Journal Post/Observation #1

Arequipä:
Today was my second day at the Employment Center for the LDS Church. I spend about 2 hours watching a volunteer lady teach the first segment to 4 rather timid ladies, three about my age and one older señora. I took several pictures to begin work on my major multimedia project for this semester. I than began designing the website for teh Employment center. Interestingly enough, the Center is really nice and just like all of the Churches builings, fully stocked. I was surprised to see that we have a microwave and a photo copier. Also, I get my own office, which is a first for me, with a nice comfy chair and a computer (not that I ever use it, I am pretty much chained to my laptop).
After work, I hopped onto a combi to ride back to the outskirts where we live in order to meet a nice guy that taught me some dancing- more on that in a minute.
But first, Observation # 1:
While I was waiting for the young man, (whose name is Fabio), I was sitting at our arranged meeting place in front of the police station (which is pretty small and rather hidden amongst other building), when I noticed a lady packing up her Trici to leave. Now, a trice is a bike that has ben cut in half and than jury rigged back together with 2 wheels in front, usually with some type of carrying area for people or things. In the case of this lady, it was her orange juice street vendor business. (Here there are literally tons of oranges that they put in this peeling mechanim and than squeeze the juice out.) In any event, her husband (I assume) was picking her up with his Tico (More on ticos in another post, but for now: Little cars that are generally used for taxi service here.) As they were packing things up, I noticed the rear tire was flat on the trici. Turns out, this was no biggie, because they whipped out a pump, but wait, there was a problem, the nozzle where the hose attaches was both too small for the pump end and appeared to have a hole where it connected to the tube. Once again, no biggie. With some careful wrapping of a plastic bag and a touch of slober, the baby pumped up with out further problem. As soon as it was full, away they went. Quite a little show while I waited.

Now, the reason I was waiting is because my wife and I will be participating in a good old fashioned idolatrous dance presentation in Puno. It´s like this: every February, for the Virgin of the Candelaria, there is a big concourse where dancers from all over Southern Peru, and Lima, present traditional dances and basically drink a LOT. I will be neither worshipping the Virgin, nor getting plastered. I will however, be accompanying my wife in some really cool dancing. The dance is called Caporales, or Saya, and is pretty sweet. For a demonstration, you can go here:

Anyway, my wife has danced there before and we are now inolved in the group that goes from this city to Puno to present. The dance is tricky, but I am learning and it´s coming along. More on this as it developes.