September flew by with lots of field visits, a quick trip to Bolivia, and hiking to MP with Vic and Jackie. Enter October in Peru, full of all kinds of unique events.
First, El Senor de Los Milagros. Centuries ago, a slave painted a picture of a black Jesus. The painting hung in a church that was destroyed during the devastating earthquake in Lima in the sixteenth century. One of the few things left standing was Black Jesus, so now, every October, thousands of pilgrims don their purple robes, and process around Lima with Black Jesus. We had just gotten to Lima last year around this time, and our first trip down to Lima Centro took a good two hours (it should take about twenty minutes) because of the massive processions. Who knows, maybe it works, since there hasn't been an earthquake of that same scale since this tradition began....
Cat-eating festival. Every September, in a town a few hours outside of Lima, there is a rather infamous cat festival. The story is that back in the day, people didn't have enough to eat, so they would eat whatever was around-including furry felines. Tradition continues today, with the annual festival allegedly including cat fashion shows, cat races, and then, a buffet of cat delicacies. I think we missed it this year, but will have to put it in my Outlook calendar so this doesn't happen again.
Corrective dentistry and tourism. When we were in the States in August, Matt went to the dentist and had to have two fillings done. He was really crabby because it took forever and he didn't think the technician knew what she was doing. Fast forward two weeks, and we are back in Peru, and he is practically o-d-ing on panadol (peruvian painkillers, not to be confused with the drug that did MJ in). So....in a moment of breakthrough Spanish, he found a dentist that agreed to see him the next day. But it was so much more than just a dentist's office...turns out that in Peru, there is a large market for "dental tourism", which several agencies have married with good old traditional tourism. Sitting with your head back while the dentist corrects what the dentist in the states f-ed up, you can see the travel agent, happily helping somebody complement their dream of affordable teeth whitining with a tour to Macchu Picchu. So, next time somebody is thinking about coming to visit, let us know if you need to go to the dentist. Matt swears by these guys....
October is going to be crazy, too, but I am trying to be true to at least one blog a month. I have lots of toilet musings from Bolivia that I need to put down on paper, and will be in the field for the rest of the month, doing a mapping exercise of the regions where Water For People will work. Matt and Matt are off to Europe, complete with a plan for different mustaches in each country, so follow their photodocumentary of their tour de stache on facebook...if I was high tech, I'd figure out how to link it here, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon. I did figure out how to jailbreak my iphone and am now a convert to the church of iphones...seriously don't remember what I did with my $40 LG before!
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