August 12: and I thought alarm clocks were bad…..

Friday morning started with me being woken by a hog being slaughtered in the side yard of the house. Not a noise I ever want to hear again. My watch alarm hadn’t gone off at this point, but I was wide awake so I got up. After breakfast I met up with Lucy, one of the techs at the health post so we could catch a combi together to another town in the district. We were supposed to meet up with Doriza around 8 to go visit houses in the area to look at the kitchen improvements. After looking through all the Avon magazines and moving party decorations across the street to another building; we headed out on visits around 11. The first house we went to was SO beautifully campo. We had to walk down this narrow, winding path between a stream and the various chacras. On the way up the path we passed the sheep with a tiny lamb, a big pig and a tiny puppy; all roaming in the yard. The only way I can think to explain it is that if some tourist trap wanted to have a reenactment of a Quechua house it would look like this, except this one was real. You couldn’t even see the highway from the front yard. It was great. We ended up walking around to about 15 houses altogether. This was another big cultural lesson for me, to see the way different people live around here. After the house visits we came back to the health post for lunch….cuy and papa of course. I actually had my own half a cuy this time. I’ll be honest, the flavor is not bad, but it takes SO much work to get that tiny little bit of meat. I think I’ll stick with chicken, thanks. After lunch I headed back to Mancos with Lucy. I’m glad that I’m slowly meeting more and more people that work at the health post. The rest of the day was pretty relaxed. I watched some TV with my host brother and took a walk with the ladies in my host fam. This seems to be turning into a routine and I’m not mad about it. It gets may face out around the community and it’s a chance for me to get to know my family more.