Happy one month!

HAPPY ONE MONTH!!!

I got a little lazy with the posting every week. And because I am having less things happening, I figured I can post very two weeks:)

I have my first rain a little while ago which amounted to a few drops coming out of the sky. It disrupted the evenly settled dust and made everything look dirtier. It also caused people to break out the beanies and faux fur hoods and long pants and shoes. Oh, did I mention it never dropped below 80 degrees? Hmm this aversion to cold is something the Spanish must have driven into the people here. Also, I got sick. Nothing horrendous, just my run of the mill cold that goes through the normal stages. Only with 1.5 doctors around, it was harder to just take run of the mill drugs to and rest to get better. And I had my first theatre going experience. We went to the movies! No assigned seats, but the tickets are the receipts. Seems like a waste of paper. Good movie. We saw “Unkown” Nice little twist at the end:)

So, I have found a strange phenomenon in Peru. Food prices are the same everywhere you want to buy it, well unless you buy at the market or at a fancy super market. But that is kinda the same in most places. Whole Foods costs more than Safeway. However, in Peru, if you buy something from a street stand, like water or soda or whatever, the price will be the same as if you went to the generic super market. If you want good prices, you have to go to the whole-sale markets or the import distribution stores. From these stores you can either buy in bulk or you can buy and an individual. Its a fun trick to know. There are also stores called bodegas, like the equivilant of the Spanish Alimentación, or your corner shop. However, unlike in Spain where the alimentación is usually more expensive, in Peru the bodega either has the same prices as the super market or is CHEAPER. This doesn’t make any sense, unless you learn that everyone buys their produce from the same distributor at the central market or at the whole sale markets. Now, if you need something because you forgot an ingredient when you went to the supermarket, your only excuse in laziness. You cannot blame the price differential.

So from when I last edited this post, I have picked up a job. And I start working this coming week with at least one English academy and I have loosely fulfilled my goal of having a paying hobby by the end of one month. Hopefully once i get used to the program, it will end up being a lot less work than doing private lessons on my own. I have had to do some training for it, but we will see if the training and the actual giving of the class line up. For all its officialness and training, it seems like some things often fall through the cracks.

I have been making headway in my baking and cooking efforts here. Carlos and I learned that you can buy whole wheat flour from a market in a slightly sketchy part of town, and hopefully we will go there soon and pick some up. Until then I am making due with this multi-grain flour and some wheat germ that I found at the market to make the baked goods a little more hearty. The flour is made up of corn, wheat, quinoa, kiwichi (amaranth), cañihua (related to quinoa), bean flour, and pea flour. Basically adds a lot of protein and some fiber to the flour. Next time I will try something that has less legumes, but it seems to work pretty well aside from turning everything brown.

Something politically interesting has been happening, or will happen in Peru on April 10. Elections are coming! Peru has a democracy, direct. However, if you don’t vote, you get fined. So everyone goes to vote at their assigned place, which is difficult and annoying to change and has nothing to do with where you live. For example, Carlos and one of his brothers vote at one location, and his mom and his other brother vote somewhere else and his dad votes in a third place. For the past two weeks or so they have been taking polls of the people to see how the elections will come out and they aren’t very telling even if they do get a rise out of the people. The polls are particularly worrisome to those who are not super leftist. And by leftest we are talking about Chavez leftist. The latest polls having him at the top of the elections. I guess we will just have to wait and see if he really is chosen. Carlos’ mom says there will probably run-off elections anyway so even if the leftist makes it to the run-offs when it comes down to the wire, she hopes, most people will vote for the other candidate. Hopefully.

So, thats whats been up these past two weeks. Hopefully with some cash inflow, I will be able to have many more exciting adventures. I’ll try to keep this updated:)