roof building means business.

Here in Peru (or at least in most of the middle to lower class neighborhoods) all of the houses are built on top of and next to each other so that it resembles a game of tetris. For the past two weeks, my uncle and his family have been building their new house on top of mine. Today was the day that they built the roof. Now this is the most important and most celebrated part of building a new house because it commences the end of the building the framework. So naturally, there was a party. I went out last night to my first “house party” (hosted by another volunteer) and fell in love with Chilean wine. That stuff is great. I came home around 12:30 and at 4:30 in the morning I woke up having to pee like the Dickens. I walked out of my room and to my surprise there was a fire burning in my “washroom/outdoor hallway.” At first I thought there was some Incan sorcery going on but it actually was my grandma cooking my favorite lamb head-stewed corn soup (known here as mote or patasca). This was going on at four in the morning because there were about twenty men mixing concrete and building the roof at seven this morning. Sleeping in was not an option. The soup that my grandma had been making was their breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack (and mine as well). I cannot even begin to tell you how hard these guys were working. They looked like hornigitas (little ants). They had to carry buckets full of concrete up a makeshift ladder to the second story of the house. This went on allllll day. At four thirty in the afternoon, the work was completed. To “baptize” or “initiate” the house (not really sure what was exactly going on), my father hung a bottle of wine from the roof and proceeded to hit it with a pole until it fell down, crashed, and spilled out on the street. My mom bought candy to throw out to the crowd of kids out of the street and beer was brought in by the case.

I sat around with my entire family which was pushing about fifteen people and ate food and drank the beer for a few hours. My uncle enlightened me on the nutrient content of drinking beer and Coke together (apparently there’s a lot) so that has become my new drink of choice (although I’m still working on finding out the health benefits). We talked in Spanish, I learned some more Quechua (native language spoken in the sierra here) and hung out with an array of men, women and children neighbors. To play a trick on one of the guys that had been working, his friend filled up an empty beer bottle with the gross ass cement water that had been sitting in a bucket and put the cap back on. Un fortunately I had to run inside for dinner, so I didn’t get to see the results of the broma but I was laughing pretty hard thinking about it. I loved every minute. I really feel like I’m part of the group!

Poor little Jeremy came into my room this morning (at eight in the morning mind you) scratching his belly and whining about something. After shoving him out of my room I got up and asked my sister Ili (Jeremey’s mom) what was wrong. She said that last night an ant had gotten into his pants and bitten him all over. I pulled up Jeremy’s shirt and shrieked at the shingles-ish rash that little J was sporting. There must have been thirty bug bites circling his stomach and back with more on his feet and legs. Feeling badly, I whipped out my handy dandy government-funded medical kit and hydocortisoned the heck out of his body. I wish I could convey to you all how bad the bug bites are here. They’re U.S. bug bites on steroids. And the problem is that no matter how hard you scratch they NEVER stop itching and they only get worse. Back home I would just scratch the suckers until they hurt but here it’s just a lose- lose situation. They don’t stop itching and get so much worse. After being outside all day, I am covered in them and all I want to do is take a shower. Too bad we ran out of water and won’t have any until Tuesday. So much for showering every other day- it’s now every three days.

Yesterday we (the health and environment programs) went back to the Universidad de Molina to learn about raising chickens and compost making. While I really enjoyed the compost making part (I got to cut down stalks of plants with a machete), learning about chicken raising for two hours, on a Saturday morning, in Spanish, was not the best thing in the world.

Afterwards a few of us decided to go to the Museo de la Nacion in Lima. However, upon arriving we discovered to our dismay, that the museum was closed for a viewing of a really famous Peruvian singer that had just died (can’t remember his name). I was SOOOOO bummed. But being easy to please, I was very content with going to one of the humongo supermarkets nearby. It resembled Walmart. And it had American food. However, I saved all of my money so I could purchase one thing; a hairdryer. Now I know I told you all that I had brought mine with me from the states, but what I forgot to tell you was that my luggage weighed too much so the hairdryer got left at my hotel back in Washington at the very last minute. So for the first time, I got to blow dry my hair last night. Despite the fact that I was in the dark (didn’t want to blow a fuse) with no mirror, and the hairdryer was on its lowest setting, I felt like a princess. I can’t wait to do it again.

In other news, I got to play with two little newborn puppies today that were precious and only three weeks old, watch Jeremy and Kayla try to weigh their heads on a scale, and talk with my parents for a solid half hour. I have concluded that today was a great day. I also loved the email updates I have gotten this week from Mags, Col, and Rae- you guys are great and I love you so much!! I had to sneak out of my house bc my grandparents (who I live with) are asleep and I had to leave the door unlocked to get back in- so I will write you all back in the coming week. And to all of my friends in the states- my friends here are cool and I really am getting along with a f ew of them- but no one can replace you all. I would kill for labodega (which actually translates into ¨the store¨in spanish) or to just sit around and talk about absolutely nothing. But alas, I think I have to wait a little longer for that to happen.