First post from Perú

Since I´m at an internet café and have to pay by the hour, and will be going to fellowship with some Christian friends in a few minutes, it´ll be a very brief update. I´ll wax poetic some other time.
The weather here is crazy. Hot, blazing sun during the day and bone-crackling cold during the night. They weren´t kidding about the layers, and neither were they about the need for long underwear in addition to the five layers of blankets.
This first week has been completely mindblowing. I have been adopted into a family, with a dad who´s a chef and restauranteur, a mother who´s incredibly humorous and caring, and a sister who likes to go to bars and discotecas. I have a brother who´s from Princeton, a rising junior studying economics and finance doing an amazing internship with microfinance institutions in rural Perú. I have learned so much about Peruvian cuisine, and can now claim to make a simply delicious Pisco sour.
Proworld has a very good support system, with several on-site staff members and a very good partnership with many locals in the area. I have met students from New Jersey to Georgia, and have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them. I started clinic last Friday, and Peruvian doctors are simply amazing. They diagnose and prescribe in a matter of minutes, and have no qualms about asking anything and everything to give a diagnosis. Mixing humor with piercing questions, they are definitely future colleagues whose perception is to be respected.
So on to activities. I´ve played tourist around Cusco, which is a rather charming city that was the center of the Incan empire. Although many of the temples and holy places have been razed or replaced by Catholic churches, it still retains its shape as the head of a cougar, which represents the present world for Incans (condor represents the realm of the gods, and snake the life after death). The alleys are quite narrow, and at night the city is really beautiful. The hillsides are like a spray of twinkling stars, and there´s a white statue of Jesus Christ at the top of a mountain that at night looks like a floating cross. The square is beautiful, as the lesser light of the lamps magnify the architecture and grandeur of the cathedral and Jesuit church, and there are people everywhere on the streets. One thing that I´ve noticed about Cusco is that there are quite a few young lovers who are a) furtively meeting in corners in residential areas, b) quite public with their affection, or c) at different points of downtown seemingly attached to one another (amantes pegados). This experience of urban life has really given me a feel of humanity, all the vices, emotions, and realities that humans have. I have been to my first bar, my first discoteca, and learned salsa dancing. I promised my parents that my first drink will be with them on the 25th of July, my 21st birthday, so I have not touched alcohol in large quantities. The only tastes I have had is my dad´s pisco sour (he urged me to try a little so that I know what a correct one tastes like) and a tiny sip of cuscena beer (which was bitter and blegh). I´m actually quite glad I made this promise, because drinks are pretty pricey, and not worth it when you can have freshly squeezed juice for a fraction of the cost and you thoroughly enjoy everything without having to be drunk.
I´ve also toured the Incan ruin of Saqsayhuayman, the fortress of the Incans that forms the head of the cougar. It was where the Incans fled after the Spanish laid waste to Cusco, and there are enormous stones that archaeologists are still trying to understand how Incans managed to haul up the mountain. One thing that especially struck me was the massive size of the cornerstones, and gave me a new appreciation for the importance of the cornerstone for any structure!
I´ve been shopping with my dad, and have gotten some pretty good deals on really authentic stuff. I´m really glad to have a host family, which has given me a security that allows me to not be so afraid of the city and this new environment.
One final Peruvian phrase: lo bailado y lo comido nadie le va a quitar
what´s danced and eaten nobody will be able to take away.