at last a working computer

I have been trying for days to get a computer that actually allowed this page to open. Alas, after an incredubly frustrating afternoon of miscommunication and getting hopelessly lost in Urubamba (the town where I am in a relatively high speed internet cafe at the moment) I managed to find one.

So...

Education here is very, very different. THe organization I´m here with really wants us to introduce the idea of multiple intelligences into the classroom. As a result, I´ve had tos it through two long workshops discussing what the 8 intelligences are. Incredibly boring for someone who´s already completed one masters in education and is halfway through a second. It´s also fairly futile because the way things work here is this. The students sit in their little seats facing the teacher and wait patiently while she gives a lecture, then they go up one by one to the board to try and complete it. This would be a futile exercise with any age, but it´s especially taxing at 3. My job is to keep them all quiet and in their seats while the teacher is working with them one on one up at the board. I´m getting really good at saying "we don´t run int he classroom" and "where is your seat" and "please don´t hit her withthe chair" but I´m not doing much along the lines of multiple intelligences.

The US soccer team has been invited to play int he Copa de America, but they have made a very poor showing. They lost their first two games pretty soundly (but then again,so did Brazil) and I think they´re permanently out now. It was kind of embarassing to watch with my host family. The fahter kept saying "malo, malo" every time they missed setting up ad ecent shot on goal, which was pretty much evey time they got the ball into the other end.

I am rapidly running out of time to write.

Driving here is one of hte most terrifying things i could possibly imagine.there are lines on the road but nobody pasy attention and they drive on whicheverside they please and pass only on really steep and terrifying corners. fortunately there´s a shrine to the Virgin Mary on one of them to protect us if another car happens to be coming the other way. there´s no sped limit that i can think of, which doesn´t really matter becaues the cars are so packed full of people that they can´t go very fast. Nobody has their own car here. instead, you stand on the side of the road and wait for a very full minibus called a colectivo. I take one every day to the school. they are usually packed full of random goods that the campesinos are taking to the bigger towns to sell, porters who are on their way back home from the camino inca, kids going to and from school, and always a fair share of mothers with long braids and babies tied to their backs with blankets. These are the same blankets that teh porters use to transport propane canisters, 5 gallon water jugs, tourist packs, etc. You wait onthe side of the road for one of these to pass andhold out your arm, palm down, as if your writst is broken. the bus will usually pull over, even if it´s so full your only option is to stand with your face in an old man´s hat and your butt pressed up against he window. Even when you don´t think it´s possible to cram in another person, the bus will stop for a little old lady with three enormous bags and all will get packed in. THe collectivos cost about 30 cents fora 30 minute ride (their only good quality).

Arrggghhh!!! I´m almost out of time. I fully intend to describe in painful detail the process of eating cuy, the national dish. Translation: guinea pig. it can be eaten roasted or stewed, and i was lucky enough to have it stewed. The problem is that they have to be purchased live at the market, so I got to watcht he whole process from beginning to end. And they do use the intestines to flavor the stew...cleaning out guinea big innards s one of the most foul things i have ever witnessed. well,not really, it was only foul because i knew i was going to have to eat them shortly.

guinea pig, if you´re owndering, is greasy and fatty. It tastes nothing like chicken.

i also think i ate a hot dog for the first time in 17 or 18 years, maybe more. Just as foul as I remembered them being. It was sliced up into an omelette.