El Senor de Los Milagros

Every year in October (and here we are half way through November! I can't believe how behind I am!) things in Lima start to turn purple. Purple? Yes you read that right, purple. October is known as Mes Morado here in Lima as people celebrate El Senor de Los Milagros or Lord of Miracles. Purple and white balloons are out over stores and houses, the Lima soccer team even changes their jersey from a blue and white to a purple and white for the month of October. Several times throughout the month the streets of Lima are filled with Limenos dressed in purple to watch the painting being carried for all to see.

The paining in the procession is a replica of the original painting, since the original is actually a wall.




"El Señor de Los Milagros is an image of Jesus Christ painted during the 17th century. The artist is an unnamed African taken from Angola to Peru as a slave. Christ is shown enduring the pain of crucifixion. Above the cross is the Holy Spirit and God the Father. Below and to the right of Jesus is his mother, the Virgin Mary with her heart pierced by a metaphorical sword of sorrow and to her right at the foot of the cross is St. Mary Magdalene. Its name originated in a massive earthquake in the 18th century, which destroyed most of the city leaving only that mural standing. This is considered a miraculous occurrence by many living there." (Description taken from a website that I can't remember right now!)

Courtesy of www.deperu.com

Every few feet a new group of men take their place at the foot of the statue to continue the honor of carrying the gorgeous painting. At every stopping place there are beautifully handmade drawings filled in with flower petals that are made only to be destroyed minutes later by the procession. The amount of work put into them is amazing to watch and we stood by and watched one from start to finish as the procession slowly progressed closer and closer to our location. More than once we thought that there was no way they were going to get done in time, but they did and there was another beautiful picture on the ground to signify the stopping point.

Outlining the chalk drawing in coffee grounds

Beginning to add the colored flower petals

Half way there

Finishing Touches

All done and time to move on to the next

We quickly moved along after the last flower petal was laid. Earlier in the day we decided to catch up to the procession and join the crowd to watch it walk by. That may have been a mistake. As the procession continued past our location the mob of people standing by to watch it quickly followed and we were caught in a stampede of people aiming for another glimpse of the painting. We inched along looking for anywhere to break free of the crowd. (you can see in the photos below that the lady behind was neither thrilled to be caught in the crowd or thrilled to be in our selfie!)

Angry moving mob

While it was a bit overwhelming being trapped in a moving mob of people, it was quite an experience to be part of the largest procession in the world for this holiday. It takes place 3 or 4 times during the month of October and into November 1. After this one experience we made sure not to get caught in it again, as beautiful as it was. 

Until next time. 

-Monica

Where to start?!

I can't believe it has been OVER a month since the last time I have updated you on anything going on. Needless to say we have been REALLY busy.

First I have switched internship sites. We had an incident and I really should't disclose the details over the internet (ask me about it when I return home!) but it ended in me saying good bye to Instituto Mundo Libre and moving on to another internship placement site.

I am now working with a great NGO called Building Dignity. They are headquartered in St. Paul MN and have their Center for Development with Dignity (CEDED) here in Villa El Salvador in Lima. It is an amazing organization working to help the people in the community of La Encantada. Currently I am working with them developing lesson plans, tutoring and developing a University Readiness program for their youth group. The staff and volunteers are wonderful and I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to work with such a wonderful organization. It was a bit of work to get everything organized and together but I am happily settled in until the end of the month.

Villa El Salvador

We spent our Halloween with the youth in La Encantada supervising a party put on by the older youth in our group, It was such a great time and we were beat afterwards.

CEDED Volunteers before the kids arrived

We also have done a ton of other fun stuff like observe the biggest Catholic procession,eating street food, Oktoberfest and exploring other parts of Lima. I will have posts coming up soon telling you all about the fun and exciting things we have been up to. Keep an eye out!

Restaurant Series 1: Papachos

I think it is my feeling of inferiority to the amazing writing skills of my husband that has left me not doing anything on the blog for the past week. It took forever for me to convince (guilt?) him into writing a post, but when he does something he sure does it right! Let's just hope that you all enjoy reading my subpar writing until he gets another entry on here.

This is one of those posts I have been saving for a weekend where nothing exciting happened to us. This weekend was that weekend. We spent most of the time in our room doing homework and watching Netflix. More Netflix than homework, but it sounds good to throw that in there. It is midterms week for Mitch and I myself have quite a bit of homework to catch up on. Needless to say it wasn't a very eventful weekend.

When we first arrived to Peru, Michelle, our ISA coordinator, gave us a list of restaurants that we should try before leaving. We looked over the list, vowed to try every single restaurant on it and tucked it away in our paperwork drawer, forgotten about. Well, we finally started making our way down that list this a few weekends ago with a trip to Papacho's in Miraflores. It is one of the restaurants by Gaston Acurio, who is a well known Peruvian chef and ambassador of Peruvian Cuisine.

 

Admittedly we had been to one while we were in Cusco as well, but it was SOO good we couldn't pass up the opportunity to go again (and AGAIN after our 15K). When craving a good burger this is the place to go. They claim in their restaurant and on their menu that anything can be made into a hamburger, and I think they mean it! Both the times that we have gone in Lima Mitch ordered the crab burger. A crab burger? It is what it sounds like, a crab cake formed into a patty on a hamburger bun. AMAZING! It was so good that Mitch felt bad for me and offered me half of his burger the next time we went. That is not to say that I was disappointed with what I ordered. While I got a regular burger, the flavor was great and it was topped with potatoes strings, avocado and aji sauce. One of the other great things about Papacho's is they have baked potatoes! Potatoes is a must have in EVERY Peruvian meal, pureed potatoes, fried potatoes, but not baked potatoes. Potatoes are potatoes right? Wrong. These baked potatoes were so good, especially smothered in aji sauce and butter. It is hard for me to decide which part of my meal I liked best.

Mine

The Crab burger

It was a very comfortable atmosphere. Both times we went before the lunch time rush so it wasn't very crowded. There was nothing overly remarkable about the restaurant except for the tables. They were covered in brown kraft paper and we were given a little container of crayons to color with while we waited for our food. We took advantage to let you all know that we are thinking about you. I wish I could say that we will be back for sure, but with such a long list of restaurants we have to try before we leave.. I just don't know.

Hasta Luego!

Birthday Festivities!

I was still recovering from being sick on my Birthday. I had the day off work and Mitch stayed home with me to spend the day with me. He made me blueberry pancakes for breakfast, which were amazing, and we hung out just the two of us at home for most of the day. At night he took me out to dinner at a sushi restaurant called EDO and we had Peruvian sushi. It is delicious. :)

After dinner we did a little shopping around Jockey Plaza where he bought me some gifts, we got gelato and by the end of it all I was pretty exhausted and wanted to go home so I could blow my nose without people staring at me. :) It was a great Peruvian birthday!

Since I was feeling better this weekend, Mitch decided to treat me again on Friday for my birthday. It was nice to go out while I was feeling better. We both agreed that had we tried to do what he had planned on my actual day, it wouldn't had been as fun.

It started out by him taking me to a water park in Downtown Lima. During the day it is just fountains, but once it gets dark they have three different water shows.

 

We were a little late to the first show because our taxi driver didn't actually know where he was taking us and dropped us off three block away two streets over and we had to walk. When we did make it there we were only about two minutes late and still got to see most of the show.

After the show we walked around and got to see the other fountains. There were huge ones, colored ones, a water bridge that we got to walk under ( and got a little wet ) and a water playground that came up from ground. There was also a train that took children around, it was a little creepy to be honest, but the rest was a blast!

After our time at the water park we left for our dinner reservations. Everything was a surprise for me so I had no idea where we were going, all I heard the taxi driver confirm was that we were going to beach. Automatically I was excited. When we arrived to Lima we saw an amazing little restaurant that went out into the ocean. It was kind of like it's own little pier. 

I was gorgeous. We got an awesome little table that was right by a window so we got to see the waves crashing and felt it every time one hit the supports of the restaurant. We got seated and got handed seperate menu's. Mitch's was blue, mine was yellow. We didn't think there was a different at first until I realized that my menu had NO PRICES on it but Mitch's did! Looking around the place, all women had a yellow menu, all men had blue ones! 

Our Menus

We both ordered seafood and had wine with dinner. Everything was beyond amazing! I can't even begin to explain how wonderful of an evening it was. We left stuffed and happy. It was such a wonderful day! Happy Birthday to me!

My Salmon

Mitch's Sea Bass

Our Table

My phone likes to make it's own photo collaborations. IDK why. 

15K Race in through Lima

So I am pretty sure the running gods hate me. My first organized race  (only a 5K) I ran with a sprained ankle and a sprained knee. This one, 15K, I had a cough, sore throat, chapped nose, and was SUPER congested. I don't know if it is a sign or a test of my dedication. If it was a test of my dedication, I passed because Mitch helped encouraged me to get out of bed and run the darn thing. We got to the starting line at about 7:15, race started at 8:00. We walked around and met up with a friend from ISA that was also running it. It was an amazing sea of neon yellow as we prepared to start. We started in San Isidro, ran through San Borja, into Surco and back to San Isidro.

I wasn't feeling my best, but I had a couple goals. 1. To finish the race running 2. to not be last and 3. to finish in 2 hours. I couldn't have done it without Mitch who waited for me at the 14K mark to encourage me to finish strong. I finished running, I wasn't last but sadly it took me 2:15 to finish. Being sick and only running 4 times before the race (we signed up 2 weeks before the date) I will take it. I am so glad that I got out there and ran and that I had an amazing support system to help me finish strong, even though I kinda felt like dying. :)

We just crossed the finish line!

With our finisher shirts on

Hasta Luego!

What have we been up to?

I have been horribly sick lately. It started last Wednesday with just a cough and a little sore throat. I thought nothing of it, figured it would go away by the next day. I was wrong. I have been in bed for about the past week with an ear infection (maybe two), a cough that won't go away, a sore throat (that luckily has subsided), and congestion. I apologize for not getting to this, but I haven't been in the mood to do much of anything but sleep and watch Netflix with the hubby.

Now that I am feeling better, I wanted to tell you a lot that we have been up to since Mistura, which seems like FOREVER ago!

We spent a Friday with Fanny and we went to a place called Gamarra. It is a market in the district of La Victoria and has everything a person could ever want. They had shops for knock off clothing, food, accessories, fabric, craft supplies, EVERYTHING! It was crazy. There were people everywhere and we only saw a small portion of the market. I went specifically to look for items to bring to the girls for workshops this week, but we ended up purchasing and couple of sweatshirts as well. We spent a good part of the day running after Fanny who was trying to show us everything there was to see there. We were pretty exhausted after a couple hours. I haven't been able to get Mitch back since.

After Gamarra we rushed off to the ISA office where they were hosting a class teaching us how to play the cajon. The Cajon is a drum that that has an afro-peruvian influence. I had a blast learning how to play. It was a ton of fun and I think that we both want to figure out how to bring one home so that we can continue to practice.

The ISA group learning how to place Cajon

We also got to learn about a few other instruments that Peruvian use, one of which was a jawbone that had dried out so the teeth were loose. At the end we each got a different instrument and all played together.

 


We went and visited either the largest or second largest shopping mall in Lima. It is right up the street from our house, a short bus ride away, and we had a great time shopping and exploring the stores. We got a bunch of new running gear to prepare for our 15K and some new clothes. We also went out to eat at Hard Rock Cafe Lima and had an amazing burger! It was one of the nicest Hard Rocks we have been to. Not overly decorated like some others. We had a really good time.

 

Other than that we have been kicking back, doing homework and trying to kick this cold. I have a couple other posts that I am working on now that I am feeling better to include a short one about the 15K that we ran!

Hasta Luego!

Mistura 2014

If any of you are Facebook friends with Mitchell you would have seen on Thursday that he said he had his favorite day so far. For the past five years Lima has been host to the largest food festival in South America and I believe the world. It is in the beginning of September each year and has HUNDREDS of different food booths and restaurants, each offering one or two different dishes. It was split up into 16 different "worlds"; bread, brasas, cevicherias, Norteno, Chifa & Nikkei (Chinese and Japanese), Criollo, Andino and Amazonian, Sweets, Sanguches, Del Sur (south), Liquids, Bars, Pisco, Beer and Free Areas.

Llama Bread

 We arrived at about noon, and since we were saving our appetite for Mistura we went straight to the bread world to buy some breakfast and then off to search for a coffee booth. Both were amazing and a great start to our experience.

Cooking the meat

 Following breakfast we went to the world of Brasas, which is grilled meat. It is something that is very popular and we went to the booth that had the longest line. We figured if people were willing to wait then it had to be good. From this stand we had the pork, but the way in which they cooked the meat was more impressive than the meal itself. We were both pretty full after that and decided to walk around and see what else there was.

Our next stop was Chifa and Nikkei. Being huge sushi fans, we decided that we had to try Peruvian sushi, and it was amazing! It had a hispanic flare to it, nothing that I can describe, but I can say that it was amazing. We are both looking forward to going out and trying more. We walked around the "Gran Mercado" and looked at some of the stands and made our way over to the Andino world.

Juanes

When Mitch was in the Amazon rain forest he was served a meal called Juanes and said it was delicious. It was something that I had really wanted to try. We went to the booth that had the best looking serving without all the extras and went to try it. It is a rice dish with chicken and hard boiled egg served in a banana leaf, and it was Delish! This specific one came with fried plantains.

Mmmm Beer

By this point we were pretty thirsty, so of course the next logical step was the world of beer to see the different Peruvian beers they had to sample. It was a pretty impressive set up. A couple we had already tried, so we decided to go for the brand that we knew we liked, who brewed a quinoa beer. Quinoa is widely used and extremely popular in Peru. It was very good, but due to how much food we had eaten and wanted to still eat, we probably should have shared one.



Staying on track with drinks we made our way over to the world of Pisco and Wines to try a Pisco drink. Fanny told us last weekend that ceviche and pisco go together so naturally we went to find ourselves some ceviche to go with our Pisco drink (this one we were smart enough to share). We were worried about the ceviche. Usually made with a white fish, this fish was grey/silver and we were expecting it to be REALLY fishy. We were wrong, it was great like everything else we had tried. By this point we were pretty stuffed (and I was a little buzzed) so we decided to try one more thing from a different world before making our way over to the Sweets. Of all the stands we decided to Sandwiches. It has been ages since we have had Greek anything and we saw one stand that was serving falafel. It didn't disappoint.

Sushi and Pisco

Mitch getting Falafel

Chocolate Sushi

Our second to last stop of the day was Mundo Dulce. We of course had to have arroz con leche, we also sampled some chocolate and bought a bar of chocolate that had aji, a local pepper of Peru, and chocolate sushi (it doesn't include real fish!). We then did another loop around Mistura looking for picarones. Traditionally served with honey, we wanted ours with chocolate and we knew we had seen them somewhere. We were able to try the traditional one and one made with quiona. Both were very good but we liked the traditional better. They are similar to donuts or funnel cakes, but the dough is something different. I am not sure what.

Last but not least, we had to try pizza on a cone. When doing our research on what we wanted to make sure we tried we saw this stand and it was something too interesting to pass up. Most of the pizza in Peru has ham on it, and while it is not our favorite on a pizza, it wasn't horrible. Nothing I would get again, Especially after all the other good food we had that day.

Picarones

Our goal was to try something from each world, but that didn't happen. We could have wasted food or stuffed ourselves sick but we had such a great time and tried some amazing food we were happy with what we did get to try. We had a blast and it was such a beautiful day we even flirted with the idea of going again before they closed, but decided to be responsible instead and do things like homework, update the blog and of course watch Sunday Night Football.

Lots of Love.

Hasta Luego!