Entry #5, some cool stuff! ha

Since my last post, yesterday, we've done a bunch of really fun stuff, so I thought I'd share it with everyone as a little something to read before the madness of the holidays! So last night everyone started the impossible task of making xmas/new years cards for ALMOST everyone in the women's prison plus the elder men, who are so freaking cute! Our common room is still covered with scissors, white,red and green construction paper, glue, snow flakes - even though that doesn't remind them of christmas because it's summer here - didn't think that one through until 1/2 of them were made, but whatever. we're sharing something from our traditions to theirs! Papa Noel - aka peruvian Santa, is somewhat represented among the cards, but then we decided to make red and green popcorn por los ninos, which was special, to say the least. a few batches and consulting the internet for the recipe for food-coloring popcorn and we had a successful red batch! WOO Los ninos are going to be very happy! Their mom's are going to want to kill us because the amount of sugar that's in the recipe is going to leave them wired for when we leave, oops!

But today, Amelia Catlin and I (who are interns) went to the country side to see small villages that were virtually eliminated by the Shinning Path in the 80s. There are 8 or 9 provinces, some of which are only accessible by walking an hour or 2, but we went to the 2 main ones, one of which has the only clinics for all 8 or 9 regions and they don't have a doctor just a nurse, obstetrician and a nurses aid. The clinic was brand new and was actually nicer than the ones in Ayacucho, but still hard to believe that people have to walk up to 2 hours just to come visit the nurse if they're sick. Then we visited a kindergarden where the kids were just absolutely adorable. The school was so surprising nice and modern, it looked very similar to the schools in the states, which is a shock for us who are used to seeing schools in Ayacucho that are semi-rundown. Since school is almost over here, because it's their summer, the kids were just playing! But they were so freaking cute! The school also kept the kids hygiene surprisingly in check! Everyone had a bottle and a toothbrush that was kept in the classroom!

Then later today we had this speaker come to talk to us about the Coca production and the history of that. THEN we had the speaker individually read our cocaleaves aka our futures. IT'S WAS SO COOL!!! Peru is so amazing!