Hey all!

My host mom just told me an amazing story!! She has 6 brothers and sisters and is the fourth born in the family, 2 years in between each of them.One day, after coming back from school, they were all doing their own thing, working out in the alfalfa fields or doing homework.My host grandmother raised cuy (ginea pig) at the time, and had over 300 of them!!She would sell them in the market in Ica in trade for food for the family, since there were 9 of them!!So this was a significant source of income for them.So, on this one day that seemed like any other day, one of their dogs, who was about 2 years old, went into the cuy pen and started snapping their necks with its teeth.Kind of like a game, since she was still almost a puppy.She snapped every single one, save 2 cuys, before my host grandma caught the dog in the act.She was furious!! So mad! Just looking at all of those dead little rodent-looking things Peruvians eat for food, she flipped her lid.She took the dog out, shouting and crying, hit it a few times with a rope, and made a slip-knot, and hung it/strangled it with her own two hands until it was dead.My host mom and her brothers and sisters were so scared, they didn't move from their rooms (which there were only 3 for the 7 of them).My host grandma we to her room and cried until the next day.She didn't clean up anything, the dead cuys, the dead dog, nor made dinner.So, my Aunt Lupe, the oldest at 15 years, told all of the siblings that they were going to make dinner.Which was cut up all of the cuy, at least the biggest ones, and fry them.Since the meat was going to go bad anyway, and their mom wasn't going to do anything about it because she was so mad, they might as well salvage what they could.So they put about 200 rodents in a frying pan and ate a feast of cuy.

Hope everyone is well!

Happy Travels,

Teigan

PS.I got my recycling project grant!! Check out my project at http://www.kidstokids.org/projects/project.php?project=502