Cotahuasi was incredible - even more beautiful than I had imagined, and much cooler than Colca because of the lack of tourists and development.  It's a very calm and natural canyon, with a really interesting landscape and cool things to see.  

For anyone with the time, I would recommend the 12 hour bus ride to Cotahuasi for a much richer experience than what can be found in a trip to Colca.  Colca is also cool, but as it is the second most profound canyon, it only comes in at second best.

Work has been interesting lately, with a potential latrine project, water sanitation ideas, a series of lectures on family violence, child abuse and sexual abuse, training sessions for high school teachers in areas of sexual reproduction, diseases, and relationships, working with families to improve nutrition and hygiene in the home, the community library, an exercise group with some little old ladies . . . there are a million different opportunities for projects, so I've been trying to narrow in my focus on what is possible to complete, what would help the community most, and what I'm most interested in doing.  

My parents came to visit a few weeks ago, and it was awesome to have them here, even if it was for only a week.  They came to my site and were able to get to know the family I'm living with over a feast of shrimp, then see a bit of the town, the fields that my host family owns and currently has a crop of rice, but will be planting wheat and potatoes soon, and also meet some of the people I work with in town.  The community members have yet to stop talking about how enormously tall my father is, and how now they understand 

why I'm so tall.  It was also interesting to do some of the more touristy things in Arequipa with my parents, such as take a 2-story bus around the city to see the sights, and go into the Monastery of Santa Catalina.  I had been told that the monastery was really cool, and it went above and beyond my expectations.  It was so interesting to learn a bit more about the history of Arequipa and about the influences of the Spanish culture on Peru, and on Arequipa in particular.  It's a gorgeous monastery, and at the high point, the nuns in that convent lived better than I ever will, with servants and special china for their afternoon tea.  Having my parents in town for my birthday was the best present of all.  It was really fun to go to a few nicer restaurants with them - I think they were sick of typical Peruvian food by the end of one week, imagine how it'll get to you after 7 months!  While in site I don't get overloaded by Peruvian food (aka rice and potatoes) because I mainly cook for myself.  Even still, it's always a nice break to get a salad full of colors that you can eat without the risk of parasites and bacterial infections. 

Next week I head to Lima for a workshop in Project Design Management, and I am supposed to bring with me a member of my community.  I chose my host mom, Elda, to take with me because she's got a million ideas about how to make the community a better place, but has no real concept of how to go about making those ideas a reality.  I also chose her because she is well known in the community, will be living here for the rest of her life, and is really great and I am excited spend a few days with her.  It will also be great to see some of the other volunteers - not everyone is coming to this same workshop, but there will be enough of us for it to be really fun.