i am sending this blog from a bus....technology equals awesome

Alright, this week was interesting to say the least. Well, or maybe I should say hectic- in general I was running around resembling a chicken with my head cut off. Speaking of, happy mother’s day! We’re finally killing our pet turkey today to celebrate- this bird’s time has come. She has taken a habit to sleeping perched right outside my room and leaving poopy presents in the shower and at my doorway. Not to mention she chases the other little chickies that I like around the corral. Mmmm…

So one of my projects here is forming a group of teenage health promoters from my three local high schools. Our focus? AIDS. Yep HIV, VIH, AIDS, or SIDA- you can say it how you want. There’s a lot of here in Tumbes- for a lot of reasons but I’m trying with my health post to train some teenagers so they can turn around and teach their friends and classmates about the importance of wearing a condom and well, all of that great stuff. So I decided we needed to have a meeting this week. The problem was, was that it felt like no one was working in my health post that week- especially my counterpart- she was out on sick leave. So I just planned the meeting myself- all down to pleading with the municipality to lend me the town ambulance that afternoon to go pick up the chicos from their towns. But it worked! I had 19 kids come and I thought it all went pretty well- thanks to the support I had from some other volunteers and three community health promoters. We drank generic inca cola and ate cookie crumbles (I had dropped the box of cookies earlier that day, causing them to smash into a million little pieces). Next meeting is scheduled for may 19th.

So HIV meeting was a success- but losing my cell phone the day before was not. I hailed a car to take me to my annex town and while leaning my body out the window to whisk off some excess sweat of mine, my cell phone slipped out of my pocket and into the car without me noticing. Don’t worry- I noticed 2.5 minutes after I got out of the car and was asking the school director for her cell phone number. Of course I didn’t remember what the car looked like, who the driver was, or where he was going so I could just hope he’d be a good Samaritan and deliver back the device to the only person that could read the English messages stored. Hah.
Within a half hour, the phone was turned off- never to be seen again and I was left, s.o.l. The only comfort I took was in sending my now lost phone and whoever was holding it- a message that read,

“God is watching you and so is the U.S. government.”

Alas, it was in vain because I never saw the little guy again.

So as you can imagine, I was in a sour mood that afternoon. I had also just been tricked out of 50 soles in a Peruvian bus station and then lost my prime time seating to lima (which is where I am headed today). As I sat on my front porch, pouting, eating an ear of corn, my 4 year-old Ulysses, decided to dance for me. He swirled his hips and sang some inaudible song because he has a terrible speech impediment and Lindsey is pronounced “Isi.” He grabbed my oversized sunglasses then and put them on his face and continued his dance until he yelled “oh my skirt”! I had no idea what he was talking about until he ran out of his house with a grass leaf skirt on that his mother had sewn him. I’m talking like a legit hula skirt. Here is a picture, that of course, does not do it justice:

My mood was improving and I ran back into my room to grab my video camera.
I came back and videoed Ulysses dancing but the best part was when he took all of his clothes off (shirt, sandals, and shorts) and danced in nothing but his hula skirt and his bright red undies.
So my day went from a 1 to a 9 on the greatness scale and I was really happy Ulysses decided to let me video his dance party.

My last tidbit story is yesterday I FINALLY made it out to the campo to Greg’s site. I still hadn’t been there and it’s only 45 minutes away! His town was having a mother’s day celebration weekend and he invited us all to the fun. Of course, there was a cock fight involved and so he invited the rest of the Tumbes volunteers to check it out. We were a. the only white people (obvi) and b. two other girls and I were three of the four girls who decided to watch. We stayed for a little while, had a beer and then had to get back before the combis stopped running. Unfortunately, we wanted to go back today because the town was having a “Cock War.” This is so much more than your normal “Cock fight.” It involves six roosters in a ring, and only one comes out alive. Talk about intensity. It sounds like something you would expect to see in a Gladiator movie. Too bad I will be on a 22 hour bus ride… tear.