Still in Pisco Itching to Travel

Frist things first, I just fell over. I was walking to the internet cafe, found it was closed turned around and began walking to the gas station which has everything, it is a gas station, internet cafe, resturant, bar, dance floor, gym and market none of which encompass the same space. So, I turned around to head to this all-in-one and looked up for a brief moment, which I never do, due to the rubal and rocks that are everywhere. And of course the one time I look up I fall over and skin my knee and take off a chunk of my big toe. This sucks even more than average, because the only shoes I have to wear are my hiking boots and sandles; now the sandels are a bit scary, because I would like to avoid getting dirt in my cut.

We were supposed to leave for Arequipa last week and decided not to because of the increased cost of travel during the week of Easter. So, we then decided to leave on Tuesday April 6th, but there were large protests going on in Arequipa due to the passing of some new enviornmental laws and taxes imposed on the mining community. The protests have been violent and have blocked the Pan-American highway, so we decided since we still have five months here in South America, there is no rush to head down south. We can hang in Pisco a couple more days untill this all blows over and continue the work we are doing here.

The biggest project Pisco Sin Fronteras (PSF) is working on now is the expansion of the new house. We are currently in three houses and we have out grown all of them (two weeks ago there were over 100 volunteers)and the landlord of one of the houses wants to sell. PSF found a hostel that was for rent and we are working on expanding it. We are adding a kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, and pouring more concrete so we can have our meeting area. The work that we do here in Pisco is manual labor, anything from cement floors, brick laying, digging trenchs, rewiring houses and everything in between.

Jason has found his favorite resutant here called El Pollo Gordo (The Fat Chicken), we went there this past weekend and he ate an entire half chicken and huge plate of fires and some salad. I had a heaping pile of fries and a salad for only 3 soles, that is one US dollar. That is when I knew he was feeling better. He was only eating once a day, mostly and I would have to beg him to go with to eat dinner or to boil water for soup. Now he is back on his two large meals a day, he never eats breakfast, and so am I so we are doing good. We went to a really nice resturant on Sunday where I ordered a capress salad :) and penne pasta with garlic, cheese and parsley. Jason had a chicken breast stuffed with cheese, he loved it. The food was delicious and tasted nothing like Pisco Peruvian food which was GREAT! On a daily basis I eat pasta, fired rice, beans and rice or a tortilla, which is like an omlete with vegtables, it is very good and served with, of course, rice. All resturants have aji which is a hot sauce and no two are alike the other day we went for lunch and the aji smelled so good and I was hungry after busting up concret and I ate an entire fork full of it. Terriable idea the aji was so spicy my ears were on fire, I could not believe it.

Every other house here sells something out of there front window at first it is very strange, because you sometimes have to knock on the window or yell HOLA to get someone to sell you something. I did learn a trick; all the locals tap there coins on the metal bars that cover every homes front windows. The other day one of the girls I was with was yelling and no one would come to the front, but I tapped my 50 centimos on the metal and the shop owner came right away, it was so funny. There is a lady on the end of our street that sells fresh baked cake out of her house it is scrupmtous and as I found out last night she sells beer as well. The locals seem receptive of having all us gringos here, I think they have heard of us or someone they know has been helped by PSF and everyone says hi as we walk by and the young kids say good morning in english then giggle. A strange thing that does happen here in South American culture is that people have no problem calling others, even complete stranges, by their outward phyiscal charictristics, such as us Gringos, or chubby kids gordo or some of the homeless loco. It is very interesting, we were in the Plaza de Armas which is the center of all Latin American cities and there was a homeless man walking around mumbling to himself and the adults and kids alike had no quams about teasing him out loud as he walked by, it was quite a different experience.

I am really itching to travel and get out of the desert, but Jason is sucked into the consturction that is going on and now with the road blocks down south, who knows when we will leave. I am really excited to try different food and different weather.

All my love from South of the equator!!