I was walking down the stairs to go work the other afternoon and observed a mother teaching/helping her kid urinate in the street.  Obviously, I can understand what you have to do as a mother of a two or three year old but I couldn´t help thinking that nothing will probably be different for that kid in his life in terms of social pressures.  There are some people that I meet, my friends, that agree that this is unsightly behavior and do otherwise but it still made me shake my head...

I went shopping the other day for body lotion.  The water is killer on skin, hair, and clothes.  Looking forward to returning to the luxuries of softened water.  I understand why people have such incredibly dry skin here--that stuff is expensive.  Normally priced for the US but for her, meals for almost a week I would estimate.  I encountered another culture shock the other day when I read the Cosmo that a previous volunteer left here.  While I do not normally read this magazine nowadays it was something to be seen after watching the dog tear apart the trash...How funny to read about how to improve your deodorant´s effectiveness by wrapping your armpits in saranwrap during the night or change your eyebrow color to match your summer locks, when I¨m in a country where, well you can understand the ironic nature of such differences. 

I discovered the other day that I ate what was chicken throat--or something similar.  It was in a soup so it was good.  Rubbery and not something I would choose for myself again in the future.  Made for a sentence I suppose.  Eek.

I was talking with Gustavo the other night and discovered that abortions in this country are punishable by mandatory jail time.  How sad.

I had a dream about finding my passport.  If I could just remember where I found it in the dream just to check in real life.  I remember it just slipping into a different part of something unexpected or in between something like a bunch of papers.  I´ll be pretty upset if I do find it.  Oh well, it´s in the past now.

I have one week of work left.  I think I want to spend time observing how Dina prepares the food she does during the afternoons and playing with the kids.  I have officially made my reservations for Cusco flights.  I will probably end up storing my luggage at a South American Traveler´s Club for a week.  Macchu Pichu here I come.  I will be going alone with the hope that I will meet up with Victor.  We are communicating so I remain hopeful.  If not, I hope that I will meet other english speaking trekkers on my journey.  I return to the US on October 31st.  And I´m sure it´ll be a very mixed Happy Halloween for me.