Great food; breathtaking sights

Hello again. There’s so much to tell you, and I’ve only been gone nine days. My Spanish is coming along, which isn’t surprising, since it’s being fed to us through a fire hose. A few of the students are feeling stressed about their language ability. I figure I knew “nada” four months ago so anything is an improvement. And to pay for this kind of instruction would cost a fortune. This is like an all-expenses-paid vacation with language classes included. I haven’t washed dishes, cooked, done laundry or cleaned since I left Wisconsin. I had my laundry washed at a neighborhood lavanderia yesterday for $3.50. I can’t think of a reason to do it myself.

My house is only eight blocks from the Peace Corps headquarters and the nearby university where we have most of our classes. I have learned to keep my eyes down when walking; the sidewalks can be treacherous, and trees seem to be overtaking my part of the city. They break up the concrete with their roots and shove the sidewalks aside, leaving only a few feet of pavement between the trees and buildings to walk on. Rather than cut down one tree, someone constructed a concrete wall with holes to accommodate the branches.

We have many meetings at the PC HQ, which looks just like any other corporate meeting room, but the neighborhood rooster and goat remind us periodically that we're not in Kansas anymore.

This is a charming city, with beautiful Spanish colonial architecture, antique carved wooden doors, opulent gilded furniture and interiors, colorful tiles and fountains. It’s very clean. And, of course, there’s evidence of terrible poverty. I saw one Indian woman wandering through the market with long hair hanging to her waist that was so matted it hung in a thick pad.

The altitude is around 6,000 feet, which doesn’t seem to bother me. There are pastel-colored houses on the hills surrounding the city (another potential picture). On many Sundays the central square is closed to vehicular traffic and vendors line the streets. There are performances on the square with a variety of music for all ages. Outdoor restaurants surround the main square. Some of my friends and I plan to meet at the square this Sunday – our only day off – to enjoy the sights and sip some vino under the shade of the enormous ficus trees that ring the square.

Today we learned about food safety from the resident doctor, who donned a chef’s hat and apron and prepared a salad to demonstrate sanitary food preparation. She washed the vegetables in Clorox soap, rinsed them with bottled water, then soaked them for 15 minutes in a chlorine/water solution before draining and rinsing again with clean water. We all ate the salad afterward -- probably the cleanest salad I’ve ever eaten. It seemed a shame to get it dirty by eating it.

I have yet to meet a food I don’t like, although anything with chilies seems to make me cough. One day for lunch we were served some long, green rectangular things that looked like fat fetuccini. I thought it might be really big green beans, but it was cactus, or nopales – very good and similar to green beans but slightly tart. Today’s agua fresca was made with strawberries. And for you coffee lovers, there’s café de olla, or coffee in a pot. It’s coffee with cinnamon and molasses, which complements the coffee flavor in a surprisingly wonderful way. To make it you boil the water with the cinnamon and molasses, then add the coffee and turn off the pot. Delicioso!

Maru showed me the aqueduct today. I can’t wait to go back with a camera, and to paint a picture of it. The aqueduct was built several hundred years ago to bring water to the city but is no longer used. It’s a breathtaking sight – about .8 mile long and 75 feet high, and illuminated at night. There are purple flowering trees under many of the arches, which I want to capture by camera before the blossoms fade. It’s flanked on both sides with restaurants, shops, busy streets and, of course, there’s a Starbucks with an outdoor patio to enjoy the spectacular view.

I wish you could all be here to enjoy this amazing weather. It hasn’t rained for months, so very few insects, but the rainy season starts in May. I might change my tune when I have to walk to and from school in the rain.

I’ll write again soon. I should have a phone soon, and I have daily access to the internet. You can reach me at dseigen@yahoo.com.