Trip Preparation

2-18-11

Luckily, they gave us the afternoon off today. I think it’s only fair, since Calca took up all of Saturday and we’re about to embark on a 16-day trip with only one free day. We finished Quechua, so in the morning we had FSS with Donaldo and Sonia ( Field Study Seminar aka preparation for ISP). We spent a lot of time defining globalization and then drawing maps of Cusco, as we know it. After misspending most of the morning in similar fashion, they tried to fit an explanation of our upcoming trip in about 15 minutes. That didn’t work and they ended up keeping us for an hour extra, so people got crankier and crankier. We tried to divide the group into those who stay up in the higher altitudes herding alpacas in Colca, and those who stay on farms. It took so long! And we still don’t even know what villages we’ll be in. oy.

I came home to each a yummy lunch of chicken and rice of some sort with the whole family, then I headed out with Olivia and her host mom, Yolanda, to go buy some things on our packing list. Yolanda took us to Calle Nuevo, which is more like a road with some shops along the side than a market. I doubled my scarf collection here. Whoops! I just love colors! One scarf is sort of a 70’s greenish color and when I asked the shopkeeper to bring down that one she gave me the most incredulous look, as if you say “that is the most hideous color you could have chosen.” Oh well, I like it! So yeah, I bought three scarves that are all super colorful, a sweater, and socks for Colca. They require us to obtain a creepy demon mask and a slingshot for our theater workshop on Lima….I imagine that will be interesting. Two weeks is a long time! Colca will be freezing, but Lima will be sweltering, so I’ll probably just end up bringing all of my clothes. I’m going with my host mom tomorrow to find said items. I’m really loving my host family. They often leave me to my own devices, but I feel like we always have good, honest, comfortable, and long conversations at the dinner table. Breakfast is usually quiet and lunch chaotic, but I appreciate what each person gives. At dinner my host mom gave me a present! She gave me a little clay shot glass with Incan designs that says “Feliz Año Nuevo 2011 Cusco, Peru.” I asked my host dad, Victor, about the varieties of spellings for Cusco and found out that the English speaking world has got it all wrong!!! “Qosqo” is the name in Quechua, “Cusco” the name is Spanish, and “Cuzco” (with the Z) is a kind of dog!! Sorry Cusqueños!

After we got back from shopping (we took the combis again) we got together with a couple of other girls and just spent several hours talking. It was a really nice feeling and we all got to know each other a lot better.

After dinner I had a jolly skype with Nate, then met up with some Santa Ursula folks to go out. I’m really not a big drinker so this going out all the time thing is fairly new for me. We went to a bar called Amaru, where I ordered the most disgusting drink of all time. I should stray from the standbys- it never works. It was like an extraordinarily alcoholic glass of Listerine! But then we went to another place upstairs with a great atmosphere, then we went dancing as we always do. I actually had a really great time! I think it was partly because nearly the entire group was there and I hate it when smaller cliques form and you get stuck with the same group of people when everyone here is so great! Oh, the other night when we danced we met a couple very tall British men here on gap year. Rachel befriended them, but I couldn’t even hear a single word they said. How people meet people in clubs I just don’t know. Don’t get it!

Kia’s been telling me that on the walk to school every afternoon she stops and gets a Princesa ice cream bar. I tried it today, and it was amazing! A little Reese’s-esque. Oh, that reminds me. There are many words here that I’ve never learned before. For example, in school I always learned that peanut is “cacahuate,” however, here they say “maní.” Similarly, “aguacate” is “palta,” “bufanda” is “chalina” and so on.

Good night,

xo Claire