A Day in The Life

I figure I might let you all know what an average day is like for me, or at least has been like, as my schedule will soon change (my partner is leaving and I´m switching from morning Spanish classes to evening Quecha classes)

Every day (minus Fridays) I get up at seven, don´t take a shower because I don´t feel like being cold, and then head down to breakfast. I eat a half a piece of bread with some margerine that doesn´t need to be refrifgerated and take my vitimins, something I´ve never before done but am doing now in the hopes of not getting Giardia (don´t ask, it makes no sense but it´s a placebo type ting).

I head out at around 7:30 to walk to the Spanish school which is only 15 minutes away. I like to take my time, though. And each time I try to walk a different way to the school (but, as there are only about 10 different streets in Urubamba, I´ve done them all by now). Usually I walk on the market street, whcih also takes me past teh church/plaza. In teh mornings there are ladies on the market street who set up carts with some type of hot drink. From what I can tell there´s some base liquid, and then people choose some other flavors to add. It´s an interesting sight: the cups are glass, so the peopel cannot take the drinks to go. Instead they stand around, sometimes chat, finish their drinks and leave. It´s interetsing to watch because it´s so different from an American mentality of rush rush rush and drink your diet coke on the run.

There´s a man a little farther down the market street whose presence I´ve come to love. He seems to be about 50 to 60 and is the villiage sandal maker. What´s cool, however, is that he makes his sandals out of old and non-useable tires.

More recently, there have poped up a group of older women who seel shamanic products. They´re adorable, but I have absoluteloy no idea what they´re selling wor what it´s supposed to be used for.

Of course, on market days, there are people with all sorts of fruits, veggitables, meets, cheeses, pocket knives, bootleged CD´s and cheep magazines on everything from raising cueys to lovepoems. It´s crazy and bustling, and I usually get to Spanish late because I´m distracted.

Spanish class is off the highway, so I walk along it for about 5 minutes, getting honked at by little taxies that are really just converted motorcycles, tourist busses and combis. I get to Spanish class and chat for 2 hours with Michelle and my Spanish teacher. We´ve covered everything from abortion to euthenasia to health care systems to sexy Latin actors (Gael Garcia Bernal, we all agree, is sexiest). Sometimes we read articles, but mostly we just talk. My teacher, Maritza, is from Colombia, so I´ve heard a lot about the way of life there.

After Spanish Michelle and I walk along the highway, past the bust terminal and up Calle Torre Chayok to the church. There wa make a left, but not before stopping at the packeged food vendor on the corner. This woman gets so much of my business. She sells these delicious packeged slightly poped corn kernals, salted to perfection. Every day I buy two packeges, and they´re gone within 20 minutes, she must think I´m crazy or an addict (whcih, I sort of am at this point).

We head over to ProPeru, where our two resident sheep (bought to cut the grass) sometimes meet us at teh gait. Sometimes there´s also a huge black male cow on the road outside of ProPeru, he scares me.

We get to ProPeru and spend two or three hours brainstorming our lesson for later that day. We usually do a two-part thing, yoga and English or business and leadership or something like that. It takes a surprisingly long time to put these lessons together, and really gives me a great ammount of respect for teachers.

At around 1 we head off to our separate houses for lunch. In Peru, lunch is a big deal. It always has two parts: a soup and a ´segundo´or second course. And there are always potatoes and rice (and often noodles) with the meal. So far I´ve loved the food, but the carb intake, so different from my own at home, is hard to deal with. Luckily, my housemate Grace, loves rice, and can usually eat mine so that I don´t offend our host mom.

After lunch Michelle and I meet at the bus termanal where men hawlk at us to go to Cuzco or Chinchero or some other place. We head over to a combi and squeeze ourselves in. Generally, if we can´t get seats, we´ll wait for the next combi. The ride is about 10 minutes and absolutely beautiful. We go past mountians, salt mines, the river, abandoned train tracks and houses of all sorts. We yell out to the combi driver - bajo! (let us off) - whe we see the green house in Yanahuara and head over to our house to start setting up.

Usually we get to work by 3:20, but don´t start until 3:45 because not enough people have shown up. For those 25 minutes we sit with the women who are there, chat and watch them knitt. We have lessons for about an hour, wither in a large bleak room (whcih we´re trying to liven up with posters) or outside, a courtyard covered in flowers. We teach for about an hour, hang out and talk a little more, and then head back to Urubamba. To get back, we flag down a combi, whcih sometimes takes forever and sometimes comes right away. Usually, though, by the time we get back it´s packed with people, products and (on ocassion) animals.

I head back to my house, have a significantly smaller dinner than lunch, and then head out. Around teh plaza there are four volunteer-friendly locations; comfy couches, chill atmospheres, bopard games and, at the most visited location, a special discounted volunteer menu. Generally I meet the volunteers who came in July (with me) here, and hang out until about 10, when we all are too tired to stay out any longer and go to bed. Wednesdays are special. On Wednesdays all the volunteers from ProPeru and the other NGO´s in Urubanba (there are something like 5 or 6) get together to play Trivia, a modified version of Jeopardy. It´s a great time with categories like ´famous people,´ ´geography,´ ´Peru,´ and ´song lyrics.´

All in all it´s a pretty great schedule, even if I do feel weird going to bed at 10 every night.