My friend Giac

Yesterday was the giant birthday bash of my friend Giacomo. "Who is Giacomo?" you ask.

Why....he's only the coolest kid in the world.

Height- average
Build- average
Personality- larger than you've ever seen.

Giacomo (named for Puccini, of course) Serrano belongs to Ronald and Tatiana and makes up One Sixth of the best family in the world. Giacomo, like everyone in his family has extraordinary musical talent and plays the cello, piano, and, in addition to many other songs, can sing the entire Black Eyed Peas "I gotta feeling" without actually being able to speak English. I've told him many a time that He's the best English singer I know who doesn't know any English. He's sort of the middle child but he wouldn't dare let you think that he can be forgotten in any way.

Giacomo and I bond over many things. Cello, Scrabble (in English and Spanish), and music, but one of our favorite pastimes is cooking. Giacomo is going to be a chef, and probably be the next Gaston Acurio, Peru's most famous chef. And knowing Giacomo, he'll be even bigger. He loves to cook, bake, eat, and learn about everything related to food. We watch cooking shows together, and then practice recipes. Giacomo can make alfajores that will knock your socks off, and at the age of 11, he even realized that he could make a little extra spending money by selling them. His dad plays for the Trujillo symphony, and Giacomo would accompany Ronald to rehearsals so that he could sell the cookies during the symphony's break. He made quite the profit for an 11 year old's pocket.

But that's Giac. Nothing is done halfway, because he knows that putting your entire soul into something makes it all the more enjoyable.

Thursday Night Musings of a girl with everything and nothing to talk about

Sometimes I feel like I can't keep up with myself. All these changes that I have gone through, am going through, and will be going through seem to hit me all at once, and I think- What are you doing Gillian? Why on earth would you get involved in all the things you've gotten involved with in your life? Why would you leave your home to go to a university on the other side of the country; and then why would you leave your home and university again to go live on the other side of the equator? Why did you pick the major you did? Why did you leave the career path to do non profit work for 3 years? Why are you leaving that life soon too? Why why why? And these questions start to weigh on me, and I think...Gillian, You don't make any sense.

But then, I remember why I did all that and why I will do a lot of other crazy things in the future that may not ever make sense to me, let alone anyone else.

God chose this path for me. I am exactly where God wants me to be right now. Everything that has happened in my life has been ordained by God and I all I have to do is enjoy it and enjoy Him. And then my new question becomes "Why are you even asking why?"

So enjoy life I will. I will enjoy the small things, the quiet moments, moments like walking by a beautiful garden that smells of roses and honeysuckle; listening to the summer sounds in my neighborhood; holding a puppy; going to the beach; short friendly conversations with people that I don't know, but already consider them friends.

I will enjoy the big moments too, the life-changers; the graduations, the goodbyes, the moves, the not knowing where I will be a year from now, the not knowing where I will be two months from now, the milestones of new family members, new friends, and everything in between.

And by golly, I will enjoy it....whether I like it or not.

A woman happily in love, she burns the souffle. A woman unhappily in love, she forgets to turn on the oven.

Precisely one week ago, I was sitting with a large group of people from Memphis on a mission trip explaining about the great weather in Trujillo, and going on and on about how it almost never rains here.

Today, I mopped up every last one of those words inside my house.

Thanks to El Niño (which can be oh so fantastically explained here) and/or various other meteorological reasons that I just don't understand, it has been raining for the better part of the last 7 days. Today, being the worst of it all...for me anyway.

See here's the thing, Trujillo. You are a fantastic city...you really are, but if there were some sort of a survivor reality show competition for cities to see who is the best, strongest, and most prepared to face challenges, you would be kicked off no later than week 2.

No Storm Drains + Adobe/Porous Concrete Houses + Flat roofed houses + Open courtyards because it "never" rains here = Me waking up at 7am to a flooded house.

Water was Eeeeeeverywhere. I wish I had taken a picture of the army of buckets we had trying to catch all the drips, but I was too busy mopping up what was quickly turning into a new Peruvian reservoir to take a picture. Rough morning. Luckily, the heavens decided to stop being such a bully and it stopped raining around 11. Heck, the sun even came out a bit for a few hours to make matters a little better.

And just to show that no day is completely bad, after we dumped out the umpteenth bucket of water, I was able to sit down and watch Sabrina. The 1954 Audrey Hepburn/Humphrey Bogart classic that makes any problem in life disappear for 113 minutes while you get caught up in boat neck shirts, fedoras, schmaltzy nostalgic music, and the way that Mr. Bogart pronounces the words "To-mah-ta Juice." It's truly delightful and makes me want to start using antiquated phrases and memorize alot of one-liners so that I can always deliver the most perfect thing to say.

(One of which would serve very well to end this blog post...Sigh...I need Humphrey)

You learn something new every February...

Well...It's that time of year again. Actually one of the annual highlights of the past 3 years that I have lived here in Trujillo.

The fantastic team from Independent Presbyterian Church in Memphis, TN is back in Trujillo conducting a large week-long medical and dental campaign in some areas where quality health care is needed the most and many times not received due to a lack of financial resources.

I truly love translating for this team. There are some amazing people who do some incredible work in the short amount of time they are here and many times make a huge difference for alot of really great Peruvians.

This year has been a little different translationally speaking (yes, I know that's not a word...just go with it ok?). In the past two years, I floated around more translating for triage, doctors, dentists, and filling in wherever. This year though I've been translating for one of the dentists, Dr. Paul Gerhardt, all week at the clinic and learning much more than I ever hoped to, or ever thought was necessary about dentistry, in English and in Spanish.

Translating has been good, but a definite brain work-out as I try to figure out what some obscure words might be in Spanish. Words like Amalgam, Glass Ionomer, Self Etching Acid, Two-pronged instrument, Burr (the little drillbits they use), and other fun words like those. Those and the occasional easy words that escape me, like "chin". Don't worry, I know it now. (Mentón)

The good thing is that I've managed to gain a whole new vocabulary/skill set, and it turns out that my recent wisdom tooth extraction helped me to gain a good base of dental terms. Who'd have thought? I will tell you this, though- As interesting as this week has been, I do not regret my decision to leave behind the former dream I had at age 4 to become a dentist. But you know, just in case you ever find yourself in a Spanish speaking country needing to the visit the dentist and not knowing what in the world he's saying, give me a call...I'll translate for you. Except the word for "chin"...you should know that one by now.