Today We Are on Strike

Ok, so I couldn´t find an appropriate song title for today´s post, because seriously we are on strike today. We didn´t go to our volunteer placements and there are no cars driving on the street. It is a national strike because of either a) the issues the native people in the North of Peru have been having with the government or b) a workers strike. I have been explained the reasons several times, but I am still not 100% sure. Maybe you can google it or look at cnn.com and let me know for sure.

While the strike and protests were way less climatic than I was hoping, we have still had a eventful day.

This morning I went on a hike with some of the other volunteers to a mountain over-looking Ayacucho. We climbed up an incredibly steep road and took many pictures at the top.

After lunch at the house where we enjoyed papas fritas (thin potato slices fried), we went to a potato festival in the main plaza. There were more kinds of potatoes there than I ever imagined--big ones, little ones, red ones, purple ones, white ones, skinny ones, fat ones, and all kinds in between. I even bought a bag of Lay´s Andina potato chips (similar to regular Lay´s, but are have purple and red in the center of the chip because of the type of potato used). We returned to the house after the festival and tried to calm ourselves down from the pure excitement that comes from a potato exhibition.

At about 3:30 we had a professor of traditional medicine from the nursing school here speak to us about the different types of traditional medicine and cures. She said that about 60% of people here will go to a healer before they go to a medical clinic. Then, if the healer can´t help they will go see a doctor. But she also said it also works in reverse. If a doctor thinks that a patient needs traditional healer, the doctor will send them to one. All of the traditional preventions and cures come from nature including plants, herbs, and rocks/minerals. One example of a treatment that she told us about was rubbing a fresh chicken egg all over the inflicted person´s body. The thinking being that the egg will absorb all of the bad energy. Then, they will crack the egg in a glass and observe what happens. Next week we plan to visit the traditional medicine garden in the nursing school, so let me know if you need me to pick anything up for you.