hellllooooo

well, A LOT has happened.................good thing pictures tell a thousand words. pictured below: me and spidey. me and lucy. me pursuing my obsession with sand dunes. we rode a dunebuggy to the dunes offroading at approximately one million miles an hour. the driver wasn´t wearing a seatbelt, which actually made me feel better. like he really knew he knew what he was doing. i was strapped in like i was on a rollercoaster. we drove up and down the sand dunes, and then sometimes stopped at the tops and sandboarded down. i cant snowboard, so i went down head first on my belly and it was steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. this became the most thrilling day of my life because earlier that day we flew over the nasca lines (mysterious carvings in the ground only visible from above by plane). the plane was the size of my shoe and we crammed in, put our headphones on, and prayed to allah (pictured below). the rest of the time i tried not to throw up as the plane dropped and the pilot spun us around in circles so everyone could see the carvings. also pictured below: the fans at a soccer game i went to, my host family in cusco. i was flipping through the guestbook of my family on my last day when i came across the BIGGEST COINCIDENCE IN THE HISTORY OF MY LIFE. there, pictured in the guestbook, was the shining smiling familiar face of my dear friend noah gallo-brown. his mom was also in there. they stayed with the SAME FAMILY not four months ago. i told my host mom that noah was my friend from seattle and we went to school together and next thing i know she´s pulling out photos of our graduation and all that jazz. below that: chillin at the pisaq ruins. i peed on pisaq. me, ben, and case, aka m&d (mom and dad) out for a night on the town. i´m 85% certain they´re falling in love, its very exciting, everyones falling in love. also pictured is my beloved spanish teacher jesica, who has the absurd laugh of a five year old girl. also, the crazies im stuck here with went bungee jumping, and then i cut guthrie´s hair with the biggest and also dullest scissors his family gave me. they also gave me some of those zig zag scissors to work with. also, me cooking dinner with my adoptive lesbian family next door in cusco. i was peeling apples for that dinner with a cheese grater when i grated my hand as well. annnd pictures of Clam with the typhodian slip in the hospital. me squished on the busride to work at the school. my meal prepared for me by my personal retired professional chef. my fingerpainting of Clam at the hospital with squid invading and me coming through the roof and RZA chilin in the bed next to him. the garden tools, the perfectly cut stones of the Incas that dont need mortar, me trying to do a cartwheel, etc, etc. my lessons to the children about names of animals. things im wondering: why is the peruvian men´s hairstyle so hideous? its like long in the front and short in the back. also, plans are in the works to live on a shrimp farm with clam. sticking with the nautical theme. im currently listening to the noises of a man who is a parrot impersonator. also, im stressin about what to be for halloween. im thinkin pocohauntus because theres an abundance of moccasins and headbands in this country.

everyone around me seems to be getting tattoos for some reason. i guess with all the change thats happening. the only tattoo i can think of that i would want would be a very short word written inbetween my toes. maybe ¨Hi¨ or ¨Toe.¨ Casey has RIGHT written on the bottom of her right foot, and her friend has left which is pretty cool. but she said it hurt so bad she almost had RIG there forever. a squid on the bottom of my foot or armpit might be nice. im not going to get a tattoo though.

my friend has typhoid, so i like to go there and play with the hospital bed. the room there is a clean suite that echos like a cave, theres no smoke detector, and the food is regulated. the liquid in his IV makes his arm so cold, i dunno why they dont nuke it up or something. how much does a hospital bed cost. spanish class can be hard to handle for 2 hours straight everyday after all the not-being-in-school i´ve been doing. i vouch for field trips,songs, southern accents while speaking spanish, and food regularly. i´ve been pooing solidly and AT THE SAME TIME EACH DAY! for quite some time now. my host mom is so clean and insists on things like pick up the chair and move it in instead of scooting it, and remakes my bed after i make it. i have an uncontrollable urge to pour mud on her, because i feel like it could change her outlook onlife or something. i basically .live next door with lucy and nicole and their lesbian moms, who are very loving. their son is named llomar, which i feel is like a verb that should be conjugated. thats like me hving a friend whose name ends in -ing or something. my personal professional chef host dad carlos hasnt been able to cook lately due to ear swelling, so its been hard times in the culinary department.at the volunteer project i´ve been finger painting (except they painted my face and the paper) with the kids and gardening on an extremely steep cliff to the sound of dogs. weeding is very therapeutic, and my forearms hurt. there are 2 kids in paticular that are so cute im thinking about kidnapping them and taking them home. in my room at home there is very little wall decoration, and what there is all has to do with the netherlands for some reason. the mcflurrys dont have sizes here. the dancing opportunities here are quite good, and i dance every night before bed. i´ve been having unusually symbolic dreams, but cant quite put together what they symbolize. it must be the malaria pills. also, my tye dye was lost in the laundry at the school. then miraculously, 3 days later, a woman recognized it as mine and gave it back to me.

pictured above: my friend let me cut his hair with a swiss army knife, and then i used the extras to give him chest hair and facial hair. got the idea from the t-willis otis wood shaving collaboration. a monkey that jumped onto our backs. walking through the jungle. my check mate. kids at the school. doing my laundry. the boat on the way there (the bigger, less clastrophobe one)

my camera didnt work for the entire time i was in the amazon, but i{ll try and get someone else to give me their pics to put up. regardless, some c-c-c-crazy stuff went down there. i threw up egg and may never be able to eat itnormally again, i went piranha fishing, i swam in the amazon river with the pink dolphins, the shaman gave me a medicinal bath that had to be done at 3 AM that involved pouring ice cold water that smelled like funky herbs over my head continuously while he was simultaneously smoking, singing, and beating me overthe headwith a straw stick. i also spent a couple days in iquitos, which is the largest city in the world that isnt accessible by road. in order to get from there to the village in the amazon we had to take a 24 hour boatride, on a boat packed with people laying side by side in hammocks, and other people laying around on benches and on the floor. the boat smelled exactly like your pee after you eat a lot of asparagus. on the way back, they couldnt fit enough hammocks in sothey had to go double decker and long story short an irishman basically slept in my lap. i didn{t think vertical spooning was possible until that day. also clausterphobia was an issue forsome. ilike small spaces though, ithink theyre cozy, but to get to the bathroom you had to crowdsurf over the people in hammocks because there was no space to walk. when we got to the village we were immediatly greeted by a village dance. someone in the village was nice enough to show me their pet baby toucan. since i wasnt allowed to have pets growing up im very awkward around animals and i accidentally dropped the toucan, which then fell through the floorboards underneath the house. then, in the chaos of the falling toucan i kicked over my full waterbottle, which also fell and landed an inch away from squashing the toucan. ayiyiyi. hings i{ve realized: hiking can make your feet bigger, anacondas can be 24 feet long.

now im in cusco, living with a host family, taking spanishclasses in the mornings, and volunteering at a school in the afternoons. i{ve been teaching thekids english. when i arrive they clap for me, and then they all kiss me, and then they all hang off of my arms and body for the rest of the time. one kid bit another kid to try to get to me, which caused quite a scene. there have been lots of spanish miscommunications, like when someone askedwhose backpack is that? and my friend answered IAM THE BACKPACK. my host mom is obsessed with cleanliness and makes me drythe sink after i washmy hands. when i showed her a picture of my messy room at home i thought she was going to faint. my host dad is a retired chef, so i eat like a queen every meal. and the dulces! every meal is followed by his beautiful tarts, cookies, cakes, puddings, and this delish creme brulee stuff hemakes. im living the culinary life.

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bianca