Day 8 in Ollantaytambo!

Hola Todos!!

Today was another great day for us. We woke up early this morning because we served breakfast at the hospital. Every Friday morning Awamaki hosts a "chocolatada." The people here drink their oatmeal, so basically it is very watered down oatmeal with chocolate and cinnamon in it. Our mom has made it for us for breakfast before and I actually really like it. On Fridays people hike down from the higher altitudes to the hospital for treatment, which is why we serve breakfast. It was great! Most of the people speak Quechua, so we were not able to converse, but it was a good experience. After we served breakfast we worked in triage. We saw lots of babies today which was a lot of fun.

Our host mom currently has pneumonia, so she was prescribed penicillin. Interestingly enough, they gave here the three doses of medicine that she needs along with three syringes, so she could do it herself at home. It costs extra to have the nurses do it for you, so most people opt to do it themselves. She asked Megan to give it to her, so Megan gave her her second injection today. She did a great job and she said it didn't hurt at all.

In other news...There is a volunteer here that doesn't speak ANY Spanish, so he really struggles. He is a photographer, so he doesn't think it is necessary to converse with others. To make a long story short, our host moms are friends and his mom wanted Megan and I to come over for lunch so she could actually talk to someone. She is hysterical! We said we would love to go so we made arrangements for today. We were both a little suspect because we haven't had anyones food beside our host mom's. Our mom made us each a pancake before we left just in case the food wasn't good. Lunch was going just fine until Megan tapped my shoulder and pointed to her plate with a horrified look on her face. An entire chicken foot was sitting on her plate amongst her other food. Needless to say she immediately stopped eating. I could no longer eat the chicken, but I finished the rest of my food. It was fun to eat with another family, but it made us love our host family even more.

We are both doing great! Really enjoying the experience together. Looking forward to the weekend.

-Kelly

Conversation in Spanish is getting soooo much better. It is really nice to be able to have a conversation with someone and understand exactly what is going on. Megan is gettin much better as well.