English Lessons!

I woke up late and didn’t get to the health post until 11am. By the way, the health post is closed on Sunday. Nope, I was going to a house about a block away to help this lady’s daughter whom I met the Tuesday before. I figured the daughter was in grade school and maybe I could go talk to her class for one of the discussions that I’m trying to give. So, um, turns out an important question to ask before making said assumption is “how old is your daughter?” Because the daughter is definitely twenty-three. Right, yep, my age. (Well, apart from the fact that I just had a birthday last week and am, in fact, twenty-four.) Ok, so she was wonderful and sweet and we went over some articles that she had to summarize and it was an interesting and insightful experience for the both of us. I also asked her if she could help me out with my project, since I was now out of ideas. She told me that her mom new basically everyone in the community and could probably coordinate something. So, upon talking to her mom, I now have a tentative appointment with the director of a market in the town and am going to talk with him on Tuesday about giving a presentation (a series of presentations) to vendors in the market. My hope, which was well received by Juana’s mom but who knows if the director or vendors will like it, is to promote nutritional awareness among those who are actually selling the food. As told to me by the mother (Leoncia), most of the vendors just sell stuff because that’s how they make money and don’t think anything about what they have. So, my project idea is to create little cards to place next to their vegetables or foods that says what vitamins the food contains and how it helps the body. This way, we can increase correct nutritional awareness among vendors and their customers, as well as perhaps raising the sales of fruits and vegetables in the market place (for example, if I see the sign that says, “Oranges have vitamin C! Help against the flu!” and I happen to have the flu, I might buy some more oranges…)
So, we shall see. If it doesn’t work out, I’m taking this part of the entry off my blog. :)
Ok, basically, that part of the morning was a grand success. Now for the part that was not a grand success. I thought that on Sunday I was going to help my host-mom make pachamanca. I think I already talked about this but it is a fun and delicious Peruvian dish. We were going to make it in the pot as opposed to making in the ground, which is the other way it is traditionally made. Ok, so in the morning I ask about this and she says that she is not doing it because she does not have money. She’s been annoyed the past few days because the Peace Corps did not give me the money for the next 15 days yet. This annoyed me because I wanted to make pachamanca. Ok, so then she goes to the store and I get ready to go. Then, just as I get ready to head out, she arrives with a bunch of groceries, I ask what she got and she responses, “Chicken and herbs for the pachamanca.” Friggin’ A. I give up and leave exasperated. Well, sad times, no cooking lessons for me but I was told the ingredients and the layering in the pot and hopefully someday I’ll get to help. It was delicious though and I was quite excited to partake in the eating of said pachamanca. The sweet potatoes were heavenly and I stated this and then they appeared in my lunch the next day, which was heavenly as well.
That night I got bored and went over to Casey’s house, she was taking a nap and then her host-mom kept chatting so I stayed and then surprised Casey a lot as random person was in her house when she awoke. Definitely stalker-esque. Oops. Then I went back to the casa to wait for my parents to call. Which they did around 9:30pm with the news that my host-family might have voicemail. Hmmm…