I am loved

Yay! Was so happy to get a package in the mail from A... She hit it on the nail with all my favorites...



My favorite magazine: Seed
My favorite drinks: Chai tea and hot chocolate
My favorite chocolates: dark AND chocolate covered BLUEBERRIES! :)
My favorite crackers: Ok Mok


BTW folks... I now have chocolate to last me until July so no need to send that anymore :) hehe... I realllllly appreciate it all :)

Also fortunately got my mom's package in the mail that had a credit card included (WHEW!).. and a couple other books... and an xmas card :) Thanks!!!!!

So now, looking back at my "things i want list"... here it is updated:

1. Hat - Brentt has this hat and knows which one i want
2. Korean food... soon-du-bu packets... I can find firm tofu here
3. My fire stuff - poi primarily... thought it would be nice to have my little fire sticks so i dont forget how to eat fire (though i haven't found clean white gas)...
4. OK this sounds a bit weird and gross, but my mom knows what it is.. i want one of those toe/foot callous scrapers.. wearing flip flops is gross on your feet..

"OH NO Piojos!" update...

Not sure if anyone really wants to hear about a lice update.. but I'm officially lice free.. well, i was after the first week of treatment... also I must be quite allergic to them, because the massive rash i had going down my neck and shoulders also dissappeared when they did... don't think that that sort of thing is a normal reaction to just having lice, but i was glad it was gone with the bugs and not something additional i had to deal with...

Hurray!!!!

Mancora Loca...

Spent about 7 days in Mancora after Christmas through New Years...
although initially i was thinking it wasn't that remarkable, i found that there's quite a bit of stuff i had to write about the town...

I'll start with the hostel (will not say which so none of my stories will connect back to anyone, heh)...
The hostel had pretty much the feel of college spring break... lots of booze, hooking up, general partying and very, very early 20s sort of crowd... I enjoy going out to the desert with a huge sound system and dancing under the full moon to some great electronica, but the frat party scene is definintely not my thing... but despite what it was, i still had a great time. The food was awesome.. it was cooked by a very talented, toothless chef who was pretty much cracked out the entire time we were there.. at one point he was telling us how he wakes up every morning thinking that everyone in the hostel has just arrived that day (meaning, he does not remember one day to the next)... he was a mid-30 going on mid-60... despite all this, the meals were amazing... the hostel was right on the beach and you only had to walk like 20 steps to jump into the water... we were in "dorms" that were shared with 6 other people.. thankfully there was no craziness within the room (i've heard stories of people pissing on bed sheets!).... mostly everyone was running around speaking english (and lots barely knew any spanish at all).. it's one way to travel, but seems a bit strange to me to travel in a country by just going to party hostels and not learning the language.. (but oh well, to each their own)... however, there were a group of brazilian guys (!tan guapo!).. who were practicing their spanish (but it was a little weird because considering how close spanish and portuguese is, they didn't have a good grasp of spanish, seemed their english was better)... also the hostel had a cute little chanchito (baby pig) as a pet over on the corner of the property... the hostel was located in an interestingly isolated part of mancora way out of the way of the other hostels that were accessable via the main strip... to get to ours you had to take a mototaxi through the barrio (some parts looking sketchier than porvenir)...

oh, and one of my housemates won the pool competition :) booyah! (as she would say) hehe

the ocean was 20 steps outside the gate of the hostel... though we were way on the right side (sort of isolated) from where the rest of the beachgoers were and one morning a bunch of the brazilian guys got stung by sting rays (we were all goofing around on this fishing raft, libby and I sitting right next to the guys getting stung)... this is where things got lost in translation because they kept saying that a fish bit them and we're thinking "there arent paranas or anything... what are they talking about?" i kept asking them if it was stones they stepped on.. and split their feet on (they were bleeding quite a bit)... the ones stung got out of the water, but others stayed (furthering libby and my confusion that there was anything to worry about)... we continued to play on the raft and jump around in the waves till we got bored and came inside.. it wasn't till later that we found out they had to go the hospital, get an injection and antibiotics... apparently down on the far other side, one of the peace corp volunteers that we knew got stung by a jellyfish, though it wasn't as serious and she didn't seek any medical attention at all... i went swimming in the ocean every day and got pretty tan (despite my hat and 50 spf lotion)... my only gripe with the water was the tiny skinny fish that kept trying to get into my bathing suit.. it was quite unnerving... i learned how to body surf from a local which is a bit harder than it sounds and a bit scarier.. i'll stick with the board surfing... speaking of animals, there were sand flies that bit horrendously every morning and sunset... despite tons of repellant, i think i have like 20 bites on each foot/leg...

made it to some hot springs during my week at mancora.. actually it was ---A--- hot spring, the size of a small jacuzzi and there were algae things in that that really creeped me out (they would stick on your skin like little hairs that looked like worms.. again the whole parasite phobia reaction kicks in)....

I caught the first sunset of my first day in mancora as well as the first sun rise of 2009... the sunsets are beautiful in mancora.. just purple on a very long horizon and lasts for an hour it seems...

New years... oh I should mention, my camera for some reason would not function properly while i was in mancora (short of like 2-3 picture of the sunset and 2 others)... on new years my camera didn't work at all and i'm wondering if that was a good thing, hah!... we partied at the hostel and did the whole countdown thing there and then about 4:30am my housemate and i decided we wanted to go into town and experience the craziness there.. there was definintely alot of craziness, people sort of all over the places, lots of music, drinking and dancing... a nice Bolivian guy hung out with us as we were trying to find good music to dance to. (actually it would have been nice to get contact info since i plan to go to bolivia and it would be nice to have someone to show me around, but alas i forgot to and in my tiredness i later realized i totally ditched the guy after he walked way down to the other side of the playa to safetly walk us home...woops)...

i'm happy to be back home

countdown continues with 3 weeks till i get to see brentt (we're going to iquitos) :) called him from mancora to wish him happy bday and happy new year... also called home to wish happy new year to mom....

Child Protective Services....

So in the town of El Porvenir... well to be honest, I haven't yet asked around so I really don't know, but it appears to me there is no sort of child protective services... of the stories of abused kids that i've heard of here, seems nothing is really done about the parents.. i'm guessing there are homes where kids may be taken away and placed into (though probably rarely and no doubt even worse living than the family home), but there's no such thing as a parenting class or anger management...

I've thought about the kids that i see working on the street selling necklaces or other products that their parents are selling at the stand... i wonder about what sort of things these kids are learning growing up this way versus others that are in day care or playing at their friend's houses... at times it may be fun to go person to person and talk to various people try and sell something almost like a game.. but maybe that's only for a minute and then when the child wants to go play or look at the bug on the tree, he can't because that means losing potential clients and money for the family....

there was one afternoon i spent walking through alto trujillo which is a bunch of little huts on sand dunes... and i see this boy all alone dragging his huge bucket (not sure what he was going to do with it)... he must have been about 5 years old... and way behind him was a little girl that turned out to be his sister.. she wasn't keeping up with him and at times would just sit down and play with the sand. no parents in sight, but it seemed the kids knew exactly where they were and where they were going, though they were in no way safe... no doubt that if there were any child predators around, they'd have a field day in alto trujillo ... then there's another kid i see on the bus every day by himself.. he must be not more than 8...


now that i've posted about some depressing stuff, i'll now post about my crazy new years week in Mancora (the post above this one)