Quillabambian Evenings

Evenings in Quillabamba are always bustling with excitement – it is my favourite part of the day. I love walking at night, considering it is the perfect temperature: cool and windy. Unfortunately, as a female, I need to be extra careful at night. Catherine ops for a moto-taxi, like most girls in the group, but I take a different approach. As soon as the sun goes down, I become a biker chick from hell. It was Catherine who gave me this title. She says I look like one, especially when my curly hair is poofed out, and I wear a black shirt. I walk with a most confident stride, with my shoulders thrown back, and my arms out and determined at my sides. No one dares to look twice at me when I pull out my biker chick personality - and when they do glance at me, they are trembling in their shoes.

Some evenings, I visit students at their homes and eat supper with their families. Last week, a student and I made pancakes for her host family, so that they could try maple syrup for the first time. Peruvians seem to love the stuff - every student I´ve asked have said they´ve had positive results with the syrup.

Other evenings, we take walks around town or go up on the roof to bathe in the comfort of the star-filled sky. Sometimes, Catherine and Erika will share a beer and will make fun of me for refusing it. Even though I have explained numerous times that I am just not a fan of beer, Catherine insists that one little cup of beer will do me good. I refuse and eat my popcorn instead. So, far they have drunk five bottles of beer (they are much larger bottles than the ones we are used to), and Catherine says that, by the end of the program, her and Erika will make it to a 100 bottles of beer on the wall. This is when the silliness begins and when our Peruvian cook shakes her head and laughs at us. Our broken Spanish is a great larf for our cook, who enjoys our antics (or so it seems), as well as our attempts to explain silly things in Spanish.

We visited the Pongo de Mainique this weekend, which is a part of the jungle. More on that exotic adventure later!