Birthday in Lima!

Just to clarify, I’ve been a day late recently. So the post usually is for the day before. Maybe I’ll be able to catch up….. Maybe.

I woke up this morning, and before I had even gotten in the shower, Nate wished me a happy birthday. It was pretty insignificant really, but I genuinely appreciated it. For breakfast, everybody sang happy birthday, and Dave brought out a chocolate cake for Aniko and me to split (remember hers was yesterday). I had three bites and called it quits; I couldn’t do super-chocolate cake for breakfast.

We met in the lobby of the hotel and were briefed about our visits for the day. First was the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, which is based here in Lima. The foundation believes that property rights are crucial in fighting poverty, so they specialize in changing the legal and political culture of third-world countries to help bring their poor out of poverty. I didn’t especially like the visit. There were two presenters who were lawyers who had worked in the field in different projects. What they said was interesting and boring at the same time, but having read the founding president’s book and talked about it in class, I mostly followed and understood what they were saying.

After the visit, we took a taxi to El Centro de Lima. We were split into four groups with Spanish-speaking leaders to help those of us who don’t speak. We were given a place to be dropped off, and we all disembarked. We were the first and the farthest. Everybody passed us as the drivers dropped the groups off closer and closer to the Presidential Palace. Of the four groups, we could only find three of us, which was cause for worry. We waited for several minutes, then decided to walk to the palace to see if we would pass them on the way. No luck.

We consulted with each other and decided to walk down to the plaza de armas to see if they were down there. We acutally thought that was where we were going, but we ended up being several blocks away. The area was super sketchy. I was being way too paranoid about the girls in our group. I always had my protective eyes on them. We made it to the plaza but didn’t see the others, so we decided to trust that they were mature enough to figure it out for themselves, so we went to the cathedral that is on the plaza (I think it is the national cathedral). The inside was beautiful, but not as immaculate as Cuzco’s tabernacle. The downstairs catacombs were open for viewing, so we were able to see (not specially; it was open to the public) some graves and bones and tombs.

After the cathedral, we split up for lunch. We went to an authentic place where my two-course meal with a drink was about $4. I ate papa rellena, which has been my favorite Peruvian food so far, and arroz con pollo. With lunch finished, we were given a special assignment. We were sent to drive to El Centro to try and find the other guys. Luckily, we found them quickly, and we all took taxis to the next appointment.

Our taxi driver had no idea where our address was. The street was unfamiliar to him, so he asked his taxi brothers for some help. We finally made it to the office, only after charging us double for him being lost. This visit was excellent. The corporation was Buena Ventura, a mining company who focuses on corporate give back. In fact, that was the entire presentation. The presenter was the Vice President of Social Responsibility (or something like that) and he showed us how integrated the communities have to be to the mine, so Buena Ventura has to take on huge roles in the community, such as providing power, infrastructure, roads, water, education, etc. It was a really cool aspect of the company, especially where Peru needs that sort of development.

We taxied back to our hotel and had the rest of the evening free. I ended up washing the rest of my clothes because they dried so well from the night before. I was informed that we were having a birthday dinner at 9 and that I should wear a nice shirt. So I put on a nice shirt and picked up Shannon from her room so we could go have dinner. Aniko and Natalie set it up (I’m pretty sure) and they asked Cooper and Nate. Dinner was at this fancy restaurant named “Vivaldi” where a piano and violin duet played all night. The girls dressed very nicely in their dresses, and most everybody else were in nice business clothes, but we guys all showed up in jeans (according to what we were told). The options on the menu were very high-class, and we were delivered a free glass of pisco sour to start (yes, it has alcohol; no, I didn’t drink it). It was great to be out and have fun celebrating.

So my birthday was just like any other day, well, at least every other day on this trip. But I had fun, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Thanks to everybody who remembered me and sent me a greeting, even if it was just in passing on Facebook.  Especially, thanks to everybody on the trip who wished me a good one.