T minus 1 day

Aack! One more day and then I will be officially living in my new site. Right now I'm procrastinating in the capital city of Huaraz. The Ancash group is going around and purchasing necessities such as, um, beds and a small stove to boil water. I have about 150 lbs. of stuff with me and I'm petrified of getting it stolen so I'll not be purchasing any additional weight or volume. I'm trying to get some fun items that I will not be able to get in my site that are not big or heavy.

So, we got cell phones, this was quite fun. Things suddenly got a lot easier to plan. If I was going to be late, I could call, or change plans or places or really anything that communication can solve. It was amazing. Tomorrow I will be returning to the world of incomunicado so I feel ok with being so excited about talking to other people because this will not be happening soon. I called my friend Casey today and asked her what she was doing, she was on a bus (I knew this) and we talked about life in the last seven hours that we hadn't seen each other. :) It was fantastic.

Breakfast today was wonderful: french toast and a latte. We met a lot of volunteers from Peru 6 (they got here a year ago) because they were celebrating Thanksgiving in Huaraz.

Insight into Peru:
Everyone that looks slightly of Asian descent is called "chino". After they find out that someone is from Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, still doesn't matter, they are "chino". Also, after President Fujimori ("El Chino" -- from Japan), they now call everyone "chino" but additionally assume that you speak Japanese.

Other interesting Peruvian words:
"china" is not a woman of Chinese descent, it's 50 cents.

"Chifa" is a Chinese restaurant.

"Chaufa" is the adjective of a Chinese food, not china, because that's fifty cents.

Confused yet?