Just live your life...

ONE MONTH DOWN...26 more to go!! I'm about to start week #5 of training tomorrow and it's an amazing and scary feeling to know that I'm halfway through training. Exciting because on Novemeber 2nd I will get my site, so at that point I'll know where in Peru I'll be spending my next two years, and believe me..I've got my preferences! Scary...because it means I'm leaving the comfort of this little life I'm becoming used too, and separating from many of the other volunteers and friends I've made. So it means another "adjusting" phases and many new challenges.

Yesterday I saw the most beautiful part of Peru that I have yet to see. Let me preface this first by saying that I have lived my whole life near the ocean or bay, and it wasn't until this month of living between dry mountains when I realized how much I've taken that for granted. So yesterday after our trip to Agraria University to study chicken, turkey and duck growth and development, we went back to Miraflores. I took this opportunity to find the ocean...and I found it! I feel like once I got there I took the biggest deep breath ever because there is nothing like being by the ocean, I loved it. It was also my first time seeing the Pacific Ocean in my whole life, I was the happiest I've been since I got here. It was beautiful. Seeing this wonderful part of Peru made me so excited for the many places I have yet to visit.

So lately my host mom is getting slick, the other day in my lunch I noticed the meat looked a little different even thoughtit was chopped really small, I tried it, texture was different so I struggled with that and ate around it. Later that night she told me it was "bofa" or cows lungs. She thought it was so funny. Well today she asked me what I wanted for lunch and I told her I didn't care, just no weird meet. Well today for lunch we had pesto pasta, and some meat. Directly I could tell the meat was different, but since I am on a mission to try stuff I went for a small piece. I started to eye the kids and see if they were eating it, and then finally Camilla asked my host Mom what it was, and she got all mad, because they were supposed to keep it a secret from me. So I told her that I was sorry and didn't like it, they laughed and thought it was really funny!! It was cow stomach. I think I just know too much about anatomy and have too much of an understanding of what the textures of some of these She made me some chicken instead. I told her she was getting sneaky! She loves it. Apparently, before we come they are told when and what foods to introduce us to, because both of those meals are very traditional here. So she is really enjoying it. And I do appreciate all the effort she puts in to helping me adjust and learn about this stuff. Because it may all be more difficult once I get to my site.