Cuyeria in Cusco

We have a new flatmate in our center. His name is Choclo - he is a baby and scared to death - basically does not move whenever he hears somebody around. Right now he lives in a carton box. One of our volunteers received him as a gift from our social worker. Basically Choclo is quite lucky - non of our Peruvian friends have ever seen a guinea pig as a pet. In Peru Choclo's relatives are considered a delicacy. There are restaurants specializing only in serving guinea pigs and most of the tour groups with home stays coming to Cusco end up preparing a guinea pig for dinner as a way of immersing in local culture. For the time being I do not want to develop too strong bond to our new friend as it would be extremly difficult to think that then we would have to it him. Not that we plan but he is kind of doomed as I think he cannot stay with us forever. Anyway for now we were told he cannot get water because his belly will blow up so he eats apples etc. and seems healthy.

Otherwise, the week has passed very fast - we have some new children in the schools - my favourite new student is little Sandra who needs however to have her eyes checked as she is a little cross-eyed. We will need to find a doctor for her. Otherwise, she is a great student and very conversational girl.

We have also made preliminary arrangements for pub quizes where we are going to raise some money (it flips me out a bit since I will have to lead them) and we still have not managed to renovate our bathroom - no one dared to touch the "mud" walls - but we might finally do it this weekend. The plaster we used earlier comes off the walls just like it was the case before we started renovating.

The best thing however, about our days after school is that we have an excellent cook so we have everyday a good lunch and a great Peruvian soup...Everything is vegeterian so sofar Choclo is safe :)