This is a Peruvian hairless dog, it has a higher body temperature than normal hairy dogs and was used in pre Columbas times as a topical remedy for arthitus and things like that. Like a living heat pad!

Well I didn´t plan to write a post but I actually have a newish keyboard so I thought I might take advantage. Usually they are so worn that they can barely be used. The delete and return keys seem to be the first to go. We went with our new Peruvian friends to see a small parade yesterday evening which was pretty fun and then replaced our usual english lesson format with ´sit and drink beer and try and talk english or spanish´. It worked pretty well. Tonight is our last lesson and I think they are planning a wee shindig for us. Oh the other night we had some medicinal plant drink, sounds a little dodgy I know. It started when Kelly told them about maple syrup and they then told us about all these various trees they get liquids from. These and extracts from all sorts of other plants are blended together in various combinations to cure just about any ailement you can think off and a few ones that might be new to you. They are sold by these fellows you have their little plant laboritories mounted on three wheeled bicycles. They also only come out at night. We were interested so we had our students help us track one down. He has 18 glass bottles each filled with a different plant juice/ extract and some powders and a couple of tubs of hot liquid. You tell him what you want cured and he begins adriotly and rapidly mixing and shaking and transfering liquids between various containers left right and centre! Some of the ingredients were gooey (like alovera or snot) and others were dark and viscous. Most were green and watery. At the end of the process you had a hot drink that actually tasted quite good, like a herbal tea but more slimy. Our friends swore that they were very good and as evidence impressed us with the ages of their parents and grandparents (who regularly drank these potions). We went out to dinner with our host and his father to celebrate his fathers birthday a few days ago, maybe last week, and we were shocked. He looks 50, not older than 55 but apparently he had just turned 70 that day! Maybe there is something to it after all! Ahh what else.....I have been spending most of my time studying maths. Yes, I know, I don´t know why I am doing it either. It is hard too, I haven´t studied much maths since Highschool, hopefully I pass the exam! On Sunday we will take a bus upto Chacahopoyas up in the northern highlands and then get a collectivo taxi (little minivan) to Liemabamba were we will volunteer for April. The trip to Chacha will take 10 to 11 hours, yikes! But if we are lucky and there is a cama, bed, bus then they are actually very comfortable. Oh! I learned something today (other than maths) and it is this; re-applying sunscreen does NOT extend the amount of time you can spend in the sun with whatever factor of sunscreen it is you are using. Maybe most of you knew this, and if you think about it logically it is obvious but it never occured to me. Just to

reitterate- if you would burn in ten minutes without suncreen and put on some factor 15, that mean you can stay out for 150 minutes and not burn, it does NOT mean you can re-apply and then stay out for another 150 minutes after the first 150minutes. I guess I had never though about it before but really that 150 minutes is that max time you can stay out before burning assuming you are sufficiently covered in sunscreen for the whole duration of that 150 minutes. Re-applying only ensures you are sufficiently covered, it doesn´t reset the clock to zero. I just thought if there were any of you out there you hadn´t really thought about how sunscreen works like me, well that you should know this.

Take care!