August is here and winter isn't going away any time soon. I think what makes it worse for me is that when I arrived in Lima in February I had just left the harsh winter weather of Portland, Oregon. Initially the summer weather was a warm welcome from what I had previously experiencing, then came the fall season which rather quickly transitioned over to winter. I feel as if I am living this year in perpetual cold, cloudy, depressing weather.

Thank God that in just one more month spring will be here and hopefully I will see the sun again.

Now my weekend started off with both my father and girlfriend suffering from fevers which was kinda scary since I was concerned that I would catch it myself. In a quick attempt to combat the threat of a biological attack defense measures were put into effect. This of course required lots of chicken noodle soup to be mass manufactured. To my fortune by the next day both my father and Zdenka were felling better.



Friday was rather mundane in retrospect so I won't go further into detail about it and only mention that I happened to witness a rather amazing feat of acrobatic talent. I was in the car with my father waiting at a stop light when these two young boys came running out in front of the cars with a stool, tin can, wooden plank, and three torches. While the main performer set up his stage the other was providing a rather impressive distraction by showing off his freestyle skills. Once the main attraction was all set up the kid sprung into action and while balancing atop the tin can, juggled three light torches. It all happened so quick (about 3 min.) but was so cool and impressive, especially given their age that it was hard to not reward them.

These kinds of traffic attractions (trademark pending) are fairly common in Lima and often range from impressive and elaborate to pathetic and unenthusiastic. In exchange for such acts these performers hope to collect a few tips from their audience (drivers/passengers).



Saturday was fast paced with lots of work involved. During the day I accompanied Shayla (a friend of the family) to a butcher store in San Luis. I have been to many of these places before, they are fairly common in markets. Shayla was purchasing 26 Kilos of beef for her parrillada (similar to a BBQ) that her family was preparing for the community in Puente Piedra. Surprisingly 26 kilos is quite a bit of beef, which took about 20 minutes for the butcher to cut up. While waiting I came across a few pig heads and for some reason was intrigued enough to capture the above photo.


Saturday night I was watching tv at home when my father who had travelled to Ica earlier called. Apparently while refueling his 4x4 outside of Ica, the attendent instead of asking had filling the vehicle up with gasoline instead of petroleo (diesel). My father had been oblivious of this until he tried driving and noticed the smell of smoke was coming from his vehicle. I recieved the call at 10:30 and with the help of Oswaldo (plant manager) drove from Lima to Ica in 3 hours.

We arrived at roughly 3:00 and left Lima at roughly midnight. The drive there was unsupportable because at night the desert gets extremely cold. My legs were totally numb and frozen but that was nothing compared to the 4 hour wait that my father and his friend had to do on the side of the highway. We towed the car to the gas station where we held up for the night. I slept with my father in the truck which was so damn uncomfortable not to mention cold. I likely slept only 2 hours that night. The next day the car was fixed and we returned to Lima at around 3pm. That night while heading back from my girlfriends house I happened to be looking out the window when I noticed the lamp posts in Chorrillos and liked the way they looked so I took a picture of one in black and white to capture the simplicity of it's design.