August 11:

Thursday morning started out with a hot shower….man, am I happy about that! I ended up working out of my Spanish workbook for a little while until it was time to go over to the school for the earthquake drill. There is a risk of earthquakes around Peru, so Thursday was a department wide drill. Sra. Doriza and some of the health post staff were at the drill, along with the alcalde and a lady from the UGEL (district school board) who was there to monitor the whole thing. Some of the kids even had to act like they were injured so the others could practice safely getting them out of the building so they wouldn’t be caught inside if it collapsed. Luckily terremotes aren’t super frequent events. After the simulacro I went back to the house and watched Peru’s equivalent of the history channel. The program was about one of the many native cultures that survive in Peru today; super interesting. Just after lunch I went back to the school to sit in on a teachers’ meeting; trying to get my face out there. After the meeting I talked with the English professor for a few minutes. She’s really nice and I think I will be helping out with her classes here at the beginning. The only trick is that she’s about to have a baby any day now; which may complicate planning just a little bit :-P Vamos a ver. Later in the afternoon I walked around town with Dona Norka and Faviola again. They took me to meet the woman that runs the Vaso de Leche; a city run organization the gives milk to families with young kids or expecting mothers. They do a lot of house visits with this organization, so I’m hoping to help out in the beginning as a way to meet more of the town. Thursday night I was in the living room with my host brother Jon Paul while he was flipping through all the TV channels. He came upon a program teaching the basics of tap dancing….that’s right, tap dancing. He told me he had never seen tap dancing before and was totally surprised when I told that I’d done it for most of my life. Jon Paul was actually trying to do some of the steps under the table. Did I just get an idea for a youth group activity……..