What an eye opener

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Marie and I have been uber lucky to meet the only 2 other volunteers in this tiny town who are part of the Peace corps. They´re really nice and we had a wonderful spaghetti dinner with garlic bread AND chocolate chip muffins!!!!!!!! This may not sound like anything special, but muffins do not exist here and when you´ve had rice, potatos, and macaroni noodles in soupy dishes for EVERY lunch and dinner, you really appreciate the wonderfulness of that dinner. They also opened our eyes to things about this culture that we had absolutely no idea about but they got 3 months training, and have been here over 1 1/2 years. Some of it is fairly disturbing and some just kinda gross... like how they make chicha lol. It´s this alcoholic beverage made of corn, which to make, they actually chew up the corn and spit it into the drink... so, apparently what you´re actually mainly drinking is the spit (but it is boiled). Now I know why I didn´t like it! haha

Although we have no hot water, we´re actually really lucky in this village because it has electricity and internet (even if slow), some of the volunteers in the Peace corps apparently live in villages in which you have to hike several hours to (no car has ever been within kilometers of it), everything is brought in by mule, there´s no electricity and no running water. It´s fairly incredible. Also... there´s that little bug that will bite you in your sleep and gives you chagas disease (aka your heart swells up and your intestines become blocked before you eventually die)... but no worries, where we are we´re probably fine as those bugs tend to live in mud houses and we´re in a brick one 😊

One thing I definitely do find hilarious about here is the way they make the birthday cake icing... coloured butter, yup, you´re basically eating pink or blue butter hahah. One thing for sure that I will treat myself to at home is a McCains chocolate cake (mmmmm!!). But overall I´m having a spectacular time and in a week and a half we have our mid-summer retreat!!! Lake Titicaca, Copacabana, and Isla del Sol!! Very excited!

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