Sunday, October 19, 2008

Mmmmmm...Cuy!

by Alisha


Micah and I visited the orphanage outside of Chota yesterday and had a great time teaching the kids Uno, playing soccer, basketball, and volleyball. We are planning to continue our Saturday morning visits so that we can continue get to know the kids better. Already I see a lot of potential in working with the kids and the married couple that runs the orphanage. There are currently 10 children living at the orphanage and like most things here there is a serious lack of funding. Although we can't jump in and provide the needed funding, we have found that the community in general does not know much about the orphanage or the needs of the kids living there. We have also found that a number of the high school students that we have surveyed so far have expressed an interest in doing community service projects. Ideally, we will be able to get the community more informed about the orphanage and form a group of youth interested in volunteering to do programs with the youth living there.

Yesterday we celebrated the birthday of our host mom. We had a lunch of fried cuy (guinea pig) complete with rice and potatoes. Cuy is a traditional dish in the sierra and a favorite of our host family for special occasions. My host family is aware of my dislike for what I consider some of the more exotic cuts of meat (cow tongue, chicken liver, cow stomach, etc.) and they gave me quite a hard time about the cuy. I was a good sport and ate my portion. My host mom had been kind enough to give me a portion that did not include the head. Overall, the cuy was pretty tasty as most fried foods are! Our lunch was followed by a family get together that was laid back and did not involve any dancing. Not the traditional Peruvian party and much more my style.

In other important news a regional strike started yesterday to protest the poor road conditions from here to Chiclayo, an important coast city to Chota, where most consumer goods come from. This basically means that there is no transportation in or out of Chota. People who tried to get into the city today by walking where turned around and told to go home by strike participants. Almost all businesses where closed yesterday and today and the city feels pretty empty especially for a Sunday since today is normally a big market day. Originally, the strike was scheduled to end today, but we have heard it will continue on into next week. The teachers from all of the schools are also participating so that means no schools will be in session until the strike ends. We have also heard that during strikes it is not uncommon for water and electricity services to be cut off. We will likely we taking it pretty easy until things get back to normal. Hopefully the schools will be in session again by mid week so that we can finish up our survey and continue with our map project.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh man, I'm so excited you guys got to try cuy!!! hehehe... Props to Alisha for putting up with it! (I wouldn't have wanted a head section either, ugh.)
I think the map project is really great, and I love that you are working on building a comunity relationship with the orphanage. Even in places with no money, general interest and willing volunteers can go a long way. Keep up the good work! :-)