ok, with all the excitement returning from a sweet trip i left some stuff out.

I´m able to write again because we need to pay our families 228 bucks this week, and the atm is in the big city. It only lets you take out 100 usd at once, so we all need to go back three times. So Peace Corps pays us, then we get the money and give it to our families...in three trips. Pretty efficient.

Anyways...
bullfight on friday. Rather, mess with the bull and have it chase after you, then dive into the front row stadium seats for cover. I know. I was in the mix, along with about 200 drunken latin machos.

I saw two ritualistic kichwa bad spirit cleansings. In the first, the woman rubbed an egg all over my friend and then broke it and alalyzed the yoke. aparetly my friend was fine. thank god. The second was even more rediculous. They brought out a live guinea pig (cuy) and beat the shit out of it all over my friends body, untill the poor thing died. But only after releasing its bowels all over her. The medicine woman then cut the thing open and examined its innards and guts, which she took out and rolled around in her hands. She determined that my friends back was slightly sore. She said she say a high concentration of blood in the animals lower back region. I think she saw her arrive wearing her huge camping backpack. we also me a medicine man at the same health center.

Apart from that, it was nice to be warm for once in the past two weeks. Yesterday i returned to the land of perpetual drizzle, clouds, and 40 degree weather. However, im begining to deal with the cold better, and i can now have basic conversations with my family, which is cool. also, i plan on turning into a huge book nerd. so if you have any good ones, send them my way. BUT:

DO NOT DECLARE A VALUE ON A PACKAGE IF YOU SEND IT TO ME!

The more you declare, the more i have to bribe the post master. If you must, put down like a dollar.

thats it for now

peace and thanks

Chris