On February 1st we (Victor, Ana, Jeanne, and I) were supposed to take the first bus to Huancayo. However, the path to Huancayo ended up being blocked until February 3rd. The path was blocked by riots between farmers and vendors of market over the price of potatoes. While on paper the issue of potato prices seems pretty trivial, however the riots were getting pretty intense, with two deaths. However on February 3rd, the path was finally opened once again. Our host dad in Huancayo advised us to simply take the bus the next day, as the first day the path was opened would have lots of traffic. With this in mind, we booked our new bus tickets the morning of February 3rd and prepared to start our new lives in Huancayo.
I woke up late on this morning (bad timing) and with my host family, we all rushed to the bus station (which is thankfully very close to my house). I rushed to give my suitcase before boarding the bus with the other exchange students. I said some more goodbyes to my host mom and sister before I scampered onto the bus. The ride to Huancayo passed very quickly and was gorgeous (as we drove through the mountains). Before the bus ride, I was a little nervous, as we were passing over an altitude of 5,000 meters. It ended up being completely fine, and we arrived in Huancayo. We greeted our family before we squeezed our suitcases into the car and set off for our new home. My new host family consists of my host dad Gerardo, my host mom Clara, my host sisters Daniella (21) and Camila (12), my host brother Gerardo (7), and my host Grandma (Hilda).
When we arrived at the house, I was pretty impressed. In Lima, I lived in a sort of apartment that was nice and cozy. Here we have a garden, a large house with multiple floors, and for the exchange students our own separate little guest house. Our guest house is cute and consists of two rooms. When you walk in you see Ana's bed and a little kitchenette. If you pass through the next door, you see Jeanne and I's room and a nice bathroom. The main house is quite large, with a beautiful kitchen and a large living space. We were all happy with the kitchen as our host family is excited to taste some food from our countries :)
After we got a house tour, we all went to our little guest house and unpacked our things. We later joined the family for dinner (which didn't include rice) and talked until we were told to go to bed (we were obviously exhausted).
February 5th, 2018
The next morning we all woke up around 7 so that we could join our family for an early morning breakfast (both of our host parents had to work). We ended up being the first ones at breakfast, but were quickly joined by our grandmother, brother, parents, and later sisters. We ate and talked a little bit before we went back to our room to shower and get fully around for the day. At around 10, we left with Daniela to go meet with some of her friends and play soccer. We first went to a park, before we drove to what I think was our Aunt's house. It had a huge yard and lots of dogs. Jeanne happens to be terrified of dogs, which meant she was not only hesitant to get out of the car, but ended up staying in the house while we played soccer. We had called Victor to come and join our soccer game, but by the time he got to the house it was over (my team won), as it had begun to rain. So instead, we all went inside the house and played charades. We were acting out movies, and while the language difference resulted in different movie titles, my team once again pulled through with the win. After charades, Danielle, Jeanne, Ana, Victor, and I all returned back to our house to have a family lunch. We ate stuffed potatoes (Papa Rellena), and talked about our all countries. After lunch, we went and talked with Victor and showed him around our new house. After running around the soccer game, we were all pretty wiped (the altitude does that), so we just chilled and talked. We later went out with our host grandma to a park quite a ways from our house. There, we played with Gerardo (hide and seek), before we talked with some children that were curious about us. Before long, we went back with our Grandma to the house. Later in the night, we (Grandma, Gerardo, Camila, and all the exchange students) went to a park not too far from our house. The park was quite ordinary, but it was filled with dancers. Every space of the park was filled with people dancing to various songs all at once. It was quite fun to walk around and admire everyone. Ana and I speculated that the dancers were for Carnival (at least a few) as the choreography was all repetitive. After viewing all the dancers, we ate picarrones (Fried dough with syrup) before saying goodbye to Victor and walking back to our house.
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