Episodio Seis (June 28, 2011)

Buenos días, amigos!

Sorry for the longer than usual gap between updates... we've been fiddling with internet access this past week as well as getting further settled into our new home. But today is another laundry day, so I figured I'd sit down and do some updating while the tub soaks for a while. And I promise I'll make this one a bit longer to make up for lost time. =)

First things first, I realized after my last update that some of our "cast of characters" haven't been introduced! So I will try and acquaint you with more of them this time.

This is Dr. Adolfo. In case you haven't noticed from all our other updates (or from talking to us), he is the Peruvian doctor with whom Daniel/we are working to make the work of Wiñarisum happen! (And in case I have missed saying it somewhere else, the work of Wiñarisum is to work with pregnant mothers to improve maternal and infant health/nutrition and prevent maternal and infant mortality, which has gotten pretty outrageously high!!! In 2009 maternal mortality in and around Cusco was at 5 deaths per week... in 2010 that number is up to 20 per week!!! Yes, PER WEEK. Which is why this is a priority for both the Peruvian government and the UN.)

This is "Killer" (pronounced Keeler in Spanish), Adolfo's family pooch. He has a very loud bark, but he got used to us pretty quickly. His new favorite thing to do is come up on our porch and lie in the sun (and/or try to get in our house for some petting!). He is my laundry buddy. =)

This is the stairway leading up to our apartment. Yes, it is slightly jiggly wrought-iron, and yes, it is two stories tall. The first time I walked on it I thought I was gonna die... but now we're pretty much used to it. 

This is Daniel the Peruvian. You can tell because he's eating "papas a la huancaína", basically Peruvian potatoes with a super-tasty Peruvian condiment called huancaína (see package). We may just have to figure out how to make huancaína and have a Peruvian potato party sometime when we get back to the states... it´s that good. Also, we´ve been advised by Cheryl (Adolfo´s wife) to say to taxi drivers who try to give us the "gringo tax" the following: "Yo soy más peruano que la papa huancaína!" (I'm more Peruvian than potatoes a la huancaína!) So far we've tried it on one taxi driver... and the woman standing next to us laughed and the driver gave us the price we were asking. =)

This is us cooking chicken soup on our "new" gas burners! We were using a single electric hot plate before, but it wasn't adjustable and it seemed like a rather inefficient use of energy... didn't wanna rack up Adolfo's electric bill. We were about to go buy a gas one when Adolfo told us his mother had one in her house that we can use! We love it, and have been trying many new tasty experiments, including the papas above, which were delicious, and this chicken soup, which was... well, a nice try. 

This is the wrapper that our scrubby sponges came in. I don't know why, but it cracks me up. To translate, it says, "Sapolio: The Champion of Sponges" and then I just love the little scrubby bug with boxing gloves.... Not following? Try saying it in Spanish in your best soccer announcer voice: "Sapolio! La Campeona de las Esponjas!!!"

So that's the "cast of characters" for this time. Here's what's been going on in the rest of life this past week!

1) We have been continuing to meet with Adolfo (a lot) in preparation for our first "official" steps. Things are in a good place, and we are in a bit of a waiting stage as we try to set up meetings with important leaders in the two communities where we hope to work. It's been really good practice for us this week to go at Adolfo's pace -- since he still works full time at the clinic, and since the people we're trying to set up meetings with also work full time, that pace has been a little slower than we (especially Daniel) have been used to. Also, both Daniel and I have continued to struggle with sniffles, tummy squiggles, and occasional tweaky back things. The combination of "slowness" and health wobbles has really made us have some "real world" realizations about this work. First, in a month or less, we will be gone, and it's important that the project be firmly anchored with Adolfo (which I think it is), which means that we need to let go of our impatient "American time" expectations and let the project go at its own pace. Second, we gripe a lot about our little illnesses, but when we think about it, how many of the people we hope to work with in Wiñarisum have chronic health issues much more serious than a little sniffle, and work a lot more difficult than going to meetings and typing things on a computer? Thinking about these have helped us to "suck it up" and dig in for some patience with both the pace and our "thorns in the flesh". Or, as Calvin and Hobbes would say, "It builds character." =)

2) This past Friday (June 24th) was Cusco's birthday!! It is also "Inti Raymi", which is Quechua for "Sun Festival", and is an Inca festival to worship the sun. Each year Inti Raymi is marked by a huge dance/celebration/show/thing at Sacsayhuaman (say "sexy woman" and you'll be very close), the Inca ruins that are closest to Cusco (on top of a mountain right outside). Since we weren't here for Inti Raymi last time, and since literally like the ENTIRE CITY goes to watch, we figured we'd go! So we flagged down a taxi and got him to take us to the beginning of the walk to Sacsayhuaman, which looks like this: 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is a HUGE, GINORMOUS STAIRCASE OF DOOM that you see there. We huffed and puffed our way up it, stopping frequently to catch our breath in this thin mountain air, but finally we made it up the stairs... only to discover that we were at a church that was only a staging point for the rest of the climb. Oof. We stopped to rest another minute and, since we were already pretty high up and it was a great view, I took this picture looking back down at the Plaza de Armas (the tourist/historical center of Cusco), which was full of people for a parade:

When we finally got to the top of Sacsayhuaman (up a road, into the archaeological park, up another set of bumpy stairs, across a field, and over a big hill... and all of this at 2 miles above sea level...) we found crowds of people sitting and waiting for the ceremonies to begin! We edged our way in, found a seat on the hill, grabbed an ice cream cone from the vendors (sorta like a baseball game... only Inca) and enjoyed our view:

Bottom: Lots of people's heads. (They eventually sat down... mostly.) Middle left: The arena! (Or what we could see of it...) Top: Beautiful mountains!

We sat and waited a long time for things to start (it seemed like we were waiting for all the gringo tourist groups with their little flags to file into the bleachers, hehe)... and while we were waiting, we noticed a group of dancers waiting as well. Then we saw what appeared to be a scene from a Far Side comic..... 

Yes, that's right. An Inca waiting for the biffy.

 Eventually the show finally started, and we really enjoyed watching it! There were about 10 different groups of dancers/actors, all dressed in costumes that (it seemed) represented a different segment of Inca society (i.e. soldiers, farmers, nobles, etc.). The funniest part, though, wasn't actually a part of the show... it was the people behind us who kept getting more and more frustrated with the people in front of us who insisted on standing up and blocking the view for the rest of us. The heckling started with a fairly polite "La señora con camisa roja -- siéntese, por favor!" (The lady in the red shirt -- please sit down!") Eventually, though, when the front-standers proved rather obstinate, it devolved into orange peel target practice. There was one dude in a green shirt that just would not sit down for anything -- he was completely blocking our view -- so someone with a good arm chucked part of an orange at him and it landed with a satisfying fwop! right in the middle of his back. It was SO FUNNY. He turned around to glare at all of us... and then sat down.

Well, my laundry's all hung out to dry now, and I'm starting to get a bit hungry, so I'd best wrap it up and head into the kitchen to cook up something for lunch.

Hope all is well back in the States -- please leave us a comment or shoot us an email or something -- we'd love to hear how your summers are going!

Enjoy your Spanish lesson -- un abrazo fuerte de Peru!
Rebequita y Danielito


EXTREMELY USEFUL AND IMPORTANT SPANISH PHRASES
Lesson Four: Fiesta Time!

Ese acontecimiento es de corbata negra. (This affair is black tie.)
¿Está casado? (Are you married?)
Olvidé mi paraguas. (I forgot my umbrella.)
Creo que dejé mi paraguas en su casa. (I think I left my umbrella at your house.)
Odio la lluvia. (I hate rain.)
¿Tiene fuego? (Do you have a light?)
¿Leyó el editorial el domingo pasado sobre la educación? (Did you see last Sunday´s editorial about education?)
Me gustaría comprar un barríl. (I would like to buy a keg.)

Episodio Cinco (June 20, 2011)

Buenos días, amigos!

From now on, I will be posting my little updates on this blog, so that folks without Facebook can see them more easily. I will also either post the notes or a link to this blog each time I update it, so don´t worry too much about missing anything. =)

Anyway. SOOOO much has happened since the last time I wrote! I will try to get it all...

1) We moved! We are now living in the 4th-story apartment at Adolfo´s house. It´s soooooo awesome... we even have a little tiny kitchen set up (as of today) with a hot plate so we can cook our own food! We´ll be here for the remainder of our stay, and we are totally loving it!

The view from our porch!

2) This past Thursday, Daniel, Adolfo and I had a meeting with a government engineer named Percy Rueda who is interested in working with us and/or helping us make useful connections for our projects. Funny thing is, when we saw him he invited us to this BIG DEAL event the next day! The point of the event, he said, was that the UN (yes, people from the United Nations) was coming to sign a letter of intention with the regional government of Cusco, and that loads of useful connection folks would be there for us to meet! Needless to say we sort of freaked out... didn´t know what to wear (I brought nothing but jeans, t-shirts, and flannel!), didn´t even have business cards, but with some very generous loaning from Adolfo (about Daniel´s height) and Cheryl (way shorter than me, but we found stuff that worked, haha) we figured out the clothing situation. And Daniel and I went and printed some super sweet business cards the next morning, before the event started.

Basically, the morning event (the big ceremony) was very... ceremonial. We sang the Peruvian national anthem (or everyone else did...) and the hymn of Cusco (or most everyone else did...), there were lots of reporters taking pictures and stuff, several speeches with big fluffy language... oh yeah, and at the end they passed out a glass of wine to everyone in the room and we had a toast. That part was kind of funny! It was kind of cool to see such a formal ceremony though, and hear the speeches. I´ve never heard poli-talk in Spanish before! And the UN lady´s speech was pretty cool -- her name is Rebecca Arias, and she talked a lot about working to make sure that the economic development that´s been coming to Peru and Cusco actually makes it to those who have historically been excluded from said windfalls. It was a pretty cool event, despite all the fluffy formal things.

Then the evening event was a big meeting where the UN folks, people from the regional government, and some non-profit managers got together to talk about collaboration. There was supposed to be work time, but basically this, too, ended up being a big huge pile of speeches, albeit a lot more fiery. (On account of many of the speakers being NGO managers, I´m guessing.) It was suuuuuuuuper cool just to sit and watch and hear what everyone had to say about what issues they were working on, what should be done, how to do it, etc. We also traded a few business cards, which was good. =)

3) Last night we had dinner with Mamita (Dra. Haydee) and her son Gabriel. It was really good to catch up with both of them! Gabriel was about 6 or 7 when we were here last time. Now he´s 9, and he´s getting so big and smart! It´s fun to notice the difference in maturity (and vocabulary!) between him and Rafo (Adolfo´s 6-yr-old son). Dinner was super tasty too... Haydee is a super good cook! She made us pollo con arroz verde (chicken with green rice) and it was DELICIOUS. I wanna learn to make it so I can eat it like every day. So yummy.

4) Then TODAY, I did my first tub of hand-washed laundry!!! I´m so proud of myself. It went off pretty well -- and we really needed it, since we were both about out of clothes. I´m tired, and I bet I´ll be a little sore tomorrow, but I like it. It´s fun to look out the window and see all our shirts and stuff hanging on the line. (Though now, of course, it´s dark.)

5) After a long day of many happy "getting things in order" things, Daniel and I cooked ourselves little egg sandwiches in our new little kitchenette! It is SO HAPPY to be able to cook for ourselves, wash our own laundry, sleep in our little room, work in our little living room... it's perfect.

Left: Little kitchenette!                        Right: Shelf of food. Mmmmm...

So with that, I will bid you adios! You will find another extremely edifying Spanish lesson below. Hope you and your families are doing well.

Much love and un abrazo fuerte!

Rebequita y Danielito

VERY IMPORTANT AND USEFUL SPANISH PHRASES!

Lesson Three: Safety

Me gustaría hablar con un detective. (I would like to speak to a detective.)

Deténgase, póngase en el suelo, y empiece a rodar sobre sí mismo. (Stop, drop, and roll.)

Ya le han aplicado a mi hijo la vacuna contra la poliomielitis. (My son has had the polio vaccine.)

¿Podría revisar la presión de los neumáticos por favor? (Would you please check the tire pressure?)

Episodio Cuatro (June 15, 2011)

¡Buenos días del Perú!

It´s another lovely day in Cusco -- especially since my cold is finally going away! I´ve been "resfriada" (sniffly, with a cold) for about 3 days now, but my nose is finally starting to slow down. Yay!

In other (more significant) news, here are some updates on la vida cusqueña (Cusco life):

• Saturday night (after I posted the last update) we had a wonderful meeting with Adolfo, where we sort of talked over the whole game plan for starting our project´s "pilot" soon. The highlight of this meeting was that we unanimously (the three of us) decided to look for a "mujer líder indígena" (indigenous leader woman) or two from whatever community in which we decide to work to partner with us and be on our "team". This is important because everything Daniel and I have read about voluntourism and grassroots cooperation in college has talked about the importance of valuing and including local wisdom, and not just assuming that we know everything because we went to college. (On the contrary, we can´t even talk to most of the townspeople because we don´t speak Quechua!) So we´re really excited that Adolfo sees the value of pursuing this also -- and we love how he´s incredibly smart and also willing to change his ideas when he hears something he thinks is worth including. =)
• Also Saturday night, we found an internet cafe where we were able to hook up Daniel´s computer directly to the internet, which enabled us to SKYPE with some family members, yo! It was super good to check in and hear some familiar voices (and remember how to speak English, haha), though it was also funny that Daniel kept being frustrated in his update-sharing by my notes.... which had already said whatever he tried to say. =) Sorry, Daniel!
• Over the past few days, Daniel and Adolfo have been working really hard to meet people at other NGOs (Daniel) and get a hold of people in potential target communities (Adolfo) so that we can start to lay the groundwork for the actual project(s) we will do. We expect to start having lots of meetings with people, so that´s pretty exciting stuff! One awesome thing on the radar is that this Friday the director of the Peruvian chapter of UNICEF will be coming to Cusco, and we´re going to get to be present at the meeting/chat/thing and meet him!!
• But what are YOU doing, Rebekah? you might ask. Well, I spend my time doing one of several things: coming along to meetings and taking notes/helping Daniel understand Spanish, reading and planning in preparation for the start of my school year this August (!), sleeping (I have been sick, after all...), and reading and planning the beginning framework for a "volunteer curriculum" that we would use when/if we have foreign volunteers come for our project. This latter probably wouldn´t happen until at least January, at the very earliest, but since I have time now (and won´t when I´m grading final papers over Christmas break!) I´m trying to get a jump start and think about what sorts of questions we´d like volunteers to be thinking about in an "optimal" voluntourism program. Yes, we have both talked about voluntourism being hard and gross... but it´s not going away, and we think the best way to tackle the problems is to try to do it a better way, where hopefully the people will stay longer and/or come back multiple times and focus on the relationships they make rather than on "collecting" exotic people, photos, and stories to display when they get home and then forget.
• We have enjoyed our stay in our lovely hospedaje, but we are excited that tomorrow (or the day after, but probably tomorrow) we will be moving into an apartment in Adolfo´s family´s house! We are excited for several reasons, one being that it will be much easier to meet with Adolfo, and the other being that this apartment will have a little kitchen! As much as we love our two favorite restaurants we´ve been frequenting, it will be nice (and a lot cheaper) to be able to cook for ourselves most of the time.

Well, that´s about all I´ve got for now. Hope you all are well and enjoying the (wherever you are) sunshine! =)  Enjoy your "Spanish lesson", and keep in touch!

Un abrazo fuerte,

Rebequita y Danielito

VERY IMPORTANT SPANISH PHRASES

Lesson Two: Around the House

Cubra y hierva al fuego centro. (Cover and simmer.)

¿Tiene su cocina un extinguidor de fuego? (Does your kitchen have a fire extinguisher?)

No me gusta comer alimentos pesados por la mañana. (I don´t like heavy food in the morning.)

Hice los bizcochos con una mezcla preparada. (I made the biscuits from a mix.)

¿Podría traer un molino de pimienta, por favor? (Could you bring a pepper mill, please?)

Mi mesa se bambolea un poco. (My table is a bit wobbly.)

Episodio Tres (June 11, 2011)

Buenos días, amigos!

Today I am quite frustrated with this internet cafe (the space bar is very stubborn and the connection is slow), but I will persevere. =)

Let´s see, what has happened in the last few days? Well first, we are now residing in a very nice (and cheap, at less than $50/week!) hostel pending a move to Adolfo´s house, where they have an apartment for us

that just needs a little TLC. For those of you with very good memories, yes, I did say we were going to move to Adolfo´s brother´s house, but that ended up not working out. So now we´re in a lovely hostel right by the airport (the sounds of takeoff at 8:00 in the morning remind me of My Cousin Vinny) and loving our nice, hot shower. (The last place didn´t have hot water, so this is a very welcome improvement!) We will stay here in the hospedaje (hostel, in Spanish) till our week is up, and then we will get to move in with Adolfo, Cheryl, and Rafo!

Another pretty sweet thing that has happened over the last few days is that we´re beginning to meet with the members of the team Adolfo has "assembled" to help start work on our health projects. Two nights ago we got to have dinner with Ricardina (aka Rica), an obstetrician whose room we found out we were occupying! Hospitable gal that she is, we didn´t even know the apartment she found us was hers until the day we left! Anyway, we took her out to a chifa (Chinese + Peruvian = Chifa) restaurant and got to know each other a bit. Her role in things, since our main organizational goal is to reduce maternal and infant mortality and childhood malnutrition, is to come up with educational materials that we can use to help educate  pregnant mothers so that they (and thus their children about to be born) will be healthier and safer. Rica´s fantastic -- full of energy, very confident, and with a heart to do some good in the world.  Also, fun fact, she is a hardcore chess player! We mentioned our (Daniel´s) cousin Aidan, who has now won national chess things for his age group -- we thought she´d be impressed -- but silly us, she took a national title in Peru when she was growing up!! Come to find out, much of her family plays chess very competitively, and a few of her brothers and cousins even play professionally! All in all, it was a super fun dinner, and a good way to meet our first team member. =)

Then last night at a little juice cafe we met another team member, Adolfo´s tio (uncle) Wilbur. Wilbur is a Jehovah´s Witness, and has spent the last 25 years or so as a wandering missionary in one (or several, not totally clear on that) of the rural states of Perú. His particular expertise is his experience working with campesinos (rural folks, usually of indigenous descent) and his ability to speak Quechua (primarily spoken in rural/indigenous communities, often instead of Spanish). We spent a good hour last night acquainting him with the mission, values, goals, etc. of the organization (which, have I mentioned?, will be called Wiñarisum, a Quechua word meaning "let us grow!"). He seemed to be very interested, and said he would be happy to help out in his spare hours once we get going. We also talked about possible neighborhoods in which to do a "pilot" version of our idea, so we´ve got some definite concrete "next steps" to do.

Also last night, after we met Wilbur, we met up with Dra. Haydee (Mamita) and her son, Gabriel, for a drink (aka super tasty juice). We hung out until Gabriel started to fall asleep on the table, poor dear. It was good to catch up and sort of start some "repair" on this relationship. We talked about all sorts of things, including life catch up and thoughts on the recent presidential election here, and we made plans to head to Haydee´s for dinner some night. She is an excellent cook. =)So, more exciting meetings and progress! It seems like with each meeting we have, we get closer and closer to actually starting something! Will continue to keep you posted as events progress. In the meantime, I will leave you with this extremely useful and edifying list of "key phrases" that no Spanish-learner can be without, pulled from the lists on my little translator/dictionary thing. I have certainly found these phrases to be indespensible, and I hope you will study them with great urgency, due to their frequency of use in daily conversation.  

Hasta luego-- (Until later--)

Rebequita y Danielito

VERY, VERY IMPORTANT AND USEFUL SPANISH PHRASES!

LESSON ONE: AROUND THE OFFICE

Soy miembro del sindicato. (I am a member of the union.)

Usted puede comunicarse conmigo llamando a mi radiolocalizador. (You can reach me by calling my beeper.)

Bajé esto del Internet. (I downloaded this from the Internet.)

Tengo síndrome del túnel carpal. (I have carpal tunnel syndrome.)

El manual no fue útil. (The manual was not helpful.)

Episodio Dos (June 8, 2011)

Buenos días, queridos!

Ha, I almost continued writing in Spanish, but that probably wouldn´t be too helpful for most of you. =)

Anyway, things are going well here! We´re starting to get into sort of a routine of things, which is really nice. Wake up, breakfast for 3 soles next door, read and/or journal back at the room, errands, lunch on the go, meet Adolfo in the afternoon, chat for a few hours, go home and grab dinner at the pollería (chicken store/restaurant) down the way (1/8 chicken plus fried potatoes for 5 soles, or about $2!), talk and/or rest till bedtime, sleep.

Significant updates from the last few days:

1) Monday, after I wrote "Episode Uno", Daniel and I went to meet Adolfo at Belenpampa, the clinic where Daniel volunteered last time. While we were waiting for him to come out, we ran into Doctora Haydee, who was Daniel´s "mamita" (mama + ita = little mama!) at the clinic. It was a sort of bittersweet meeting, because it was wonderful to see her and catch up, but we also saw firsthand some of the hurtful things that short-term volunteer trips can do to the people left behind. Mamita talked about how she had missed Daniel a lot, and how she hadn´t heard from us (apparently our emails and messages went astray... not uncommon, unfortunately). I think the saddest part for me was after she talked about being sad, she said something like "But time eventually buries our feelings, so I´m not as sad now." To me, that was much harder to hear than just that she missed us -- she had actually had to traverse multiple stages of grief on our account. Daniel and I talked later about that whole situation, and I think it´s really reinforced our commitment to (a) do right by our friends here and put relationships first, and (b) NOT participate in forms of volunteering/volunteer tourism that put the local people in the situation of having to pour themselves out over and over to new people every two months, only to get hurt and burned by that trust when people leave the locals behind as just another part of their "experience".

2) Yesterday (Tuesday) morning, Daniel and I spent a lot of time talking and journaling and sort of figuring out where we were at with our work and our emotional states, etc. We wrote down and talked about a lot of stuff to bring to our later meeting with Adolfo. Then last night, we sat down with Adolfo in a little cafe and had a FABULOUS meeting!! We went through some "appreciative inquiry" stuff (what are strengths, what are concerns, what are proposed action steps) about our plans for Wiñarisum (the organization we hope will come about from our work with Adolfo) and about our international collaboration in general. It was super great -- Daniel went through and was able to be open about some of his/our worries and fears, like that his loyalty to Adolfo would cause him to take on roles or responsibilities that he shouldn´t, and Adolfo was incredibly supportive and "on-the-same-page" about it. He said, "You´re right, Daniel, that would be a problem. But just remember, that if you do something you shouldn´t out of loyalty to me, you´re not being loyal to Wiñarisum." It was AWESOME, and just what Daniel/we needed to hear to be reassured that we really do have a strong working partnership here, and not some weird dependency situation. We also talked a lot about the specifics of the scope and focus of our work, which was really great to start the ball rolling on planning our next steps. All in all, a pretty fantabulous meeting! =)

Other than that, we are continuing our acclimation process. In the next few days, we will probably move from our current (temporary) apartment to a room at Adolfo´s brother´s house, where we will probably remain until the end of our stay here. Today we´re working on tying up some loose ends -- like buying some toothpaste, since our travel one is toasted already -- and so it will probably be like a "catch up and plan tomorrow" sort of a day.

In other news, look for a "Spanish lessons from my translator" note in the next little while. You wouldn´t believe the hilarious specificity of some of the phrases they tell you how to say in there...

All right, well, it´s off to another crisp cusqueño day. Hope you all are well!

Un abrazo fuerte,

Danielito y Rebequita

Episodio Uno (June 6, 2011)

Buenos días del Perú!! (Good morning from Peru, for those of you who are seriously monolingual, hehe.)

As you may have noticed by my previous status update, we did, in fact, arrive safely in Cusco. We even slept pretty decently on our red-eye flight from New York to Lima, so that´s pretty good!

So far we´ve pretty much just been resting and getting settled in. I have been feeling the effects of the altitude (though thankfully not nearly as bad as last time!), so I took a lot of naps the last few days, and Daniel has very graciously been running around on various quests for some maté de coca (coca tea, which helps with altitude sickness).

Adolfo (the doctor from the clinic that Daniel´s been working with) came and got us from the airport and has been more or less taking care of us since then. He found a little one-room apartment where we´ll be staying for the time being, and it´s super cute and perfect! Also yesterday we got to meet a lot of his family -- his wife, Cheryl, is gorgeous and super nice, and their son, Rafael (aka Rafo) is 6 and adorable!! We also got to meet one of his brothers, his niece and nephew, and his mother. We all went out to lunch yesterday, and Cesar (the nephew) was HILARIOUS -- he reminds me of Russell from the movie Up, because he´s about 12, a little portly, and full of questions (and knowledge) about everything! I really want to find a way to videotape him saying "bop bop beep bohp boop", but Daniel said that was mean, so I probably won´t.

Today we are exploring our surroundings. The apartment we´re staying in is located in a part of Cusco that is a ways off the main tourist drag (Avenida del Sol), so we don´t know the area terribly well. Our quests for today are to find an internet cafe (done, obviously) and then a map. Also, we found a sweet breakfast restaurant like 2 doors down from our apartment and ate there this morning -- "desayuno" (breakfast) consisted of noodle soup, a plate of rice with meat and veggies, and a cup of tea and cost us 3 soles (just over $1 US). Win!

Well, that´s about it for now. We´re still settling in and getting our bearings, but I will certainly post more updates as they become available. =)  Hope you all are enjoying the summer sunshine back in the States.

Un abrazo fuerte! (A big hug!)

--Rebequita y Danielito