December Randoms

I know December is long gone, and I'm behind on posting about my New Year's Vacation to the beach, but I thought I'd just throw out a few last "randoms" from the previous mes (month).

Things I Never Saw While Working at the ASD:

 Yes, that is a dead rat the kids killed and were running around with throwing at each other. There was once a vole infestation at one of my schools in the ASD, but I never witnessed teachers laughing at the victims being terrorized by the dead varmint (nor did I witness a foreigner with a camera asking the students to stay still while he took their picture... and basically reinforcing their behavior with positive gringo adult attention).



Here is a picture of a class boiling milk and water over a fire (against the school wall), to make the annual cholotada (Christmas Hot Chocolate). These appears to a potential fire hazard, and damaging to the school's painted wall, but the end results were delicious.

Chicken On a Leash:

Animals on leashes in Peru have me thoroughly confused and entertained, at the same time. And as I write this, it has dawned on me that they probably need their own blogpost in the future; however, here's the skinny: Dogs are not leashed, but goats, cows, horses, pigs, and chickens are. Let me do so more research on this cultural difference and get back to you (note: I have not seen any children leashed here, as I have in malls in the states). 

In the case of this picture, our chicken recently had a clutch of chicks (3 out of 5 eggs made it), and my host-mother was afraid that she would lead them in the Chacra were they would get lost or eaten. Solution: have the gringo catch the chicken and tie a leash to it's leg (way easier than it sounds). Here is the end result:

Snow in the Cordillera Negras:
FYI- From my site the Cordillera Blancas (the mountains with snow) are the East, the Negras (the ones without snow) are the West, Hauraz is to the South (at about 2,500 feet higher), with canyons leading to the  pacific ocean being to the North/North-West.


Now, with the rainshadow effect caused by warm moist air raising from far to the East (in the Amazon) and then being deposited in the mountains before the Negras in the West (the Cordillera Blancas), the Negras kinda get "hosed" for any notable precipitation (Hosed: A scientific term derived from the Canadian language meaning prevented, hindered, or forestalled). However the days right before Christmas, we had a few big storms roll through, from a North South direction, carrying a lot of moisture. This moisture combined with the elevation of the Negras left us with a nice supply of snow on the normally dry Negras at a considerably low elevation. This excited me as it left a little bit of a white Christmas feel. Here's the picture:

Here is looking West from the school in Yuracoto towards the Cordillera Negra.