A long overdue catch-up

9/18:

This week saw the end of the beginning: we finished orientation. The newly oriented me has been having a wonderful time here, but before I go on I offer this aside: an alliterative apology to my photo-famished friends. Sadly, the slow speed of connection complicates comprehensive posting of pictures. I do what I can!

Work:

Our work is divided in two. Half of the week we spend on "internal projects," projects that Pro Peru has already established. My internal project (first choice too, woot woot!) is water filters. As the thriving electrolyte and Cipro markets suggest, the water in Peru is not safe to drink. This has lead to what may be viewed as comic paranoia on my part-- showers with my jaw tightly clenched, refusal to floss until my hands have been washed, dried AND hand-sanitizer'd, etc. The implications are less funny for rural communities. Much less funny. Diarrhea is a major cause of infant mortality, and parasites and infections are far to common. Take a second to consider how many times a day you relay on clean water-- brush your teeth in the morning? Don't want to pick up giardea from that. The dishes you ate breakfast off of, were they completely dry after washing? How about lunch, did you wash the lettuce on that sandwich?

I've been drinking (and brushing, and gargling) out of water bottles for the last few weeks . Its been tricky, and that’s WITH the unlimited supply of clean water that’s available at the office. Clean water in rural communities is a big issue. My organization has been running a project to provide cheap water filters. The technology is simple: the filters look like flower pots siting in a bucket (in fact, the office has several flower pots that started as filters but failed testing). As water is poured into the ceramic filter, it trickles into the bucket, leaving bacteria stuck in the ceramic. We add a bit of colloidal silver to make their stay uncomfortable. The workshop churns out filters like mad, and I get to help by mixing, pressing, firing, and painting the clay. Unfortunately, supply has outpaced demand by a bit, so most of my work in the next couple of months will involve public education efforts to help distribute the filters.

I also have this dream:One of the project's long term goals is to find a more sustainable supply of colloidal silver. I poked around online a bit and it looks like I may have an opportunity to play mad scientist. A bit of electricity, some distilled water, and two silver wires may be all that stands between me and home-brewing the colloidal silver. A thick pair of work gloves may also be all that stands between me and a powerful electric shock.

Play (wouldn't want to be a dull boy):

Adventures! We had 'em! We visited the Incan ruins of Ollantetambo, where an impressive set of terraces winded me after a couple of minutes of climbing. The ruins were the largest and most complicated I've seen so far, and the stonework was as impressive (and baffling) as ever. At one point, Helena, Cian and I got lost. We fell victim to an ancient Incan trap-- they built their ruins so as to provide countless wonderful photo opportunities, thereby slowing visitors and separating them from their fast-walking tour guides. Fortunately, we employed an ancient countermeasure: yelling. After a bit of shouting, we rejoined the group proper. This last weekend, I visited Cusco with my family. We were celebrating an Uncle's birthday, attending a little festival, and in my case, hunting for that most elusive of foods: Peanut Butter.

The Birthday was a small, family affair (watch that comma, the family was huge). We ate cake, drank tea, and sang “Happy Birthday” in English. I expect that the language choice was for my benefit, because everyone seemed a lot more certain the second time through in Spanish. The next day, we went up to the ruins of Sacsaywaman-- pronounced like Sexy Woman-- to watch a ceremony put on by local schools. From what I could understand, the ceremony honors an Incan tradition where four regions would meet to have a sort of Inca Olympics. Nowadays, four schools (or maybe more, I just saw four different colors) meet to dance, sing, and try to knock each other off of tall wooden structures. Onto fires. That's right, one of the main attractions was a series of challenges where teams would erect 20 foot wooden frames using ropes, and then climb them to knock eachother off. Demonstrating the rarity of civil suits in Peru, kids would then run out from the corners of the field with dried grass and gasoline to light fires beneath the frames. Oddly enough, I never saw anyone get seriously hurt, although I did notice two ambulances lurking on the sidelines.

My final highlight of Cusco was the peanut butter. I should explain: There are three great culinary challenges in peru (outside the challenges of resisting temptation). The first is salad, as it is almost never trustworthy-- washed in unhygienic water, made with unpeeled tomatoes, the list of threats is endless. The second challenge is dark chocolate. For some reason, chocolate is available as super-sweet or completely unsweetened, but there is no middle ground. The third challenge is peanut butter. It just is not available in peru. Besides the simple human need to consume ground peanuts, I was driven by compassion to find this heavenly paste. One of the girls here can't swallow pills, and needed to grind anti-malarials into something tasty. Anyhow, the upshot is that I spent a couple of hours in Cusco poking around markets and stores. After several fruitless attempts to explain peanut butter to peruvians (I believe I was literally asking “you have peanuts having been crushed?”) I spotted, tucked in the “throw gringos a bone” corner of a megamart, a tiny jar of goopy brown goodness. The same corner also housed Nutella, which will probably lure me back before too long.

A few miscellaneous hijinks:

1. We are on a mission to try every one of the plethora of peruvian candies and snackcakes. Never before have I seen so many combinations of chocolate, cracker, cookie, caramel, artificial flavor, wafer, and seductive packaging.
2. We are on a quest to find churro man, a mysterious figure rumored to appear in the market. His location and timing appear to be completely random-- or governed by a sufficiently complex pattern as to seem random. Every person I've talked to gives me a different set of instructions on how to find him, but they all agree that his churros are a life changing experience.
3. Guacamole. I am on a personal mission to find a food that is NOT improved by guac. I believe that Guac, like hummus or bacon, goes well with anything. I suppose I should justify this: the avocados here are cheap and succulent, or would be if succulent could describe an avocado. Darn Tasty
   Upon review I realize that this list could be more accurately described as “operation swell up and die happy.” Ah well, life will go on, if a little more roundly than before.