Tessallate

South of the equator

May 15, 2013 by 2 Comments

Sunset in Peru

It’s been two weeks in Peru and life’s going at warp speed. There’s so much to say and tell and show but I don’t know how. So I will post photos and tell you about a few crazy experiences.

After we arrived in Chiclayo and settled into our apartments, we started work right away. There are several different campuses so we are all split up in different places. I split my time between an elementary school where I help teach English and a high school where I work with IT and internet marketing.

Peru

The first week we were here they had a giant welcoming ceremony for all of us. We are the first American interns to come to Chiclayo so they like to parade us around. They’ve welcomed us with open arms and I think we are getting spoiled with all of the attention we are getting. Plus, not many tourists come to Chiclayo so the fact that we are white makes us quite a spectacle. I’ve never felt like a celebrity before, but I think this has to be what it’s like. I literally get mobbed everyday at the elementary school after I’ve been gifted apples, stickers, origami, pens, and Barbie pictures. The teacher will have to hold all of the kids back after they’ve attacked for 5 minutes and I have no hope of finding my way out alone.

English teaching in Peru

I think Michael likes all of the attention he is getting from the ladies ;)

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We’ve also been publicly embarrassed on several occasions when they make us dance in front of massive amounts of people. My favorite was when we drove up to a nightclub, walked in to a standing ovation by students and parents, and then sat down. Flashing lights of different colors were everywhere and tribal music began to play. We thought we would get to watch a cool tribal dance…no…turns out we were the ones doing the tribal dancing. So there we are, in a flashing nightclub, dancing terribly to tribal music, and all of the sudden clowns on stilts appeared. After 10 minutes of this, we were given some potatoes (because who doesn’t want a potato after working out?) and then escorted out. We didn’t know if this experience was real or a dream. I’m still confused.

To top the week off, we had a mother’s day feast of cow heart, utter, and tongue (which was a very nice gesture and we had to do our best to eat as much as we could). Never will I ever say “I’m so hungry I could eat a cow!”

So we’ve done service projects on the outskirts of town, taught, danced, eaten (I mean we have really eaten…so much food), went to the beach, learned to enjoy potatoes for every meal, eaten crazy weird things, spoken broken Spanish, and kissed too many cheeks to count. All this and we’ve still got the whole summer ahead of us.

Chiclayo, Peru

Chiclayo, Peru

Peru beaches

 Chiclayo, Peru

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The language barrier

May 10, 2013 by 2 Comments

After arriving in Chiclayo, I soon realized that I was done for. My Spanish skills seemed non-existent and I couldn’t manage to put together a fully coherent sentence when trying to communicate. But Tessa, I thought you spoke Spainsh, you are asking yourself. Yeah…well I did…a long time ago. And I thought I maybe still did. But turns out if you don’t practice, you really do loose abilities and talents. So, we are starting from square one.

After my first day of feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, and exhausted from trying to work with the IT guys in Spanish, I’m trying to get creative with this. Google translate is single handedly saving my life.

My favorite language barrier/translation experience happened when we were still in Lima after getting picked up by a few representatives of the school we are working at. I looked up and found this sign:

Lima Peru

Of course, I had to share this gem with others and soon we were all giggling to ourselves. We asked one of our Peruvian friends how they would pronounce that sign in Spanish…and it’s exactly how we would in English. At this point we were laughing even harder, which made all of the Peruvians confused. We then had to explain what this word means in English, which was also entertaining.

Moral of the story: Even though language barriers can be frustrating, they can also be hilarious and bonding.

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Getting lost in Lima

May 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Lima, Peru

Peru is a trip. Seriously though, I feel like I was dunked under water, held there for a while, and now I’m flailing my limbs around and trying to breathe in as much air as possible. But more on that later.

We flew into Lima on Tuesday night and taxied over to our hostel in Miraflores. Sidenote, we found the hostel on Airbnb.com, which is the best. Go use it. Our host, Emma, was the kindest lady and stayed up so late just chatting with us and showing us around the apartment. The next morning we were greeted by the loud voices of the other travelers in the  hostel as we tried to sleep in. After pulling ourselves out of bed we chatted with the solo-traveler Mike who gave us a map and told us how to get to downtown Lima by bus. We took his advice and explored the city center, wandered down streets, and grabbed some ice cream. On our way home we got lost but then found by a pack of Peruvian grandmas. They told us they would tell us where to go, but then insisted we get in their car so they could just take us there. They seemed harmless, so we obliged and made it back safely and even found a churro truck on the way.

Lima, peru

That night, after cleaning up in the one bathroom that the travelers all share with the family, we grabbed dinner at a food court overlooking the ocean in Miraflores. We spent the next day hanging out with Emma and her husband who drove us to the Lima Temple and ate some good Chifa (a hilarious combination of chinese and peruvian food) with us. We then explored some pre-Inca ruins and met an Indian travel agent friend.

Miraflores, Lima, Peru

Miraflores Peru

We met up with the rest of the BYU clan the next day and ate breakfast and explored more of the city with them. Little did we know what we had gotten ourselves into for the rest of this summer. We hopped on an overnight bus that evening and spent the night driving up the coast to Chiclayo where we live now. Lima was definitely a vacation to what Chiclayo has brought upon us, but I’ll save that for the next post.

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Lima, Peru

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Here’s lookin’ at you, Peru

April 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Peru, Machu Pichu

Summertime is made for adventure, and what’s more adventurous than moving south of the equator? That’s what Michael and I told ourselves as we purchased tickets that would land us in Chiclayo, Peru for the summer. This all came about in a really nonchalant way with Michael toying with the idea of doing an internship there, meeting with some people, getting a grant, and then…what we are really going? Yep, we are going. In one week. (Cue panic attack for everything we have to get done before then)

Basically, we are still fuzzy on some of the details, but we are moving there for the summer to work at a local University in the city. We will be helping with marketing, SEO, eco-tourism, and English courses. Unfortunately for me, my Spanish skills are really rusting seeing as the last time I used Spanish was in Spain…3 years ago. But, the cool thing about this internship is that we are really going to be pushing this University and it’s resources to the next level. They are excited and we are really excited and I guess that’s the  most you can ask for.

So, here’s to adventure and unknowns. And to prove how adventurous we really are, we bought Chacos, because what says adventure more than a pair of Chacos? Watch out Peru, our strappy sandle feet are about to trapse all over you.

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Why you should work at a small company

April 18, 2013 by 2 Comments

After graduating I got incredibly lucky with a smooth transition into a full-time job at a small online marketing start-up. So small that I was the second full-time employee they’ve ever hired.

So what’s it like to work at a small company? Well, here’s a sneak peak:

Human Relations

HR violations

HR consists of a list on a white board of the HR violations (usually innuendoes) that have happened that week. One tally for each violation. What’s the punishment? Well, usually you just get a high-five for making the most inappropriate jokes that week.

Collaboration

The biggest collaborative decision of the week is where we should have team lunch on Fridays. We usually have to take a silent vote in order to agree. The debate of where to go starts at 9am Friday morning and isn’t decided until we walk out the door at noon.

Team building

Since it’s a small team, we get to know each other pretty well. We also enjoy some healthy banter, so we have several different “scales” on which we rate everyone. The most popular are the ‘Hipster scale’ and the ‘Cool scale’.

We also enjoy “Throwback Wednesday” where we listen to our fav old jams. Sometimes this is a bit difficult though with the age gap when the employees don’t recognize any of the songs the bosses choose…

Camaraderie and some healthy competition

At 3p.m. every day we all gather in the lobby of the office and start warming up. If you get there early enough you can sneak in some practice shots before the real competition begins. The Little Tykes hoop that sits in the corner of the lobby is host to our daily shootout. We each get 10 chances to make as many baskets as we can. Winner takes all. We also fashioned together a mini ping pong table last week out of some empty desks and a tiny net. Teamwork at its best.

Little Tykes

Transparency

Things don’t get more transparent than working at a small business. If something needs to be kept secret it has to be done over text or chat, because there’s no hiding things from anyone in a small office. While this is actually hilarious (think whispering and “secret meetings”), it’s actually pretty cool to watch your bosses work their tails off to grow and scale this business of theirs. Where else to you get to see the in’s and out’s of really starting a business without doing it yourself?

Working at Trafficado has been a treat, and the guys there…well there’s never a dull moment working with them. Even if those moments include them making fun of me over chat and me calling them out on it. It’s hard to keep things secretive when you all work in the same room and people start giggling at their desks at the same time.

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