The Chacra at sunset. Pretty, no?

Chopping Alfalfa in the chacra for the guinea pigs

Old man in the market with an interesting face

Our river

I learned to milk a cow!

This is the farmers market that we go to every Saturday. I have now seen 4 Peruvian rainbows.

An Official volunteer, officially at site, at last

I find it much more difficult to journal when I am content. Manic moments and low momements lend much more inspiration to my writing. I hate to post a list of the activities I have been up to over the past week, but as I have fallen out of the habit of blogging and people are curious about my goings on (at least I hope they are), I am afraid this is what it must come to. Please pardon this post..I will try to do better.

I have settled in to a nice little life here in La Grama. The food is amazing and it looks like I will be plumping up right smart quick. While the days are tranquilo and slower paced, I rarely find myself unoccupied. Already I have taught ballet classes; met with the mayor; met the teachers in the kindergarten/elementary school/high school, learned how to make yogurt, cheese and a number of other delicious recipes; contracted a guitar teacher; gone hiking; been ill; bought my own pair of llanques---- (Small tangent: Llanques are sandles made out of tires that all the campesinos wear. they last forever. There is a saying in Peru that someone is more Peruvian than the potato. Pretty soon, I hope to be more Peruana than the papa. All that is lacking is a campesino hat, the fact that I am about two feet taller than everyone else here, the fact that my skin is several shades lighter than everyone elses, and the fact that I will probably always speak Spanish with a terrible gringo accent. Details, just Details I say); -----bought an osino to cut alfalfa in the chacra; found two people to teach me ceramics; tutored the treasurere at the Municipality in English; and just been totally happy.

This past weekend James and Jon, other local Peru 11 volunteers visited my site to accompany my family and I on a 7 hour hike along the river. What started out as a lovely, flat-terrain stroll fast turned into something totally different. The river proved to be a fastidious guide--at times it overtook the embankment, forcing us to leap from stone to stone. Later on in the journey leaping was no longer an option. This meant we had to trek up the embankment and bushwhack through thorny brush. At one point we even had to climb a partially fallen tree to reach higher ground. Whats more, on two occasions we had to fjord the river. This required that I remove my shoes and cautiously make my way to the other side. I think I may have broken my toe on the final crossing, because the current made it very difficult to see which of the slippery rocks I was stepping on and I jammed my foot several times into the stony riverbed. To say the least, there were many dead ends, many thorns in my side (literally), much huffing and puffing, and many soaked clothes, only to emerge at our glorious destination: the piedra caballera (or the lady rock).

In essence, the piedra caballera is a big rock on the the shore of the river. Besides being large, there is nothing extraordinary about the rock. It does not even resemble the shape of a lady. Nevertheless we enjoyed a lovely picnic lunch of lentil burgers and watermelon while the wind whipped sand at our faces and lent texture to our food. I took a siesta on a flat rock in the river, which was a terrible mistake, being that the Peruvian sun is fierce.

The return hike home was not quite so adventurous as the trek to the Piedra Caballera. It was a bit tamer, a bit less strenuous. Because I was very dehydrated and my skin was starting to crisp up, however, the hike was not so enjoyable or leisurely.

When we arrived back in La Grama, we were thorougly exhausted and covered in sweat, sand, and thorns. I broke out in a fever just for the sake of making the day a bit more exciting. Here is where my story gets a bit more interesting. My host mom is a strong believer in natural cures and wanted to break the fever. She came into my room with a bowl of water and vinegar and rubbed it all over my arms and legs. Then she individually wrapped up all my apendages like a mummy so that I couldnt move. She said she would wait 15 minutes and repeat this sequence 3 more times. If the fever didnt break after the third round, she would have to consort to graver measures: rubbing my 9-year-old brothers urine all over my body. I had the option of skipping straight to the pee, but I opted not to start out with the hard stuff. Fortunately for me, my fever had been reduced to my host moms satisfaction by the third round of the mummy routine and I evaded the tinkle treatment. What a day!

photos are from the hike.