At the end of week 3

I must say time is flying. The first week hear seemed like a month and this week went from Monday to Friday in a blur. I consider it a huge accomplishment that I am no longer afraid of the combi's, ride them home at night and yell at the driver if he looks like he´s going to miss my stop. I´ve lost weight from walking a lot. Today I took a moto taxi downhill because I had linger talking with my host mom at breakfast. Never again. About halfway down the hill when the driver hit maximum velocity, I closed my eyes and said, "Jesus, just let me live to the bottom of the hill!" And of course I did!

I understand most of what is said in classes that are all in Spanish. Sometimes I can talk pretty well and sometimes I open my mouth to watch a stream of unrelated words pour out in no particular order. I give my host family a lot of laughs. Like the time when I said that I have a man instead of I am hungry. Now I always remember the difference between hambre and hombre. One little vowel...

This week our language teachers took us to a large open market and turned us loose with the assigment of buying as much as we could for 2 soles (about 75 cents). We had to practice bartering, learn prices, interact with the shopkeepers in a warren of tiny stalls. It was actually a lot of fun followed by great ice cream. My partner and I bought a bag of onions, a bag of potatoes, a bag of peeled garlic cloves, 14 buttons and some ginger. He gets the credit for the bartering as he´s a tall handsome fellow with blue, blue eyes. Turned his charm on the shopkeepers and prices went down.

I am constantly amazed at the landscape. I´ve never seen anything so dry. The hills all around are stark naked bare of vegetation. Dust swirls frequently and the kids in my family are sick with respiratory illness. There are surprising and totally unknown bird songs, I only recognize the dove calls.

I´m pretty content and very curious now about what my work site will be like. Next week I´m doing a presentation for my health program group on breastfeeding. We´re learning a lot about methods of nonformal education. I wish I´d had this training years ago because I´d have used it over and over again. Today we had a whole morning of demonstrations on nonformal education complete with puppet shows, baking banana bread in an improvised oven over a fire and making rehydration fluids. Very practical, very hands on.

Cheers from Peru!