I´m alive

This is the first time I´ve gotten internet since Cusco. The keyboard is different, so excuse the typos. i think i´ll stop capitalizing too.

thanks to all of you who are reading the blog and writing to me. it´s so nice to hear from you while i´m here.

breakfast: weak, sweet coffee and some bread, followed by a chicken broth based soup with noodles, lots of potatoes, slivers of carrots, tomatoes or other veg, and usually a hunk of alpaca meat (tastes kinda like sirloin), or maybe lamb or pig.

lunch: in my house, it´s often a big bowl of rice with lots of panfried potatoes and a fried egg.

dinner: they mostly have a hot drink, like hot chocolate with milk straight from the cow and more bread. last night i asked for a fried egg sandwich, which was awesome.

there´s a nearby town called Pukara (10 minutes by taxi, about 30 cents fare), but it´s on bumpy dirt roads, and not a fun trip. cows and sheep are constantly crossing the street, and sometimes you can feel the road scraping the bottom of the car. But you can buy fruits, veggies and meat. I´ve been buying a lot of that because i can hardly eat another potato. i buy the food for my family and we all share. they´re probably eating better than ususal, and its really cheap for me. yesterday i bought 2 kilos of alpaca meat for approximately $2. A bag of carrots, 30 cents. a big bag of oranges or bunch of bananas, also 30 cents.

right now the whole family is crowded around me in the internet place watching me write this blog. they´re amazed by it. we were supposed to get internet in chijnaya on thursday (everything is already paid for, including transportation, months ago), but it still hasn´t happened. once they get it, they could set up internet cafes and charge people from pukara to use it. they need the money.

yesterday several of us had a little tummy illness if you know what i mean. the bathroom facilities are basically outhouse variety, but no seat. you squat over a hole, which is a pain anyway. the hole, however, is connected to a sewer system, so it´s like the hole in a regular toilet, only it´s in the ground. you flush by taking a bucket of water with you and pouring it down the hole. yes, it´s a little smelly sometimes, but not that bad once you get used to it.

the weather here is very dry, and in the daytime it gets up to about 70 degrees, but at night it´s 20-30 degrees. in my room (which is private), it stays around 55 degrees at night. i have a great sleeping bag, and i´ve got a fleece blanket in it. i stay very toasty warm. the bed isn´t so comfortable, but not bad. the mattress is woven straw about 1-2 inches thick, topped by a couple of thick, doubled wool blankets, a very thin foam pad, and two more blankets. i´m getting used to it, and now i can sleep well.

all night i hear animal sounds, mostly cows, roosters and burros. those damn donkeys sound like they´re dying and, like dogs, when one starts, the others follow. the roosters begin at about 3:30 a.m., but i´m learning to sleep through them, too. the cows don´t usually start until after sunrise. i usually go to bed between 9 and 10, and wake up around 6.

we´ve had two english classes so far, and they´re going really well. i wrote a curriculum and created a bunch of pages of translation. i do have a laptop to use, and i can plug it in in my room.

by the way, i´m having no problem with the altitude, which is nice. i´m settling into a routine, and feel like i know what´s going to happen now on any given day. i have to wash my hair in a basin of cold water in the back yard, although i have a sun shower bag and sometimes warm up the water. we had showers today at a hot springs in ayaviri, so we´re all fully clean for the first time in a week.

the other volunteers here are great. they´re all very energetic and cheerful, and we´re having fun exchanging stories about the food we´re getting and the things we´re learning about our families. an average family here seeems to live on about US$100 per month. they really need more income to improve their lives, and we´ve got a lot of ideas about how they can do that. i´m really excited to be part of helping them find ways to get more income. some months they are so desperately poor that they barely eat. this is a pretty good time of year for them.

i´ve only got about two more weeks in chijnaya, if you can believe that. i´m leaving a day or two early so i can go to cusco and visit machu picchu. its a 4 hour train ride from cusco, and i´m going to try to stay overnight. i can´t wait to see it.

next weekend, we´re taking an overnighter to puno where lake titicaca is. that should be fun. i´ll at least have internet again then. i wouldn´t count on hearing from me before that.

today we went to this awesome canyon, climbed around, ate fresh trout and, yes, more potatoes! i´ve got some awesome pictures. i´ll try to upload my photos now. hopefully the connection is fast enough. email me with any questions you have, and i´ll try to answer later. i think next time i´ll write some journals on the computer, save them on my mp3 player, and then copy-paste them here so i don´t take too much time and can upload more photos.

i miss hot showers!