Ganyan runtuta ashirga...

In my agenda I wrote, “Random Meeting at the Municipality.” I had no idea what I was going to. Turns out today was the Day of the Peruvian Artisan (Peru is big on days, though when they promote awareness and support like they’re supposed to, it’s a good strategy to implement.) The artisan associations from Chavín and San Marcos were there and were presented with various opportunities with support from the mine and another artisan group from Ayacucho. It was really cool. After the presentation, we had lunch at a restaurant in town and I sat next to the presenter so we got to talk, first about how I’m going to marry a Peruvian and stay here (they like to talk about that a lot… ). I told him that I was a health volunteer (this was not interesting) but that a fourth of the Peace Corps is small business oriented so I could try to help them if I could and use the SBD volunteers as resources (this was a lot more interesting). So, now I have the number and address of the professor that just moved here to teach weaving, ceramics, and this other thing that I can’t figure out the name of, and we are going to hang out and cook and I get to attend any trainings if I want and I’m looking into helping them bring items to a fair in Lima next fall. (This apparently was set up by a PC small business volunteer last year so I’m thinking this won’t be to hard since it’s been done once before for this same group.) Woohoo. Secondary project that’s super cool and interesting. Check and check.
I felt so accomplished that I didn’t do anything for the rest of the day. Oh wait, I went and turned in my calendar to the orphanage of times when I’m free and wrote them a letter saying my ideas for projects and then proceeded to write it in letter format just so I could stamp it with my stamp that I made in Huaraz. It has a place for me to sign and says my name and has the Peace Corps logo on it, including San Marcos, Ancash, etc. Here everyone is a big fan of stamps and signatures so I bought a stamp but haven’t used it yet, except today. Muahaha. Anyway, I thought the director was out so I wrote everything out and when I arrived she was there. She got a big kick out of the fact that I made a legend for my calendar that said that the large X’s over days meant that I would be busy. Then I went to a store with Jessi because she told me she had found something that looked like the picture of candy corn that I have in my room. (It’s a Halloween card from my parents; I don’t have random food pictures up in my room…) Anyway, it turned out to be yellow and red pear shaped hard candies. So, I bought some anyway, and then we ate them. And then I wrote this really long blog entry which has taken way too long… So I’m going to stop… right… now!