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?)