La Playa... and Cows.... and more Sickness.

Tonight I looked up the word “playa” in my Spanish-English dictionary. It was as I had always been taught: beach or shore. The reason I questioned it is because clearly my family and I have different perceptions of a playa. Beach to me: sand, hot, swimming, and the like. To my family it clearly means something different…. I’ll explain.

Today (Saturday) was the first day in a long time that I didn’t have any official Peace Corps events to attend. As we had spent all week in meetings, my family time had been cut down extremely. I went to bed super early last night, which allowed me to get up early this morning to start my day. My (host) mom and I washed my clothes this morning…. I was at a desperate state. After lunch the whole family (including my aunt and cousins) drove out to the farm. Riding in the back of a truck is becoming second nature to me. I know that the river is behind our farm… so going to the beach didn’t seem out of the ordinary. We get our walking sticks (?! I should have questioned it at this point)… and start out on our walk. We get to the edge of the farm, where I then have to climb over this small dirt mound. We then proceed to climb down a hill. I’m not talking a small hill. I’m talking I was hiking down a steep hill. My dad was holding my hand most of the way down… which was good when I nearly fell off the side of the hill. When we finally got to the bottom, I was expecting a sandy beach. There wasn’t anything of the sort… instead, a grassy opening. We started a fire (!?!) and then headed down into the river. We spend the next half hour or so walking in the river, attempting to stay on the dry rocks… but realizing that was not possible. It was so much fun! Thank god for boots. On the way out of the river, my brother slipped off a rock and was wet up to his knees. We then had to climb back up the hill, which was a lot easier than going down. When we got back to the farm, we had to milk the cows before we could head home (If all goes well, there will be a picture of me milking a cow in this entry!)

I found out today (Tuesday) that I officially have amoebas... woot! According to dirrections from Melanie.... I´m keeping a count. Weird diseases/animals in my body.... #1.

I also found out today where i´ll be placed. I´m not going to post actual information... but it is in the way south and I´m going to be about 10 miles from the Peru boarder. I already checked, my community doesn´t have anything on google... so it wouldn´t help to give exact location anyway.

Have to get home... but I hope to hear from you guys soon!

-Stacie