Mare and Bets are here!

Hello again, everyone. Sorry I have been a bit lax about writing lately. I see that I left off last Tuesday so I will pick up from there. The pub quiz went well. There was a group of students from the University of Wisconsin in town so they joined in for the quiz and we all had a good time. Wednesday night's bonfire was probably our best one yet. The weather was perfect for a fire. We all just sat around and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and drank mulled wine or spiked hot chocolate. Thursday was a sad day because we had to say goodbye to Hallie, but luckily she had to leave in a rush from lunch to get to the airport so we did not have time for lingering goodbyes. I know I will see her again soon, so I am not dwelling on how much I miss having her around.

I had another meeting with Ariana, the woman who runs the nonprofit, Threads of Peru. We met to discuss our next steps for working on the nutrition project up in two extremely rural communities. As Ariana is over 8 months pregnant and I am leaving in less than a month, we are just going to try to get the planning in place and then move forward when I return next year. It actually was so hard to sit there and talk about this project as it is exactly what I had always wanted to work on when I was working on my MPH. It needs epidemiology, program planning, implementation, program evaluation, everything! I would love to just take this project and run with it, but I have to come home and earn some money as I am quickly running out!

I woke up in the middle of the night on Thursday not feeling well (typical stomach issues) so was dragging a bit at the clinic in the morning while serving breakfast and working triage. I left and spent most of Friday in bed trying to sleep off the stomach pains. I tried to eat a bland dinner on Friday night and go to bed early, but spent most of the night making trips down to the bathroom. After sleeping in on Saturday, I felt much better and was able to hang out with some friends. I find that if I just stop eating as soon as the stomach troubles start, they pass pretty quickly. So I nibbled on crackers and gatorade all day and was able to eat some quinoa soup on Saturday night. By Sunday, I was right as rain!

On Sunday, I was invited to Ana's sister's 20th birthday lunch at Ana's parents' house. (wow, there were a lot of apostrophes in that sentence!) I went expecting to have cuy as that is the typical birthday and special occasion food. Ana's mom is known in town for her good chicha. I do not like chicha, but it always cracks me up to walk around town or to be driving through towns and see these big long sticks with red plastic wrapped around the top so that it looks like a flower. That signals to outsiders that this is a house where chicha is sold.

Anyway, instead of cuy, I was in for a treat...a pachamanca! A pachamanca is basically food cooked in an earth oven. They heat all these rocks and dig a big hole in the ground. they then put the meat, chicken, pork or whatever on the rocks along with potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans, and other goodies. It is covered in the rocks and paper and then with dirt. It cooks in its little mound for about an hour. Then you dig it all up and eat it. It is soooo tasty. We all sat around the table just digging into our chicken, beef and pork with our hands. It was a vegetarian's nightmare! The potatoes here are just so good.

So then, there was the finals of the bull fights from last week because it got too dark to finish them last Sunday. I had a pretty chill night and went to bed all excited because I was going to pick Betsy and Mary Ellen up at the airport in Cusco in the morning!

I had to take two new volunteers down the clinic on Monday morning and then I was off to Cusco. Their flight from Lima was on time and they were waiting for me when I got there. We had a typical loud and boisterous reunion before heading back to the collectivo area to catch a combi back to Ollanta.

Mare and Betsy are in constant awe of the beauty here. They also just love how peaceful and laid back it is. This is good for Mare as sometimes she needs to be reminded to slow down! In her first two days here, she has already hiked to all of the ruins in the local area and walked to the neighboring town. The girl is a ball of energy. Unfortunately, she is lying in her bed in her hostel right now stricken with stomach problems. Hopefully they will pass by tomorrow and she will be ready to keep exploring.

They were in for a treat as Monday afternoon was the baptism of my host-nephew, Mauro. The tradition here is that little boys do not get their hair cut until their baptism. The godparents are the first to cut the hair and make a donation to the kid's future. Then everyone else is allowed to donate some money and cut some hair. The baptism itself was pretty typical of a Catholic baptism. Mauro looked adorable in his little suit (he is 5 years old). Then we all headed back to one of Ana's other sister's houses for the after party. This is the reason Mauro was 5 when he had his baptism. These parties are huge so the parents need to have saved a lot of money to fund it.

We all sat around while we were served small glasses of wine, pisco sour, chicha, and beers. Mare and Betsy were amazed at all of the alcohol they ply you with. Then the food arrived! The plates were massive! Such good food. We were actually going to leave because Betsy (who is 5 months pregnant) was tired, but we were convinced to stay just a bit longer as the hair cutting ceremony was about to start. So the godfather went first and donated 800 soles to Mauro's future and made the first cut. Mauro has very long hair as he hasn't had it cut since he was born. The godparents here are looked at in the traditional role of being the guardians of the godchild if anything were to happen to the parents. I had my turn and gave some money and cut his hair.

Betsy was besieged by children who wanted to take photos and see photos. After being given yet another beer, we were finally able to escape back home. It was neat that Bets and Mare were able to experience this on their first day here.

Mare has started walking in the mornings with me now that Hallie is gone. Although, with her being ill, we didn't walk today. I had to go to the clinic early yesterday and today for a vaccination campaign at the high school. However, this being Peru, we never ended up going yesterday (we were supposed to go at 8am and at 12pm, they finally told us it would be 8am tomorrow). 8am today came and went and finally at 10am, they left. I had to meet a new volunteer at 10am so I couldn't go. Supposedly we are going to do some sex education at the high school tomorrow. I will just see if it happens. Lord knows they need sex ed here with all these teenage pregnancies. Yesterday, Megan and I worked triage together. Megan and Kelly are sisters from Indianapolis so Megan and I were talking about all of our favorite restaurants. It made me excited to go home and eat good food!

I am three weeks away from my departure date. I can't believe my time here is coming to an end. It just doesn't seem real or right for that matter. I feel like I have a purpose here and I just worry about transitioning back home again. I am excited about seeing my family and friends again though.