So, it's June. Six months until my birthday, and less than 20 days until I'm home. That's a really, really weird thought. It doesn't seem like I've been here long enough to be staring 20 days left in the face. Time goes by so fast; why does it have to be so wibbly-wobbly?
Since my last update, not a whole lot has happened. Except that I've finished watching Doctor Who, well, all the new stuff. I guess I could keep watching with Classic Who, but we'll see what happens. So this meme pretty much describes how I'm feeling right now:
(just replace 'a book' with Doctor Who, and 'paperback' with TV series)
Alright, so the strike is still going. Partially. The more private sector or public health has agreed to some terms with the government, so any clinic that accepts some government insurance and has their patients' pay some money are back to work. The fully public, all expenses paid-by-the-government clinics are still on strike waiting for a miracle to happen, or that just might be me... So my clinic is still on strike and we still aren't seeing anyone. So, yeah. I still have a lot of free time. And now that Doctor Who is over, maybe I'll go out and see the world some. See what other cools things I can find in Cusco and the surrounding area. We'll see what happens.
So, let me tell you a bit about my house and Cusco, since I think I've failed to do that. Cusco, Cuscotopia, home of Emperor Cusco and all that groovy stuff. The city isn't that big, about the same population size as Edmonton, if my local sources are to be believed. But area wise it is pretty small. It stretches East-West pretty far, but North-South it's pretty narrow; the modern city anyway. The historic city is really quite small. The traffic here is terrible. Yes, there are a lot of cars, but that's not really what makes it terrible; it's the fact that nobody here really knows how to drive! They get three chances at a driver's license, and if they fail they can just bribe the instructor to pass them. So there are a lot of accidents. I haven't seen any, thankfully, but I hear about a lot. The lanes on the Avenida de la Cultura range anywhere from 3 to 5, depending on who is turning where and how eager people are. And the air quality is pretty poor. Along the streets at any rate; theses definitely aren't clean running cars. They have along way to go if they want to stop/lessen pollution. But then again, I think every country has that problem... If you want to cross the street, just pick a spot on the road, wait for an opening and run, climb over the steep meridian, then repeat. It's kinda fun actually. Throws a little bit of adrenaline in the system. And everybody is honking, ALL THE TIME. Taxis honk at you to get your attention, busses honk at you to see if you want to get on, people are constantly honking at each other because nobody does a proper shoulder check, or they're impatient at a light (really impatient, the lights here count down until they turn red or green so people know exactly when to honk: 1 second before it turns green), or when people cause a little bit of a jam trying to make a left-hand turn. It's pretty great. And really annoying. But the scenery, the setting of Cusco is spectacular. It's set high in the Andes, around 3400m above sea level, and surrounded by mountains that frame the sky; it's gorgeous. The sky is almost alway clear, or very light, white clouds. It's really beautiful here.
So, my house. It's a nice little house in the side of a hill. Right next to the airport! But almost everywhere in Cusco is next to the airport; there's no avoiding the sound of planes taking off and landing in this city, except for maybe the Centre. The house isn't near any major streets so, other than air traffic, it's really quiet around here. The house is built into the hill, so we are the second of 3 floors an the roof, which is flat and open, and I think a part of the 3rd floor (as in the person who rents/own the 3rd floor also has the roof for whatever). It's pretty close to the Av. la Cultura, about a 5 min walk. it takes be around 10-15min to get to work depending on traffic. It's a fairly good-sized apartment, 4 bedroom, 1.5 baths, a small kitchen, and laundry area. The only water they get is cold, so they have to boil water for everything. The shower is the most unfortunate thing. It's electric, which means mostly my showers are just warm enough not to give me hypothermia, and cold enough to keep them to about 2 minutes; just enough to lather up my hair and body, rinse and hop out warming myself up with friction from my towel. Every once in a while I can get it to a nice temperature for a little bit, but then it stops. I'm so looking forward to a nice, long HOT shower when I get back to Canada. And the toilet is something else. Well, it's pretty normal actually, but the plumbing and connections here can't support toilet paper. So all the TP goes into the waste basket next to the toilet; it makes for a really pretty smell by the time it gets changed (which is about every day, to day and a half). It's pretty awesome.
My family, the Chavez Rodriguez family, is really nice. I live here with Maria, and her 3 granddaughters, Dushka, Michael (it's pronounced Michelle), and Mayra. They are religious, but I'm not sure which denomination, it sounds Evangelical though, or non-denominational. Either way, they're good people. Maria is a pretty good cook. I've only had two dishes that I didn't like; one had mushrooms, and the other was just plain weird. They like to play cards on sunday, and they like to play this pretty cool game, that I guess is a variation of canasta. I taught them Scum (President, however you want to call it) they really liked it.
This last Saturday was pretty good. I just remembered that I did stuff haha. I got a massage, and hour-long, full body massage for 20/S. Which is $7.38CDN ($7.18US), which is pretty awesome. It felt so good! Then I had this awesome dinner at Trattoria, which is a nice restaurant off the Plaza on the Av. el Sol. Awesome steak, pasta, and milkshake for pretty cheap. Then a bunch of volunteers with Projects Abroad came to Cusco for a social where we learned Salsa dancing. It was a lot of fun to meet other volunteers and hang out with them. There are quite a few Canadians here, mostly from Quebec and Ontario, but still (mostly) Canada haha. That was a lot of fun. Salsa is a fun dance. I just wish I could actually dance. I also went to a Catholic church that day. I have no idea what was going on, but I heard singing coming from an open door in one of the chapel around the plaza and went in. It was really pretty inside, and the singing was beautiful. There are a lot of statues and gold in the chapels here. But they're pretty cool to look at. I think they were ordaining a new priest, they were, before I left this guy was kneeling at the altar and the bishop(?) and a bunch of other guys came forward one by one and put their hands on his head. It was kinda odd to me, cool at the same time. The world had the full truth at some point before the Restoration and it's cool to see the remnants that other religions saved.
The Church here is the same, which is awesome. I attend the Chaski (or Chasqui, I'm not sure which as both are written on the hymn books) Ward, which has about 120 people attending each week I think? Just going off my scans during sacrament meeting. It's nice being in an all Spanish-speaking ward, but I sure do NOT miss family wards! Haha. I like my silent YSA ward. The missionaries in the ward are all from the US: 3 Elders (Utah, Utah, Washington), and 2 Sisters (Utah, Utah). They're pretty cool. I've gone out with the Elders, they're pretty good guys. The ward was a bit slow to recognize me. They all welcomed me to the ward when I first went, but it took them until last week to realize that I'm actually here to stay for a while. Now I only have 3 Sundays left haha. Good people here.
Alight, I think that's it for this update. Sorry that there aren't really many pictures. I haven't photographed the house yet. And I didn't get out much since the last update. If you wonderful readers want, ask me questions (about my trip/Peru, but related to what this blog is about lol) go for it! I'll answer them in the next update. Just leave them as comments on the blog or FB.
Thanks all for reading! Love you all!
Here are some older photos that I don't think I've posted here:
