Welcome to Chavin!

After a little over one month at site, I would like to share some observations and anecdotes from life in Chavin de Huantar:

• The questions I'm asked most frequently are, "Have you tried guinea pig yet?", "Are you adjusting?", and "What are your favorite Peruvian dishes?" Can you tell it's a very gastronomically proud country...with reason of course!
• Guinea pig is good, but too much work.
• Washing clothes by hand is some serious manual labor. I dream about a washer and drier.
• Hiking 3 hours to work is not so bad when you get to see the sunrise over these mountains.
• Public drunkenness is pretty much condoned here. I had a meeting with community members and the president of the community showed up drunk, repeatedly apologizing for being a sinner and demanding several rounds of applause for me before I even spoke. I was the only one who was surprised.
• Rain boots are awesome (and essential).
• Food is love. My host mom has a tendency to love me too much :). For that reason, I am happy to be cooking for myself finally. I ate salads, veggie stirfry and vegetable soup for a week.
• Even after going a week without showering, I'm still the best-smelling one in the room.
• Intermittent access to running water will make you acutely aware of what a blessing it is....sweet water, I will never take you for granted again.
• I occasionally find myself defending my gringa status since the stereotypical gringa has blond hair and blue eyes...I'm working on changing that one.
• Nothing beats the feeling of receiving a care package.
• One must always be prepared to be pulled into an awkward dancing in public situation.
• They waited until AFTER we got to site to inform us that rainy season in Ancash is also the peak time for fleas!
• Fresh baked bread every day is a treat.
• Administering health questionnaires is exhausting, but totally worth it when the senora gives you several kilos of just harvested potatoes for visiting her.

And that's about it for now. My diagnostic is progressing nicely and I'm really starting to feel at home in my site. In my free time, I'm going to start giving English classes next week to students during their summer break. I'm a little intimidated to get up in front of all those kids (and teach for the first time), but I trust that they'll see my good intentions and hopefully go easy on me. If anyone has any teaching/working with youth experience they'd like to share, send it along!