Another Day

Went on my run today and found that the loop I normally do has gotten easier. The loop consists of running on the PanAm until getting to a village called Sacramento. From there, I go inland through the fields for about twenty minutes. I normally pass people who are working in the fields planting and spraying pesticides, and I try to sneak past them so they don´t whistle at me, which they used to do all the time. It´s quite, quite degrading I find. But, many people have stopped whistling at me and simply yell my name, which is way better. Today was a lucky day and people just yelled my name and their attempt at ´good morning!´ Then, I ran through the practically dried up river, through more fields and little villages (amongst them was one I am doing the cocinas mejoradas project in) and out onto the PanAm. Total time: 35 minutes.

Then, off to the radio station to talk about jobs for kids finishing secondary school. Unfortunately they were busy. I think we might look for another radio station that can serve as a ´back up´ station for when Radio Hispana is too busy during the week to give us time.

Then, as I was walking through the streets of Palpa I saw a woman holding a land line phone in her hand, with the ear piece up to her head and she was talking! Hah! Not sure WHO she was talking to…or how, since she had the plugin in her hand. But, there she was. She looked quite campo, which means I don´t doubt that she really didn’t understand how a phone works. It made me laugh and was quite accurate to a Peruvian comedy I had seen on television the day before. It had a campesino woman being taught how to use a cell phone and she would go off on her own with the new phone and mess up every part of how to use it – first trying to recharge it (by paying a man to run around with it strapped to his push dolley), then trying to get a battery (a car battery), then trying to turn it on by pushing the green button (buttons on her shirt), etc. So funny! And I just had to laugh. Here I am in Palpa, Peru with people who walk around trying to use landlines like cell phones. I don´t know WHAT kind of work I should be doing, and for WHOM?!

p.s. the I got about 300 pieces of rebar cut today - yay! poco-a-poco gunna get this cocinas thing done!