I experienced my first temblor (tremor/small earthquake) on Monday night...it was awesome! My host mom and 5 year old sister were kind of scared so I hid my excitement. It really was tiny. I heard a noise, which I thought was a large truck, and then I started feeling th ground shake a little. So normally you´re supposed to go into a doorway during an earthquake, but my whole family ran outside, so I followed suit (considering my entire house is made out of concrete, I think this was actually a pretty good idea).
Today is the bday of a fellow aspirante (we´re called this for now since we aren´t officially volunteers yet) so last night he and his host family threw a big party...grafitti that is. It was awesome. I was a little worried that it might get a littl out of control, but it was fine. Everyone had a great time and no one got out of control. It was pretty hilarious to see the expressions on the faces of the Peruvians, but when I asked them what they thought of the whole thing, they said they thought it was fun. For those of you who don´t know what a grafitti party is...you wear a plain white t-shirt and write on one another with markers. So now I have a crazy t-shirt that I´ll probably use for pajamas.
Today is a holiday celebrating the victory of some battle, so we have the day off. It´s nice to have a break, but I think I actually prefer to be busy. I´ve been feeling a littl down the past few days and I think it actually has something to do with that fact that I´m not working. I´ve gon from working about 60 hours a week to not working at all. While I dfinitely love what I´m doing and feel so grateful for the amazing training I´m receiving, I´m somewhat frustrated that I´m not contributing to Peruvian society (yes, I know, PC is also about cultural exchange, but still). One of my biggest regrets from my study-abroad experience was not volunteering and just going to school, traveling and partying. I know I will have 2 full years to make wonderful contributions to my Peruvian community, but for now I guess I´m just feeling antsy.
Well that´s all for now. I have some studying to do and I need to get ready for my language interview tomorrow. Chau!
This past week in Peru was the best one thus far! It was great to get out of the classroom and do hands-on learning (aka non-formal education...a theme for one of the days). It started Wednesday with Spanish class. We spent the morning in the market in Chosica (about a 20 min bus ride) getting ingredients needed to make lunch on Thursday. Then on Thursday we made lunch! We made rocoto relleno (spicy stuffed peppers) and arroz con leche (rice pudding). They were both amazingly delicious and made me disgustingly stuffed. I don´t think I would be able to make the stuffed peppers on my own - they take forever and have a million ingredients - but I plan to make the rice pudding for sure. So far there have been a few dishes that my host mom had made that I´d like her to teach me how to make.I guess now would be a good time to discuss Peruvian food (well at least what I´ve had so far). Every meal (well, not bfast) contains rice and potatoes. We eat a lot a chicken which I´m actually pretty happy about. Usually every chicken, potato, rice combo has some sort of sauce, so I usually just end up mixing them all together which is also pretty delicious. Also, Peruvians love aji (hot sauce) so if my rice is just too bland to eat alone, I just put some aji with it. I´m soooo glad to be back to a land of delicios fruit! Every morning I have some sort of juice. So far I´ve had pineapple, orange (I know not exciting, but it is fresh squeezed), strawberry and papaya - I´m even starting to like papaya! There are so many amazing fruits that just don´t even exist in the US (at least I haven´t seen them in Meijer). After cooking and eating our amazing meal on Thursday, our WATSAN (Water and Sanitation) group split up and went out into ¨the field¨ to do a diagnostic. My group went to a little town about 30 mins away by car. We talked to the president of the town city council and some people from an international NGO that implemented the water system 6 years ago (as in, this town has only had running water for 6 years). We also got to see composting toliets which was really interesting. In summary, it was just awesome to actually get to do things out of the classroom that will help us directly with what we´ll be doing when to get to our sites. Training has been going really well in general and it seems like everyone is really settling in and get used to the routine. I´ve been really enjoying my time lately and I feel like I´m really starting to get to know people and feel comfortable with the routine as well. Ok that´s all for now. I hope all is well at home! Un abrazo!
