Showering of Welcomes...it's wet.

Most people know "welcome" in a few different languages.  

Even if you drive away from the St. Louis airport, there is a bold green sign spelling out "welcome" in perhaps 10 different languages. Sure enough, we hopped off our Florida-to-Lima flight to a huge "Bienvenidos" sign glowing in the summer night air. We made it to South America. But the welcomes to this new place (it's been two weeks since we left the Midwest's freezer, Chicago) have seemed to go beyond language barriers. 

For example, on our first day here, Annie and I were trekking the coast of Lima when a car drove by and literally dumped a bucket of water on us, the only people walking on the sidewalk for as far as I could see. Annie's mouth was filled with salt water, and we both had soaked clothes.  

As we wandered through the ancient streets of Cusco this weekend, shadows I swore were birds turned into sopping explosions at our ankles; someone had thrown water balloons from a mystery tower above. Today, as I took a walk around my neighborhood--a good 20 minutes outside of downtown Cusco--I caught those same shadows out of the corner of my eye as a truck slowly drove by, kicking up dust that quickly turned to mud at my feet as a water balloon landed on my Reefs. Ten minutes down the road, one barely missed my head. At least it's warm here.

These welcomes are surely just open arms to Peru; it just takes a bit of interpretation. 

The bucket of water in Lima said, "you made it to the ocean! Did you get so close you could taste it?" The water balloons on the cobblestone streets of Cusco say, "just wanted to keep you cool in this equator sun warmth!" 

Or there is the man on the street who made my head and heart explode with anger when he couldn't keep his hands to himself. 

We stand out a bit here so take these welcomes with a grain of salt. 

It is impossible to be in Cusco's beautiful Plaza de Armes without a welcome from a local thrusting a painting or alpaca socks into your hands. "Will you buy?" "Where are you from?" "Oh, America, capital: Washington D.C. President Barack Obama. Welcome to Cusco; how long are you here for?" These way-too-young vendors each have their welcomes rehearsed and bask in your compliments on their English and gratefulness for the invitation to their city, even if you deny what they are selling.

But there have been other welcomes, too. 

I can't describe the feeling of flying on a 56-minute Lima-to-Cusco flight to our new home and having the Andes underneath, like open arms ready to catch our fall and hold us so tight we can hardly breathe (that might be the altitude). The mountainous expanse the rainy season has turned Cusco's guarding gates into is like walking into J.Crew when their spring line comes out; the green screams life and growth. The mountains bid you to come out and play. 

Lima held the welcomes whispered by a roaring ocean and, as we sat in a park, the welcomes from those who never make us ask for love--those from children. A family walked by and, as we waved at the youngest, the mother made this little boy, who was maybe two, plant kisses on our newly sun-kissed cheeks. Gracias, Peru.

There is the welcome of getting off of a plane in a foreign city and hearing your name being called out by a complete stranger--but your name sounds sweet and the stranger's voice familiar because you weren't sure if anyone was going to show up or not. The welcome from Peru's Challenge made us feel quite at home just because they all, too, have been first-time visitors at one point to this city nearly 11,000 ft. above sea level. We awoke that first day from naps to meet Peru's Challenge's beloved mother figure, Sentusa; she had apple cake and, although I knew about three words of Spanish at the time (luckily Annie is a pro) and nothing that Sentusa was saying, that piece of cake and smile made me love where I was. 

The list of things like this could go on. I was merely walking down a street by two little girls playing, and they ran next to me and both took my hands and looked up and laughed like we had been playing dolls and house and simple things for hours. 

And so we take in our new surroundings, accept the welcomes--whether verbal or not--as they come and, all the while, try to stay dry.