Back to Work

Well, I had an early start to my first day back in site. I had to be in a small town, about an hour and a half from my house, at 8am in the morning. Even though I went to bed on time, I vetoed the idea of showing up at 8 in the morning when I decided not to leave until 7:30am. I guess I knew, even then, that this really wasn’t going to happen. I got to Chavin and happened to find an engineer who is also working in Tanin and was headed up there so we took the Combi together and were about to embark on the hike when a mother (from Tanin’s school) ran up to tell me that there was no class today. Oh, great. Well, you know what I did? I went up anyways, at this point I was excited about the forty minute hike and even had a friend to accompany me AND he had a camera and is going to give me the photos of the garden that I wanted to document. So, I went.
As a birthday / early Christmas present from the folks, I also now own a watch that tells me what altitude that I am at! And I can’t figure out how to change it from meters into feet so the readings are still understandable to all you United States people… :) My town, according to my watch (which hasn’t been calibrated in a while) is 9,182 ft. and at the end of my hike to Tanin it was 10,770 ft. Not bad for my first day back, no?
Anyway, I had to get down in a hurry because I still had to turn in some letters to another community on the other side of San Marcos (as in two combi rides and an hour and a half hike away) before the rains came (they come anywhere from noon to five…). So I ran over to San Marcos, dropped off my stuff in a store (random, but it’s about thirty minutes for me to run down to my house and back to the plaza and in rainy season I just don’t have that kind of time!) and set off. The health post at Carhuayoc is at 10, 084 ft. (this watch is so much fun!) and I walked all the way up and down. Well, at the end of the day, I learned two things:
1) Check, double check, and triple check appointments to the campo (I did know this before hand, just a post-states brain fart, I guess)
2) Hiking in the most non-supportive shoes you can find is not appreciated by your feet. (In the states I finally got shoes that are comparable to the ones people where hear so I could fit in more and now I really don’t know how they walk up these mountains everyday. Still have yet to try the yanquis which are the even more campo sandal that is just made from cut up tires.)

Rest of the day:
· Went home and cut up the broccoli that I didn’t use in my nutritional session today and almost escaped what was really for lunch: potatoes, rice, and tuna. We compromised as I ate a broccoli, potato, and tuna concoction (all three food groups!) That’s right, there are only three food groups in Peru.
· Took a nap, sorry, still recovering from all those night buses and airplane rides that got me here.
· Practiced knitting a cable-knit thing that my mom gave me directions for.
· Learned various philosophy ideas such as Cogito ergo sum, and the veil of perception (book I just bought at Borders, yay!)
· Gave family presents from the states.
· Played soccer with a tiny Disney princess ball with my host-sister and some how knocked over a soup bowl about five times (no matter where we put it). Might have had something to do with the fact that we were playing in the kitchen.
· Watched part of Harry Potter 5, oh so dubbed in Spanish.
· Electricity went out approx. four times during the day.
· We currently have no water.
Not your average Friday?