My first week in Vicco

Well, I survived my first work week in my actual site. But just barely. I´m reminescent of my post about the first week in Peru, and I think that week went a lot better than this one. Mostly because I was very very sick the whole time traveling. Our group arrived in Junin, Junin together Sunday night, and we all planned to stay the night and head to our respective sites Monday. However, I spent the entire night in bed without eating, visiting the bathroom frequently as well as all of Monday doing the same. It was pretty miserable, but by Tuesday morning I had enough wind under my sails to catch some Colectivos (non-private taxis). Transportation to my site is a little interesting, because you have to take a couple different ones to get the whole way there. This means you have a chance of getting stuck at a couple different spots, so I´m not sure how much time to plan for travelling in the future. It can vary so widely.

Anyways, about my site. My room is pretty nice; Briana left me some decent things, including a down blanket. This means that every night I´ve spent here in site so far, I´ve ended up sweaty and overly hot. That could be because I had a fever (I didn´t check so its a possibility), but also that thing is very warm. I like that I´m not going to be miserable while sleeping due to cold at the very least. Once outside of bed, its a very different story. I haven´t spent any length of time out of socks; and I only remove clothes to put on new ones. I need to figure out a system of having drinkable water in my house, because we spend every meal in the restaurant at the Centro Comercial. My host mom didn´t have any gas for the stove, and I´m not quite sure how to manage the water. Not having running water in the house or for all hours of the day is a little sucky. Also, at the Centro Comercial, they don´t have sinks. I have a distinct lack of places or ways to wash my hands. This is another thing I will be working on to make my life comfortable here. Tippy tap here I come! A Tippy tap is a 2 liter bottle thats had the bottom cut off, inverted and cut holes in to be able to string it up. You fill it with water, loosen the cap and viola, sink. You can even use the bottom cut off portion as a soap dispenser. I very much need one, but I fear leaving it outside to become a block of ice. My host grandma works out in the fields (Champa) with her sheep, and apparently the last few days have been ear notching and shearing time. I watched her use a nice big knife to cut massive notches in lambs that were at least a few months old. More than a little bloody and disturbing, but I guess they wait to notch because they don´t know which will survive? I´m not sure, but I was a bit unhappy to watch that. Quite the contrary with the wool shearing though, that was really cool and I hope I'll get a chance to do it in my time here. I also watched a little bit as she spun the wool into thread, and I can´t wait to learn this too. Yesterday, my host sister re-taught me to knit, and I have begun knitting a scarf.

My first few days here I didn´t do much except sleep and unpack, but these last two days I visited the escuela and the colegio (elementary and high school). Today I even sat in on two different English lessons and helped out a bit. That was really nice, and the English professor, Nina, is incredibly awesome. She´s going to be an incredible asset and help to my time here; I can definitely tell. I´m getting my time in the schools now so that I can start Vacaciones utiles in the second week of January. That will probably be my first substantial goal here. But I´ve also helped these last two days with the construction of the organic garden/green house at the high school. I´ll be very excited when that is completed.

Alright, I´m out of time here at the internet cafe. I´ve posted a mailing address to facebook, so I really hope to hear by letters from a couple people soon. Especially considering what month it is right now. Hint...hint. I´m only asking for letters, with maybe some photos tucked in them. Love you all!!