Trekkie Travels

First week in Cusco

I've almost completed my first week in school and it's flown by! The first day was taken up with orientation and a city tour. The orientation was very useful covering such topics as local customs and etiquette for those of us living with host families, do's and don't and cautionary tales about local scams. The city tour was not the tourist type one but rather along the lines of this is the cheapest place to buy notebooks and that's the best place to change travellers cheques etc etc. All very useful :)
Tuesday the real lessons started. This week I have one to one lessons from 8am-10am and 10.30am-12.30pm with Mario and from 4.30pm-6.30pm with Edwin. It's hard going, especially the grammar as I don't remember the technical terms in English let alone Spanish! I do feel like I'm learning a lot though although it's hard going. From next week I´m just going to do mornings for 2 weeks instead of mornings and afternoons for one week. That should enable me to practice more rather than trying to cram it all in with homework. The school is very flexible and accomodating :)

It's not all work though, on Tuesday I went to the theatre of native art and dance for a display of Cusqueña and Andean dancing and music. The costumes were amazing and the whole experience definitely to be recommended.
Wednesday night I was invited to a class reunion with my host 'mum' at her friends house. Imagine a dozen or so women who have known each other since school and have got together every 3 months for the past 26 years. Absolutely fascinating and the meal we were served was delicious. The desert was a Brazilian recipe and was possibly the nicest I've ever had - MUST get the recipe :)
Tomorrow we have a leaving party for Pieniece, an anthropologist who has become almost part of the family for the past few months while she´s been working around Cusco. She´s off to Canada soon to continue research for her book, I can´t wait to read it as I imagine it will be amazing - she's quite a remarkable lady!
Saturday is white water rafting and a free concert by Libido in the Plaza de Armas and on Sunday I'm visiting Moray with Lucy and Anneka.

I can't beleive I've only been here for a week and I can't imagin being anywhere else. I love it here, it feels like home :)

posted by Incurable Trekkie @ 20:52