to chelsea

i am impressed, it{s still march and i have a second blog post. incredible! i think the last time i was updating at such fequency were the first few months in site.

okay, current events -

yesterday was a PLAYASO. playaso = chillin down by the rio grande + the rest of the town + beer + music from teh band. amazing. super fun. i could only be there for a bit, but it was great! was sittin in the river drinkin some chelas and trying to keep beto{s host brother{s dog off of me by splashing water at his face. he{s a laberador and obsessed with water. i just realized how dumb those dogs are! haha, but cute.

then, we grabbed a pollo a la brasa and ended the night with beto yelling from his paradero, peruvian style, to get other people to get in the car. [sube, sube, rio, rio, rio, suuuube!] in the deep, mechancical sounding tone. very peruvian. then, pat joined in trying to get people to get in the car so they could go. it realy ended up with loads of laughter from me and the confused peruvians walking by who never expected to see gringos yelling as peruvians! proved to work because it only took a few minutes for them to fill the car and get going.

aside from the festivities, i have started teaching english in the schools and, surprisingly, love it! teaching to the kids is suuuch a reward! when i got to site 1.5 years ago and went to the schools i was totally turned off by the idea of teachign english because i felt overwhelmed with kids and how much they wanted to talk with me, play games with me, and stare at me. i wasn{t ready to be the center of attention. but now, wow! they are a captive audiance that will listen to you (for the most part) and you can do little projects almost immediately! animating kids is also a great way to ensure your name has a good reputation around town which then makes the parents (some who work in the hospital or health posts or other institutions) want to work with you...great for projects! it{s quite interesting to observe how my perspective has changed.

currently my stomache is grumbling, so i think it{s time to head home and eat whatever my host dad has cooked up!

the hot hot sun

it´s hot. i am reminded of this when i turn off the fan in my room. when i feel the sweat drenching my shirt. when i stand up from sitting down and my pants are stuck to my legs/butt. when my water bottle just so happens to be empty because i just finished drinking it all. when i am too hot to eat, which would make my temperature go up ever so slightly that i feel on fire. when i stand in the shade and still feel hot.

but, what´s new!

there is still some water in the rivier - awesome! nikki (my santa cruz site mate) and i went in the river last week and played carnevales against eachother. we had a mud bath and did mud faces and mud legs. i think that is when one of the funniest things happened to me. i turned around and a lady who had been washing her clothes was standing up and just blatently looking at us! haha! i hadn´t ever seen her before, so i think she was new. and we probably looked like the oooooddest thing to her. two white girls, playing in the stream and putting mud on themselves. i would be staring too! hah! so funny.

school is starting up next week, which means the house will be empty most of the day. i will start help with teaching english, and continue the tooth brushing/hand washing/recycling charlas that i was doing last year. only this year i am going to team up with the health posts.

sigh. life is going well. i can´t believe hoooow quickly the past few months have flown by. i feel like i am hardly in my site, and when i am here i also feel there is hardly enough time to do all i want to. such is it.

excited for my parents to come visit!