Tuesday, July 26, 2005 Whew, it's been a fun few days since the party over the weekend. As was expected everyone was NOT bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the next morning for marchet day. We got a bit better of a tour this time, and even got to go down to the live animal market, where they have everything that walks, crawls, flies or swims. I mean one lady had a few small cages where there was everything from turtles, to kittens, to guinea pigs, to hamsters, and who even knows what else. There were quite a few bizzare birds I'd never seen before (chicken-like, for eating) and even puppies. It was pretty wild. We also went past several "voodoo" booths, where they had tons of dead animal stuff, from crocodile heads to antelope horns and all the like. Suffice to say they didn't smell all that great, but it was interesting to see.

This weekend all in all was really slow paced, and I didn't really do anything of note. Saturday I went again with Ben to play frisbee with the kids at the primary school not far from our houses, and on Sunday I studied French and played guitar with one of the facilitators.

Last night was probably the best of all, Brooke had his birthday and his host family threw (or allowed) a party. Brooke has some secret family recepie for tortillas, and tomatoes, onions and spicy peppers are aplenty. Avocados are around, but there was only three to be found in the marchet yesterday. So all that put together ended up with a kick-ass Mexican food themed party. Oh man, it was sooo good. The food is fine here (although my host mother probably thinks I hate everything because I don't eat gargantuan amounts), but it was nice to have some familiar flavors on the palate.

Today we were joined by our one errant stagier, Ly. She left us in Philadelphia for reasons unexplained with the promise that she'd rejoin us in a couple of weeks. She came today, so our SED/IT family is finally complete.

This weekend is our first trip with all the other stagiers, so it'll be like a big family reunion. The 13 (now 14) of us have been hanging out exclusively for the last 2 weeks, so it'll be fun to see everyone (46ish) again. I guess PC regulations prohibit me from revealing the location we're going to, but I can be vague. We're going to the touristy place with nice beaches, I've even been told that pizza exists there. Expect the full report next week.

I thought of a few more care-package ideas as well!
-El Cheapo Parmesean in a big can (the one that isn't really cheese, but sort of is)
-Italian Seasoning (the general all purpose one)
-Taco Seasonining
-Olive oil (or not, it'll be a fortune to send)
-Instructions on how to make refried beans
-Secret Family CORN Tortilla recepie (corn is everywhere here, but Brooke's tortillas are flour which was hard to find he said)

Okay, well I have to get going to my afternoon tech. session. We're talking about telecenters today... should be fascinating. < /sarcasm >