First week!

Hello!
So tomorrow will mark one week with my new host family, and I think (I´m never sure because I don´t ever feel completely confident that I totally understand!!) that we are going to the larger town nearby called Chosica for mass and to visit the market. I was in Chosica on monday night (and another night, but by accident because the combi driving lunatic wouldnt stop for me at chacrasana-that wont happen again :)), went with my host mom and she showed me around all the stalls and we bought some groceries for the week...its pretty chaotic, but I´ll hopefully get the hang of it. Both my host parents are cooks by trade, and they often go out there to get their supplies like blenders, etc. fixed. Speaking of cooking, I seem to have mistakenly made my family think I can cook and now have quite the list of dishes they want to have, pizza, cookies, and anything with chocolate. Pizza would not be so bad if I hadn´t seen pictures of the pizza the other volunteer had made them that I need to live up to :)That should be an adventure, I´m going to cook a little for them this week...
I loved this morning because we were given an mini project in class yesterday to go and assess different things in Chaclacayo, another neighboring larger town where the training center is...so I paired up with one of the girls and we went to the market and asked about basic stuff like when it opens, closes, what types of herbs they sell, where they get the fruit from (apparently the selva, then imported to Lima, and brought out here) we had to hold our breath going through the meat section of course where I got way to close to a skinned cows head eyes and all, but I´m just going to have to block that out at dinnertime. Anyway, it was pretty cool to see the market and know that I CAN get some veggies and fruit around here. I have literally not seen a vegetable on my plate since I arrived...its been a piece of delicious bread for breakfast with varying types of tea (still havent convinced madre about the cafe con leche!) one of which is like oatmeal cinnamon in h20, interesting! I´m getting to like the taste though, then for lunch it is rice with chicken or lentils but no sauce, then dinner is the same as lunch....I´m going to have to find some ways to jazz it up. Last night, I was pretty quesy so just asked for a plate of plain rice only to find that ´plain´is of course flavored with butter!!!! Thank god for my hill :)

My days are mostly 5 hours language classes in the morning in the community (like mine or the other one tres de octubre) then go to the training center in Chaclacayo via combi, stay there in health program until 5...then head back home via combi usually with homework, spend time with my family until 8, have dinner, and by 9 pretty much collapse. I did get to find out more about the health program, we will be working in various posts for the ministry of health, or MINSA...which has posts throughout the smaller municipalities in Peru. ¨posts¨are places with one doctor, very limited hours, and which can help with very basic needs. Its about 3 soles in my community to get in to see the doctor, about a dollar I think. If its more serious, they have larger health centers with a few more doctors, and then beyond that are the specialty hospitals. Of course, this is a very elementry description, but from I understand I´ll be helping more at the posts with the one doctor or so. The main focuses the health program centers its work around is educating women with young children 1-5 about nutrition, teaching and working with mothers about the importance of exclusive breastfeeding, and also helping to create cocinas mejoradas..using simple tubing etc to make improved kitchens so that the smoke from the cooking is not circulating in the house and is instead channeled outside..there are quite a few other major focuses, but those were 3 I found pretty interesting from this week. I think that starting next weekend we will be going to one of the universities in Lima to learn how to create community gardens because as far as nutrition goes that will be pretty important...so im looking forward to that next weekend.
This is getting long so I better head out, I think (again with the different language never being sure) that I´m going to a birthday party this evening somewhere in Chacrasana...fun fun!
I also was really confused as to where I was this morning when I woke up because I woke to the sound of like bollywood music videos...very bizzarre especially when they are singing in one language, its being translated into spanish, and all the while Im still not understanding, fabulous! :)

Underneath you can see me with Chanti and Mathias in the adidas hat, and our 2 dogs with their little outfits on because its cold at night and my language group my teacher, Sara is on the right side....