From yesterday, 6/17/11...

Today started out a good day with the normal madre Elena’s Friday morning banana panqueques for breakfast and her amazing hot chocolate, (which is nothing like normal hot chocolate, it has like cinnamon and just so good when it’s 40 degrees out still)!! Soo good…we always get so pumped when we see this rather than the normal bread and the occasional egg…but usually just hard bread and more bread…

Last night we had a fun night full of Latin dancing with Pierra one of our Psych student intern friends from the hospital. This morning we went to a new school in the rural highland village community of Sicaya called La Florida to teach a lesson on handwashing, dental hygiene and then we gave fluoride treatments and toothbrushes. The kids at this school were very young and very precious, some kids go to “kindergarten” starting at age 3 here! They are all so receptive and well behaved and are just so excited to have us strange gringos there! After we played some games with them outside. Just simple games like pato, pato, gonzo (duck duck goose), red light/green light, and some other fun running around games we kind of made up as we went along but they LOVED! It’s amazing how easily entertained these kids are, they don’t need video games and crap, they were dying laughing and having the time of their life just playing the simplest games. Again, when we did the fluoride treatment, we noticed how awful their poor teeth are already! I guess because of the bad water, which does not have fluoride in it and then really just not brushing their teeth. They are always so excited to get the toothbrushes we give them.  These kids out here are so dirty with filthy clothes but they are so gorgeous and so loving, they just want to hug all over you!

After this we went back to the school from last Friday to take soap and go to their 46th anniversary celebration that they invited us to. Quite the event! It lasted like all day, starting with a mass service, which was really sweet, led by an ancient sweet old nun we have met and then I guess like the town priest. Then many people talked forever, and then the different age groups of kids performed cultural dances from their regions in traditional clothing, which was soo adorable! Then at the end, the kids we had played with last week came and grabbed us and made us try to do their dance with them which was hilarious because it was very difficult! We felt like celebs today though, because all the parents and families were taking pictures of us and coming up after asking if they could take pictures of their kids with each of us! Really I’m not sure if some of these people have ever seen white people before out here. Elena, our coordinator, made me go up and say a few words for our group in Spanish in a microphone to all of the people at the festival and give them the soccer ball we got the children…crazy!

After being offered trucha (trout in full fish form still) cooked by some local women, we quickly left and went home for lunch! After lunch we went to EsSalud and the KuraMe Peruano volunteers attempted to teach us for fun the Marinera national Peruvian dance, which was really hard and quite hilarious! Tomorrow afternoon at 4 we are going to watch one of the girls we met who is like a national champion Marinera dancer actually dance the traditional dance with a partner in full costume, it is so impressive! After this we went to the med school where a med student taught us a class on taking health history of patients and its importance in diagnosis. Sad night because Clare, my roommate from Canada left us to go home! L We have all gotten so close, and I especially have to her so it’s going to be weird around here without her. But we had a great going away meal of lomo saltado and our madre even made us pisco sours (the famous Peruvian drink) and chocolate chip cookies! In the last 24 hours we have gotten quite the workout from dancing, so needless to say we wiped out early last night.