After lunch yesterday, my host mother (Senora Nelly) invited me to go with her to a food festival in the center of Lima. It was the city´s annual Taste of Lima-type event (called ¨Mistura¨) and there were thousands and thousands of people attending. It was mobbed with people and I felt right at home back in NYC.
The first booth she pointed out was for Peru´s most famous beer. I didn´t want to look too excited about wanting to have a glass of beer, since I know their family is very catholic and I wasn´t sure if they would think its okay for a woman to drink. But she apparently wanted to drink so we each had a beer, and then we tasted a lot of different chocolates made from cacao grown in Peru. She wouldn´t allow me to eat any of the food there because she was afraid it would make me sick since I just arrived and my stomach isn´t used to eating what is essentially street food. So, we just wandered around and sampled different chocolates and drank beer and shared a pisco drink that was kind of creamy with cinnamon - it was delicious!
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(Here's a pic of me standing with an indigenous woman who is hawking food from the Andes)
It was such a funny way to start off my relationship with my new host family, but she really won me over with the drinking on the first day. Some of the other volunteers were jealous. :-)
I spent all day today in meetings to find out what is Peru´s national health strategy, we had a Spanish lesson, and then we learned all about diarrea from our medical staff. Apparently all volunteers get diarrea (usually from bacteria in food) and the majority of volunteers poop in their pants at some point - something to look forward to! Fortunately we have doctors on call around the clock just in case anything funny (or not so funny) happens.
I can´t wait to find out what new surprises are in store for us tomorrow....
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