Hey all!
Well, training is over, and I am in my community of La Venta, 40 minutes south on the Panamerican Highway from the city of Ica. Thus far, as an actual peace corps volunteer, all I have done is bought a dresser for my clothes and unpacked. But today, I am going to go to the school and see about finishing their grey water system and teaching about worm composting. Its a bit scary doing all of this on my own, and all in horrible spanish, but it has to happen at some point. My socio is gone until two weeks from now, so I cant really start anything at the health post. I am also going to go to the municipality and ask for maps, or whatever other information they have there.

I stayed over night in Ica on Thursday with other volunteers to celebrate thanksgiving. It was lots of fun! I met people from Peru 13 and 12 (the two groups before us. Peru 12 has been here for a year.). Everyone was really nice. We ate pachamanca, which is meat, potatoes, and lima beans that are slow cooked in the ground, covered by dirt. It was really good. Some Peru 12ers also made apple, strawberry, and pumkin pie!! That was great. A sister of one of the volunteers brought pumkin pie mix with her, because its impossible to find here in peru. It really hit the spot.
On Friday, everyone was going to go sandboarding, but I went back to my site to watch my family kill and butcher a bull. (I can go sandboarding any other time, I am so close to the dunes!) That was quite a site. It was a huge shock. I keep forgetting how culturally different we are in terms of how we treat animals. People here kick dogs all the time, are mean to them, and pick on them when they are bored. Their animals are skinny, and borderline starving. But thats the way it is in Peru, and I have no business in judging this.

They kill the bull by roping its horns to a fence, and take a dull knife and stab it many times in the back of the head. That bull was going crazy! almost up-rooting the fence. On the last stab, the bull dropped to its knees as soon as it hit, then the matador(Killer) cuts its main artery in its neck, a gallon of blood comes porring out, which they try to catch (and failed miserably) with pots, and the bull kicks and tries to run for its life. Pretty sad. The rest is the usual. They skin it, cut the meat, which takes forever. They eat every part of the bull too, so we saved the heart, head, kidneys, lungs, stomich, balls, and intestines to eat later (GROSS!) It was pretty amazing to see them clean out the intestines and stomich, which smelled like decaying food and poop. We are going to sell most of the meat tomorrow, and keep a little for ourselves. Needless to say, I am never going to look at my food the same again. There were times when the site or smell of the whole thing made me want to throw up. But its a cultural experience, so I stuck it out!(And I am glad I did).

All in all, I am very tired, recovering from the overload of information in training, ready to start things in my community and be a real peace corps volunteer, and ready for whatever new cultural experiences Peru has to offer!

Hope all is well in the states!
Happy travels,
Teigan