It´s been awfully rainy down here the last four days -- which would just be dreary anywhere else, but here it´s also STRANGE! Winter is the dry season here in Peru, so for it to rain is odd, let alone for four days straight! But, despite the odds, each morning we´ve woken up to a muddy, cloudy view like this:
The mountains are quite pretty, I´ll grant you, but the muddy slush all over is a lot less appealing! There is a giant lake spanning the whole road on one entrance to our neighborhood... it always gives the taxistas a bit of pause before they plow through it somehow.
Probably the worst part of winter rains, though, is that they make everything considerably colder, which is somewhat of a deal since few people here have central heating. (Why bother when they´d only need it for like a week out of the year?) We´ve been keeping warm, though, with extra pairs of socks, our knitted llama hats, and nice hot meals -- our favorite of which is our morningly "Huevo McPan" (Egg McBread, literally...) with tasty queso andino (Andean cheese). Mmm!
The highlight for Wiñarisum business this past few days was definitely Friday afternoon, when we met with the director of the Peruvian chapter of UNICEF to chat about collaboration opportunities. It was a really great meeting -- as I´ve mentioned before, the mother and infant mortality and health focus of Wiñarisum goes right along with the millenium goals set by the UN, so Daisy (the director) seemed very excited to work with us. We talked a lot about goals and issues, and then she offered to help us with the formalization process for the asociación civil (civil association) here as well as with training in our team to work more effectively with the folks in our target communities. Very exciting stuff! It´s reassuring to know that we have support from people with as much research and experience behind them as UNICEF! (Oh, and they also said they´d be happy to share their research and the results of previous projects with us so we can learn from them. Sweet!)
So that was pretty awesome news. Our other non-work-related highlight of the weekend was that Saturday morning Daniel and I went on a little field trip with Cheryl and Rafael (Adolfo´s wife and son). At Rafo´s school, each child plants a tree in this forest preserve place when they begin, and then each subsequent year their class goes on a field trip to water the trees, see how they´re growing, and hang out with the other kids and families. This year it was (as I mentioned) raining all day... so only like 4 kids came (out of three classes!!)... but Rafo, Cheryl, Daniel and I had fun anyway!
Rafo (who we nicknamed "calabaza" or squash because of his orange jacket) led us on a little hike across a stream and up through the trees. It was beautiful! We wandered all over this nature preserve place, looking at plants and teaching each other words. (I said "moss", Cheryl said "musgo", and Rafo said "musgo green!") Then, when we got hungry, we found some fluffy "musgo" under tree cover (still raining) and had a little picnic.
After we ate, we went back to the entrance building and found that the teachers and the four kids who bothered to show up had already left! Our taxista wasn't supposed to come back for us for another two hours, so we decided to just start walking down the hill (aka mountain). It turned out to be a beautiful walk despite the rain -- we could walk on the pavement alongside the road to avoid the mud, plus it was a gorgeous view of Cusco!
We could see the whole city stretched out before us. Rafo picked out the stadium where he plays soccer games on Sundays, and we could see the airport (long skinny thing above left) to one side and the historical center to the other side. Lovely. We took a few pictures of us up there too...
And here's our intrepid calabazita (little squash) and his mom:
Cheryl and Rafael
After a while, we got tired of walking all the way around all the bends in the road, so we decided to take the shortcut stairs that are built into the hills periodically to allow for easy access to the hillside communities, and also quicker ascent and descent for residents and passers-through. They were pretty slippery... but we made it.
Afterwords, we were pretty tuckered out, but it was a super fun day!
So those are our highlights for this session. Other than that, we've just been hanging out, working on stuff, resting, and visiting with old friends. Sunday (yesterday, I suppose) we went out with Mamita (Dra. Haydee) and Gabriel (her 9-year-old son) for ceviche, which is basically raw fish chemically "cooked" in an acidic lime-y juice-sauce. Daniel loves it... but I had cooked trout instead. =) It was a lot of fun to hang out with them again, and it was nice to do something different (although we do like cooking in our house too).
Well, hope you all are enjoying whatever 4th of July festivities you've got going on back home! We don't have any fireworks, but we'll be thinking of you. Hope you're well, and enjoy your Spanish lesson!
Un abrazo fuerte de Perú,
Rebequita y Danielito
VERY USEFUL SPANISH PHRASES
Lesson Five: Mascotas (Pets)
¿Compró lechos para gatitos? (Did you buy kitty litter?)
Tengo peces tropicales. (I keep tropical fish.)
Me mordió un perro extraño. (I was bitten by a strange dog.)
Necesito una vacuna contra la rabia. (I need a rabies shot.)
Mi gato ha sido castrato. (My cat has been neutered.)
A mi gata le han extraído los ovarios. (My cat has been spayed.)
Mi pena está en celo. (My dog is in heat.)
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