El Encuentro

2-9-11

The days are starting to blur together are bit. That must be a product of going to mostly the same places every day where I see the same people. That’s what home is like for me, so hopefully this means that I’m feeling more comfortable here. This morning we had Quechua, but I really couldn’t tell you what I learned because I forgot it nearly immediately. Quechua… struggles! Olivia, Rachel, and I took a Combibus into the centro after class. I’d never taken the Combi before and I didn’t want to try it out alone, but it’s basically just a big van that you pile into and it works just the same way as a bus. It’s only 60 cents! What a deal. The guy who opens and closes the door trying to get people to come into the bus has quite the dangerous job; he’s always half hanging out of a moving vehicle! Olivia said it’s way worse in Senegal. Maybe I’m just not used to that sort of thing. Once we got into the center Rachel split off to go do some errands she had to do and Rachel and I just wandered around looking for a place to eat. It was really nice and freeing to not go home for lunch, to do my own thing for once! I remembered that Celia had told me about a vegetarian restaurant called El Encuentro that I’d stumbled upon one day and figured that’d be perfect since Olivia is a vegetarian. We nearly didn’t make it, however, because we came across a Japanese restaurant and really wanted sushi. Unfortunately, for some reason it’s closed for the next week so Encuentro it was!

It’s a bit of a walk, but we made it. Good thing we went there! We spent lots of time looking at the menu having the hardest time deciding what to order. Everything looked so good! We’re also not used to ordering our own food. We just eat what people give us to eat, I suppose. They had a salad there and I risked it! Yum! After our delicious lunch we wandered around in search of a chocolate shop that she’d heard of. We never found it, so instead we got some cappuccino soft serve and sat in El Parque San Francisco eating and talking. Lovely! Good thing lunch is three hours long, because we needed most of it!

After lunch we had our third lecture of the week, and this one was a doozy. I enjoy history, obviously, but some lecturers really fall short. This guy seemed to expect us to have a foundational knowledge of the Incan, then parroquial, city system of Cusco. He kept throwing in tons of Quechua words we didn’t know… it was a mess and most everyone felt lost. I found it interesting… up til a point. Lots of coffee during break to stay awake! Today, like usual, it rained really hard just as we were getting out of class. Bad timing! After class a bunch of us went to a café nearby that offers wifi and I discovered that I can skype from my Itouch! Very exciting.

When I finally got home we all ate dinner, but the only way Sebas would eat his food and stay still was if I promised him to dance after dinner. Then began about an hour of playing with my favorite one year old. He’s the most jealous little guy! Victor, my host dad, would tell Sebas that he was going to dance with me whenever Sebas got disinterested and started to do his own thing. Sebas would nearly cry, drop what he was doing, and come stand by me for about 10 seconds, then continue his own thing. We only did a couple things, but we did each tons of time. 1) Play on kiddy cars, one of which he had me drive. 2) Steal the pillows from the couch, place them on the ground, then sit on them, 3) or dance. Of the three I think he liked dancing the least! Oh well, he’s a good little kid and I’m glad that I have someone to play with! Even if the only way to let me stop without him crying is to pretend to go to the bathroom and tell him that he can’t follow.

After that I finally put up some pictures and wall things that I brought from home onto my walls. It cheered up my room. The walls were too bare. I changed my sheets and discovered that I do not, in fact have a mattress, rather a series of pillows. Hm. Next, I had a series of nice skype chats with friends and family that I hadn’t talked to in a while. Overall a good day.

xo Claire