JAS Day 3: Lunch and Group Games

After the service project we headed from the Plaza de Armas to the university right outside Cajamarca.  Now, this is a group of a couple hundred people so you can’t just get in a micro and bus there.  That would be quite costly!  So we WALKED to the university.  This wouldn’t be a big deal since it’s not more than a mile and is just flat ground…but we have HUNDREDS of people and we’re walking through a big city!  We had ourselves a police escort and started walking down the middle of the street to the university.  When we got to the highway, we just walked on that too.  The HIGHWAY.  The main road from Banos del Inca to Cajamarca.  I don’t think the cars were too pleased with us but I felt a little powerful haha

We finally got to our building for lunch/ games and it was their gymnasium.  Big basketball court with stands all the way around.  I was curious as to what was for lunch when they started handing out little white foam take-out looking containers along with a bottle of off-brand Inca Kola.  Well, lunch was a far cry from the Subway sandwich, bag of chips and cookie we get after school service projects.  We got a container of mixed rice with a little piece of chicken on top!  It was very tasty and very Peruvian.

As we walked into the auditorium we were given colored stickers to determine our team.  It just so happened that the four of us all got on a different team.  At first I was a little worried about that but it turned out to be an excellent idea.  I was on team red.

After lunch we started the group games.  The JAS in charge of the activity asked for 10 players from each team.  A bunch of the people on my team were trying to get me to go down to play but I had no idea what I was volunteering for so I refused.  Then I saw Noelle was on her team’s team and decided if she could do it then I could do it!  (And I may have had a little bit of a competitive bug bite me)  I get down with the rest of my team and they are studying all of the scripture masteries from the standard works.  WHAT THE?!?!  I can barely remember those in English let alone another language.  Right then I knew I was doomed.

I looked at Noelle and said “what on earth is going on?!”  Everyone was kind of mixed up on the gym floor and it was chaotic as people were trying to get our attention and speaking to us in Spanish so I wasn’t really sure what the directions were.  It was slightly overwhelming.  I turned to Jorge and said something like “Jorge, I don’t speak Spanish!  How can I play?!” and one of the girls on my team (a short little spitfire) turned to me and with a pretty passionate voice says “No entiendes NADA?!?!”  hahahaha I just about died.  Here she thought I was actually going to be able to help their team.  Little did they know I was a dead duck and couldn’t do much at all.  Brittany and Aleksi were drafted onto their teams so I figured everyone was even with one clueless gringo per team.

It turns out the game was kind of like jeopardy.  In order to have your team get the question you picked one member to race against the other team’s members to the other side of the gym to grab a horn.  Whoever got the horn got to pick the category/ value of the question and then it was a team effort to get the answer.  Thank goodness it was not an individual answering the questions or I really may have died.  

So I’m about the fourth or fifth person on my team to participate in the race.  These weren’t just running races, they were hopping on one leg or slithering like a snake races.  When I got up to the line I started asking my team what I had to act like.  A baby.  Okay, I have to crawl across the floor as fast as I can like a baby.  The funniest part was that not only did they tell me I needed to be a baby, they also repeatedly told me I need to crawl as fast as I can and I need to get to the horn first.  I think they thought I was totally incapable of figuring out the basics of the game haha  I just wanted to be like “I’m not blind!  I know I have to go fast and get the horn, I can see that’s what we’re doing!”  But I just played along with them and nodded my head.  Turns out that crawling really fast is not good for your knees.  I still (over a week later) have a massive black and purple bruise on my right knee. 

The second time I was up to race I had to bounce like a frog…although there is a very specific Peruvian way to bounce like a frog and to make sure I knew what I was doing they had me show them multiple times.  Then they told me, yet again, how fast I needed to go and that I was to grab the horn when I got there.  In the frog race I raced against Brittany and I “let” her team win because they hadn’t had a question yet :P   I was a very close second!!

The questions were all questions from the standard works.  I would listen intently each time one was read trying to figure out what it was asking to see if I knew the answer.  I figured even if I couldn’t communicate the answer at least I would have the personal satisfaction of knowing the answers.  Well every time I thought I knew the question my team would come up with an answer so far off of what I thought it would be.  There was a question that I thought was asking something about the brother of Joseph Smith who died but when my team answered “John Taylor” I realized that is definitely not what the question was asking.  All is well though!  My team won!!

The second game…I still haven’t figured out what happened or how to play exactly.  It consisted of a giant game board on the ground and throwing giant dice in the air to tell you how many spaces to go.  I was merely an observer for this one.  At one point, girls started gelling a guy’s hair and then later a guy got whipped cream smashed in his face.  Oh Peru, how I love thee!!

My winning red team

Lined up for the races

Winning team with our prizes