Mi Primer Mes (My first month=

Hi Everyone!

So I have officially been in Cusco for one month. So much has changed since the first week. I switched host families, mainly because I realized that I wasn´t feeling surrounded by people, and one of the main reasons I wanted to live in a host family in the first place was to try to connect with the Peruvian people and their way of life. I am in a new home, and if any of you want to write me, just facebook me and I´ll give you the address. They are lovely people. My mama is Gretta, my papa is Oscar, and then they have 5 kids, one of which is named Oscar, and then they have several grand kids, one of which is named, well, Oscar.

My typical day is pretty much wake up at around 7:30, walk 45 minutes to Spanish lessons, which I have for 4 hours with my teacher Alfredo. I have a book, but lessons are pretty much what I make of them, for example, sometimes we just talk in Spanish using rules I learned, sometimes we listen to Spanish music and then talk about that, go over vocab, work in the book, the usual. The neat thing is that I am excited for class and enjoy sitting in a classroom and often times I even ask for homework. Pretty much a big change to the senioritis felt last year. Spanish goes from 9 untill 11, with a half hour break in between which consists of walking around the mini square or sitting. Last week my friend from Norway, Yohannah, was also in my Spanish class, and during our break, we would sit on the steps of the Catedral and just relax... or so we tried. It was very difficult to have an actual conversations with all the Cusquenean sales people coming up to us trying to sell stuff to the Gringos. So, one day we decided to make a sign that says "No Gracias" (No Thank You) and we just sat in the steps holding it up. People thought it was very funny, we even got our picture taken a few times. The next day, a kid came to us with a sign that said "Why not?" Naturally, we had to buy some finger puppets from him for his wit.

Then, I come home for lunch and me, Oscar, Gretta, and often times some of their kids and grandkids join us. We eat and I try to follow their conversations. They often respond to my blank look by explaining to me, slowly, what they are talking about. Then, I had to the orphanage and am there from 3 until later in the evening, depending on when they eat dinner and such. It is such a great place to me. I work in the smallest "casita", which consists of 7 girls ages 5 through 7. They are absolutely adorable and so happy to see us. We pretty much help them with their homework, read books, run around and play, art projects. I also spend time with some of the older girls, and often we all end up playing hand games and such outside together. The orphanage is relatively well funded because it is connected to a Church, and also gets proceeds from a nearby hostel. There are 40 girls in total. They call Yohannah Yohannah Montana, and they call me Avra Cadavra, and then go into this whole magic spell thing that I´m trying to learn. For one week these 2 volunteers were here form Colorado, and brought with them a lot of tiles to make a big mural with all of the girls. It was a big success. After the orphanage, I head home for dinner with the family or spend some time exploring the Plaza. A few weekends ago I took a trip with some other volunteers to a nearby town called Pisac where there are a lot of Incan ruins. This past weekend I went horseback riding to Pukapukara and other nearby towns, and also saw the Temple of the Moon, which was a really holy place to the Incans. Halloween was crazy here and a ton of fun.

Missin´ everyone,
avra