Family Moments and Mas!

This past week I’ve really enjoyed spending a lot of my free time with my host family and getting to know about their daily lives when I’m usually at work. I started off the week a bit confused, as I was suppose to be departing Peru the 14^th of July but I decided that the cost of changing my ticket and the extraordinary time I’m having wasn’t worth it. So this week it began to readjust to the idea of not seeing the people I love most as soon as I thought I would, but also I became increasingly optimistic of how much more I can do while in Peru. The organization, ProPerú, was fully supportive of this change back to a longer period and excited that I decided to remain in Peru.

Monday started off with my mission to get a photo inventory of all the crafts the women make. I think that one of the primary problems that ProPerú was facing in the marketing of these crafts was the lack of materials actually explaining the quality and displaying the products. A photo inventory is a good place to start for catalog innovations, websites, or any other form of literature that can help sell these products. While the inventory was vast I made it through the entire scarves portion.

This Wednesday I got a chance to be more involved in the logistics of actually supplying the women with the materials, particularly yarn. So I was put in charge of going to Cusco, the main city, and buying the proper blend of yarn for the women, endearingly named Cusquenita. The fun part was being able to pick out the colors for the next line of products; it made me feel like I had a physically notable control over the production. After a full day in the city and some yummy Peruvian Gyro’s we headed back to Urubamba.

This weekend was filled with family-related events, first on Friday we watched Hansel and Gretel, and although I had to follow the subtitles. I really feel like hearing Spanish and reading English is a great way to advance my Spanish skills. Family dinnertime has become my favorite part of the day; we start off making small talk eating and as soon as Combaté, a popular reality television show, comes on were silently hooked. Following and hour of Combaté we sometimes watch a movie or talk about future plans as a way to practice conversational Spanish. Saturday was really relaxing, especially since I woke up close to noon, a very rare occurrence for me regardless of the country.

Sunday was filled with exploration and more family bonding, I was able to help my host mom prepare all three meals for the day and love Sundays because its my opportunity to explore my favorite part of being in a foreign place; the food. Following lunch we headed over to our other house nearby where my host dad raises organically feed chickens and guinea pig (aka called cuy when cooked). We then proceeded to drink a natural made strawberry beer called chicha de fresa, it was really good but even better was the game we played called Sapo. Looking foreword to seeing what the next week cook and how the dinner I’m suppose to prepare turns out.