Lima ...

Soo, this past week went pretty fast for the most part, things were very busy. It started off with language classes in our communities, and then on tuesday night my host family asked if I would like to go to a celebration for the church in the neighboring community...it was really lovely. It was pitch black, and the priest and others carried little candelabras around to light up the pathway and we walked around the community while a band played the trumpet...it was nice. Then on thursday my language class went to the market and I had to buy the ingredients for the dish, "aji de gallina" which was very tasty...a lot of things I would never think to mix go into it though, and in the pic below you can seeing me cutting up the ahi trying to make myself useful in the kitchen:) Thursday afternooon we had to do our community diagnostic, and so one of the host moms took us around Chacrasana to talk with people about mapping their community from their own perspective....what they deem important. This is supposed to be a tool that will be helpful when we get out to site, learning what is important to different demographics. Regardless, it was a fun way to see the community with someone who knows it well, and I got to go up to the top of one of the cerros (huge rock hills) to take some pictures.
Friday we were all really excited to see Lima, and it was a crazy busride there, once we got to the main plaza we were given individual assignments to find certain churches, landmarks, etc. so mine was to find the iglesia of St. Francis de Assisi, which I managed to do after asking a few people for directions in spanish. Its pretty interesting though, the church is completely surrounded by pigeons, they are EVERYWHERE...and the story is in Lima that they are there because St. Francis was the patron Saint of animals...aw. Later in the day I got to try pollo a la brasa...which is essentially a chicken roasted over the fire with some really spicy sauces, it was tasty and you see it in almost every restaurant here it seems! Then the language instructors took us out to Miraflores, and at this point we were all sufficiently disoriented and exhausted, and our project was to find our way back to our homes without them or anyone else outside our group...so 3 hours later (thanks to insane traffic in Lima which is a city of 12 million), and needing to take a combi and taxi me and the 3 I traveled with made it back to our community of Chacrasana. Fun times! It was important though, as when we go out to our sites we will have to know the basics of getting around Lima and which taxis are legit and which arent, and it was a good lesson on how to figure out what we SHOULD be charged. I also had my first experience getting fake money back, we learned some good techniques for recognizing illegit coins and I got my first one, so I went back to the shop and asked for a different 'sole.' Counterfeit money is huge here, everybody checks and double checks when they get change. Then again on saturday I was back in Lima, but this time at La Agraria which is a university in the barrio of Molina, known for its degrees in agricultural studies. We got our own plots of land to garden, and prepped the ground for plants and put in lettuce seeds and radishes. We go back every saturday for the rest of training to learn more about planting here in Peru, especially with regards to what we can find locally that will also be nutritious.

Saturday night was a lot of fun, a lot of us all got together (which is quite the feat with 57 and no cell phones) and met up in Chosica, we went to a bar and then discoteca....sunday I spent mostly with my family which was pretty entertaining as my host mom got excited about making me an american lunch, and they literally took out their deep fat frier and fried chicken, fried potatoes, and served it with rice and hot sauces....it was probably enough calories to last an entire week!! When I had eaten enough to be sufficiently polite, they took what was left of my fried chicken and literally fed it to the chickens who had just watched us eat lunch!! It was pretty hilarious :) Last night we went to a babyshower for a friend of my host brother, which I have to say was really bizarre...my host sister had shown me a video of when she had her baby shower a year ago and so I knew that having a clown was normal, but what I didnt know is that they dress the father up in a nappy/diaper and make him drink pisco out of a baby bottle, then the clown dances around the room opening up the presents and dancing with the gift-giver...it was pretty crazy!
Today was the birthday of one of the trainees so in the middle of our medical diseases/stds in Peru session a mariachi band came in and randomly entertained us for half an hour....:)
Tomorrow I have a meeting with my APCD, essentially supervisor, for the health program to talk about my preferences etc. I don't think I want to really place a lot of restrictions on where I will be placed but I do know I;d prefer mountains to beach, cooler to insanely hot, and smaller community to larger city/town. I'll chat with her though and see what shes thinking are good options too.

Below are some pics of my host family, one of our chickens, and our kitchen..

xoxo
K