange, pink, purple, and other Easter-y colors are popular! Now I am rather used to the variety, but I was in awe at first!

Some houses are tiled, like this one. This is right across the street from Daniel's house.

I love this one! It's very large and sometimes the garage door is open so you can see inside. I have seen parties and also cars parked inside. This is probably the largest house I have seen here in Callao. It's just down the street from our apartment.

These houses remind me of sherbet. :)

PINK! This one is one block from the school.

A pretty dusty blue color.

I like this teal one, especially the terrace on the second level.

The green color is pretty funky. You can also see the construction of the second level and third level with just bricks.

I saved the best for last... my favorite! Mint. :)

 
I hope you enjoyed this short trip around our neighborhood of Carmen de la Legua in Callao. The colors of the houses are cheery, especially now that the sky is always so grey. I miss seeing the blue skies like you see here in these pictures!

Young towns

This past Friday was a holiday here in Peru, so we went with Daniel to his aunt's house in a district on the edge of Lima. While her district was very beautiful with large houses and YARDS, we passed through some pueblos jóvenes along the way. Pueblos jóvenes, or young towns, are newly settled towns in the province of Lima. 


Young towns are created when people from the sierra (high lands) emigrate to Lima. They find land and set up a hut, more or less, in the desert. There they live with others who emigrated, without electricity or running water. Their life is very difficult! After some years (5-10), the city will decide to provide these utilities to the community and install electrical poles and running water to the town.

 You can see a new town in the distance - newly settled.

Somewhere along the way, the people of the town begin to settle even more, replacing their straw or wooden houses with bricks. My understanding is that they use their money to buy bricks - once there are enough bricks to build a wall, they put up one wall. This continues until there are enough bricks for an entire house. They then will start on the second floor.

A very new town. You can see the walls are still wooden on many of these houses.

A new town with a closer view. Many of these buildings are brick already!

In this way, you can generally tell how old a part of town in by looking at the height of the buildings and how completed they are. Once a level is completed, they also cover it with a type of concrete and paint the house. Here in Callao, you can definitely see this represented in the houses! 

This is a normal site here in Callao. You can see the first floor is completed and painted on the center building. The second floor is still brick, without the concrete and paint over the top. The building on the far left has concrete but no paint yet!

I found this incredibly interesting! Daniel told us that the population of Lima is very hard to determine because people are constantly moving into pueblos jóvenes. Each day, the population is changing. I know this is typical of any city, but in the US it takes a very different form.