Earth Day

Well, life has been pretty decent since vacation. I formed an official committee to manage long-term environmental projects, and our first order of business is to organize putting recycling bins in all the institutions in Vicco. I also held my 4th Recycling buy, once again alone. BUT I bought a good amount, and am now requiring that all cans and bottles are crushed or else I´ll pay less. I also got all my recycling put into my costales that I retreived from the Recycling guy in Cerro. Didn´t get to talk to him directly, since he was in Lima, but I´m hoping I´ll get around to having him come soon. I´m just so bad about calling people; I hate talking on the phone. Even more so when I know its going to be in Spanish and I can hardly hear the guy. So I´m hoping to see him here in Cerro again. I also have started teaching the chef and my host brother English at the restaurant while I sit around waiting for my food (or am serving the food, which I did a lot of this week). It´s nice teaching them in a more informal setting, 1 because theyre smart and interested, and 2 because its just plain fun without any stress for me.

On the personal life side of things, that´s been looking up too. For Earth Day (April 22nd) I went to the nearby Huayllay hot springs with my host brother (Jhonatan) and the restaurant chef (Efrain). We were mostly celebrating/relaxing Jon´s birthday which was the next day. The hot springs are pretty developed, being more a heated pool place. But it was so awesome swimming, being warm, and having a good time. We laughed a lot while Jon tried to swim (you have to remember that pools don´t exist in Vicco), and I demonstrated some Hapkido moves. They´re both really interested in learning some martial arts, so I think maybe I´ve finally found some people I´d be comfortable practicing with. Now if only I had a kicking or punching bag, need to get around to trying to make one. After that, we walked the 3 kilometers to the actual Bosque de Piedras of Huayllay (ie the massive protected area of cool rock formations). We wandered around in there for awhile, eating my chocolate chip cookies (thanks for the chocolate chips and walnuts, Mom) and bouldering. Bouldering is rock climbing, generally done without any gear and only very low to the ground. I managed to forget my sunscreen so now my face is incredibly burned. For the last two days, I´ve been trying to good naturedly laugh while my host mom while she laughs at me for how red my face is.

Jon´s birthday was very relaxed, but I did work. At the high school, we celebrated belatedly Earth Day. We did a clean-up with the whole school after they watched a really great video about Mother Earth. I even gave a charla about recycling and how to separate from trash, although most failed to actually do it during the trash pick-up. Efrain started feeling bad after our Huayllay trip, and I still don´t know whats wrong. He´s been sleeping a lot; I really hope he feels better soon. Especially with my host mom saying he has bronchitis, the silent, lethal kind. She insists that it sneaks up out of nowhere and is very dangerous. Cross your fingers my new closest friend in site doesn´t have bronchitis.

Anyways, that´s life in Peru. Excited to be doing stuff, and getting to travel again soon for more training events in May. I´ll post again when I have more to share.