Well, I haven't written since Tuesday, so I apologize, but life just seems to be zipping by here. The P90x workouts have been a great way to start the morning. Shura has managed to get out of bed for every other one. Kaitlyn, Jess and I have moved indoors in Jess's house. We move all of the furniture out of the living room and use that space. It is much more comfortable (other than the really low ceiling so some of the overhead stretches are hard). Plus, we can hook the laptop up to speakers and can hear much better. I think we are starting to get the feel for all of the exercises.
Our toy making day was a big success. So much so that we are going to do it again on Tuesday. I made a jigsaw puzzle by coloring a sheet from the Madagascar 2 coloring book we have, gluing it to a piece of cardboard and then covering it in clear tape to seal it in. Then I drew out the puzzle pieces and cut them out. Worked like a charm and now some of our kids can try to do a puzzle. We also made play-doh, a texture book for the blind women, weights, rattles, stress reliever/squeeze balls from flour and balloons, etc. One of the other NGOs that we are partnering with for raising funds and resources for the disabilities campaign has some volunteers with nothing to do right now. So these Swedes are going to make more toys and try to build a scooter that one of the women needs.
My team won the pub quiz on Tuesday so that was great. We got a free beer out of it! I had a number of meetings on Thursday and again on Friday. The chocolatada on Friday was pretty slow considering this is the rainy season and many of the families from the mountain communities cannot make it down into town due to mudslides and flooding. I was able to catch up with the obstetrics nurse, Charo as well as the children's health nurse, Enrique. They are on board for me to start my data collection in the afternoons. Also, there is a mass on Monday in memory of one of the interns who died in a car accident while doing a health visit to one of the mountain communities. So I will be going to represent Awamaki (and try to round up some other health volunteers).
We are having a good bye brunch for Margo on Monday as well. I will most likely be late since the mass starts at 10am and the brunch is at 10:30am. I have a 9am meeting with Lenny, a woman who is a liaison between Lima and Ollanta's disability office. She also happens to be the mayor of Ollanta's daughter. She is a bundle of energy though and is very good at getting things done (which is kind of rare here). So there is a huge group of American doctors coming down for one day at the end of the month. I guess there are upwards of 8 specialties and as many as 70 doctors coming. She wants help with organizing the program for the day. So I will meet with her about this.
I also have an invitation to eat lunch at Hallie's old host family's house at 2pm. So I will be a fat pig on Monday between the brunch and lunch at Lucy and Ivan's.
Friday night was our pizza party since we had 2 new volunteers arrive last week. I finally got to meet Miguel's little baby, Noah. He is adorable! A good mix of Miguel and Zoneida, I believe. After the party, Kaitly, Lauren and Kristi and I went for a drink at the pub. By 9:45, I was ready to go to bed so it was an early night. But I had wanted to go out for a celebratory drink since I found out on Thursday night that I got accepted to Yale's Nursing School! Now I have a very tough decision to make -- Vanderbilt or Yale???
Yesterday was a crazy day. Celestino is the president of the dance group the Majeños this year. So we had all of the dancers and some of their spouses and other people over for a party. Not all of the dancers could make it, but Ana and her sisters and parents were in fine form all morning preparing all of the food. I had peeled about 25 carrots so at least I felt like I did something. The menu was ricotto relleno (stuffed peppers), papas al horno (oven baked potatoes), tallarine (a baked noodle dish with eggs, cheese, onions and olives), and chuleta de cerdo (pork chops). Of course there were cases of beer, a big tent in the yard, and bottles of pisco and anis. People started coming over around 4:30. They didn't leave until 2:30am! I was enjoying myself just talking to people, when at one point, I returned to the table and two new guys had showed up. They were both already really drunk and one took an immediate liking to me.
What I missed during the next time I got up for a minute, was that the one guy said to all the others sitting around, "watch and see how you can fall in love in six minutes". So as I sat back down, everyone was very interested in our conversation. The guy kept asking me about love and why I was single. He kept calling me his "esposa" and "amor" (wife and love). Luckily I have years of experience dealing with drunken men who like to profess their love to me from working at the pub in England and at Old Town in Carmel. This was no big deal. Of course, I didn't understand why Graham kept saying "cinco minutos, cuatro minutos, dos minutos" (five minutes, four minutes, two minutes). It wasn't until later that he told me the whole six minutes thing.
Once we were finished eating, people started dancing. So my new love wanted to dance too. When we got out on the dance area I, along with everyone else, couldn't help but laugh. I was a good 8 inches taller than him! He was like, you are so big!! I was like, you are so short!! He couldn't even reach his hand up high enough to spin me around. It was hysterical. We managed to dance and then I was asked to dance with tons of other guys. So it was quite fun. One of the guys here, his nickname is Wow, cornered me for quite awhile talking about energy and reasons for life, etc. Yes, he was quite drunk. But he was fun to dance with.
I was getting really tired by 11pm so I said my goodbyes to whoever was downstairs and headed up to my room to hang with the cousins. Ana's family reminds me of my mom's family. Ana is the 3rd of 6 daughters. The ages range from 42 to 20. The family is very close. I love having the extended family here since it makes me feel like I am home with my aunts, uncles and cousins. The cousins ages range from 22 to 11 months. They were making the invitations for Fabricio's 1st birthday party. Finally they all left and Shura and I hung out and chatted until we fell asleep.
The party was still going on, but we were both pretty tired so we were able to sleep through it. I had woken up at 5:30am on Saturday morning and couldn't fall back asleep so I was pretty dead after eating, drinking and dancing for hours.
I had hidden out in the kitchen with the women when I wanted to get away from my short suitor. Emma, my friend who is dating one of the dancers, had followed me in so we all had a good time just chilling in the kitchen. It is so funny that regardless of the country or culture, the women-folk always gather to socialize in the kitchen! Once I found out my suitor had left, I felt safe to leave the sanctuary of the kitchen.
Anyway, today we have been cleaning up and just relaxing. Today marks the first day of Carnavales. So we will most likely be getting drenched with water for the next week anytime we try to walk through town. Boys chase after girls and drench them and girls chase after boys. I try to hide behind groups of old people because they don't get wet.
All in all, a good week. I will be spending most of my time in the Posta from now on, so I will hopefully have some good stories to tell about that. The goal is to collect as much data as possible so we can start to write some grant proposals for programs that target the real needs of the patients.
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