Back in tha day!

How many of you remember the song by Ahmad, that goes Back in the day when I was young, I'm not a kid anymore, but sometimes I sit wish I was a kid again. I was singing this in my head as I was thinking about our time in Lima Centro, the YMCA in a small, meager neighborhood in Lima. We spent the day, and I mean the day, painting a mural and getting to know the parents, children and staff of the Ah-Say-Hauta (ACJ) but you have to pronounce the letters in Spanish to get the feeling behind them.

This trip has been interesting from a tourist perspective, this the first time I've traveled to a Spanish speaking country with people that don't speak or understand Spanish. This really stuck out to me that day when we blessed our lunch, I'll talk about the new fruit I had in a minute, in English and then had a loose translation of that prayer in Spanish. It was the first time I realized that not only did we not understand our friends, they didn't understand us!!! Ok, so for dessert we had this sort of cross between Flan and sponge cake that was the flavor of the fruit that was cut in half on top. It's called Aguaymanto. It is smaller than a cherry tomato, orange, with tiny seeds inside, really tart and I learned that it has more vitamin C than kiwi! It was fabulous, if we had these in the States, I would eat them like grapes.

The best part of this day was spending time with the children and watching them take in our names and the cities and states we are from. CHEECAGO?! Is what they would say every time they heard it, la ciudad de chicle (the city of gum). Doesn't make sense in English but in Spanish HILARIOUS!! I finished the day with a game of Chipitaps, which I later learned is Pong; which I'd never played before.

So on this day, I didn't have to wish I was a kid again....I got to be one for an entire day!