Post written by Amber Johnson, a United Planet volunteer

This week we’ve been back to the usual: work (Amber in the clinic and Josh at the school), Spanish lessons, spending time with friends and host family and continuing to explore Peruvian culture.
I’ve been doing a ton of Hep B vaccines this week and today we also gave tetanus shots to teenage girls in one school. Only girls get tetanus shots in Peru because vaccinations are expensive for the government and because it is more important to vaccinate girls who may become pregnant in the future.
Some pictures from school vaccinations (note many of the kids holding their left arm where we vaccinated them):
Monday afternoon we visited another large market in Cuzco called San Pedro. It hosts an abundance of meat butchers, florists, fresh juice makers, etc.
One of my favorite things here is the Mango con Leche (fresh mango milkshakes). Beth and I could not resist and ordered one from one of the juice vendors. They slice the mango and blend it right in front of you. But not wanting to sit and drink it, we asked the vendor if she had “to go” cups we could use. A few minutes later we walked away with our mango con leche in plastic bags with straws sticking out. (Also note in one of the pictures above, at one of the school where we gave vaccinations, they gifted us with Inca Cola “to go” (in plastic bags).)
One thing that has been very apparent since the day we arrived is that Peruvians like to celebrate and dance. Every day since we arrived, at some time of day, we have encountered a parade, people dancing in one of the many central squares or groups of people in traditional Peruvian clothing singing. 8am Saturday morning, midnight Tuesday night, 3pm on Thursday. Any time, any place. Tomorrow in the Plaza de Armas many of the local schools are participating in a traditional Peruvian dance competition. We’re going to go in the afternoon because the 16 year old son of from our host home is competing. Saturday night they are also having fireworks. It is especially festive right now because a very big celebration throughout all of Cuzco is happening on June 24th. I’m not sure exactly what they are celebrating but it seems to be somewhat equivalent to the American 4th of July. The festival on the 24th is unfortunate because we leave Peru on the 23rd.
It’s kind of like 2 years ago when we flew to Ireland the day after St. Patrick’s Day.
In other cultural events news, tomorrow we’re meeting with several other volunteers to go to a restaurant and eat one of Peru’s most traditional dishes. And by “we” I mean Josh and several other guys. Fire-roasted guinea pig does not look or sound appealing to me. At all.
We only have a few days left in Peru before we leave for Costa Rica and we’re making the final adjustments on our travel plans.

Volunteer Abroad with United Planet

Did you enjoy Amber’s story? Visit her Blog for more!

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 8:56 pm and is filed under Latin America, United Planet, local culture, travel, volunteer abroad, volunteer work. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.