Bullfights, wormy friends, and

We have just completed week 4 of the strike! It was a slow week again. There are a ton of rumor getting thrown around about what is going to happen in the protests. I have heard that people are planning on building homemade bombs to carry to the mine sites and they intend to blow up the mining construction equipment. Who knows if this is true, but I feel pretty confident that the Peruvian government is not going to start intervening in this protest until people are killed. The mining operations are a couple hours away from my site, but people from my town are participating.

*****I am not in danger, I will not be leaving my site, and I will be nowhere near these protests******

It was another week of lots of reading, croqueting with neighbor ladies and family, soccer and frisbee in the afternoons with neighborhood boys, and general laziness. Schools are still closed and the health post is now open, but they refuse to health promotion out in the country during the strike. Some highlights include; reading Harry Potter with Witman and Eduar, the cat had 4 new kittens, Diani and I perfected the art of banana bread in my electric bubble oven, AAAAAND I snuck away to a bullfight on Thursday!

There was a town fiesta in Chota last week. In the bigger towns like Bambamarca or Chota that means beauty paegents, artesan fairs, dances, futbol tournaments, carnival rides, so much beer, bullfights, and apparently motocross competitions. In small towns like mine I am guessing it's more beer, futbol, and dancing-not necessarily in that order. However, my town had to cancel it's annual fiesta for the strikes. So I made a quick trip to Chota to see the bullfights with the other volunteers.

Bullfights are quite violent and it didn't help that on the day that I went it seemed to be amature matador day. The matador's outfits were pretty fun, all sparkles, pink socks, tight pants, and little slippers. The other volunteers and I stayed for the first 4 bulls and then left. I really wanted to go out to the street to eat the bull meat in the evening after the fight, but we ended up eating cheap fried chicken close by the hostel.

Yesterday I went to a clinic in Chota to have myself tested for parasites. So I have dodged the parasite bullet (the worst is giardia), but I do have 2 different types of worms! Here are the links to wikipedia pages on my worms if you want to see some pictures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinworm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entamoeba_coli

It's really not a big deal to have worms and the Peace Corps doctors called me in a prescription for the meds to kill them.  However, the fact that I have worms means that my entire host family is pretty much guaranteed to have them too.  That'll be a funny conversation.  No really, we joke about how Witman's worms get hungary at dinner sometimes-no it's just a confirmed thing.

Today I am headed back to my site. Maybe classes will start again next week and I can start to get some project work going, or maybe not. Either way I'm planning on reading, croqueting, and frisbeeing up a storm in my town.

Remember I get internet on weekends if anyone wants to skype I always look forward to calls from home!  I am starved for contact with Americans and going stir crazy at my site, if you have a litte time on the weekends to get a call from Peru I would be thrilled.  I know it sounds pathetic, but I look forward to calling the states all week, every week.  Just email me barrie.km@gmail.com with your phone number in the states or your skype name and when I come into Bambamarca next weekend I'll give you a call.

chau for now,
kb

new latrine hole

new pig pens that I helped build a couple weeks ago

The final product of all the fence building and digging we did.  The plan is to keep all the pigs, ducks, and buy some chickens.  I am going to get to be a chicken lady very soon.

Witman at work.  He told me he has to dig until the hole is deeper than he is tall.