Hey everyone!

Sorry it took us awhile to post, but we were still getting settled in and trying to figure out where to find the grocery store! Our first week in Iquitos just flew by. After a full week in the heat and humidity of Iquitos, we are gearing up for what will be a frenzied foray, visiting house after shanty in the still-flooded streets of Belen. Although we still do not have permission to do our projects (fingers crossed for June 10), our training begins this week with the arrival of Dr. Craft and visits by several of the U.S. Navy personnel who have been instrumental in assisting us with our projects. We are all very hopeful and anxious to begin the research portion of the trip, conducting surveys and collecting stool and water samples. Derek and Dr. Strosnider spent several consecutive (and exhausting!) days revisiting households in Belen as a continuation of last year’s project. He will post about their adventures in Belen soon. We anticipate perhaps even longer days for the next couple weeks to come. In the meantime, us chicas have been getting to know Iquitos and trying to find ways to make our projects go smoothly once we do start work.

Our very gracious hosts, Claudia and Ítalo (below) have made us very welcome in their home.

They have a lovely house with four floors and a patio to sit on when it gets warm out (all the time!). Here is the view of their street from the patio.

 Their neighborhood is nice and in a good part of town. It can be rather loud due to “motorcycle gangs” (they’re not actually motorcycle gangs, just groups of people driving by) like the one to the left, but that’s part of the fun! J

On Wednesday we visited the Centro de Salud clinic in Belen, and on Saturday we enjoyed some of the most delicious grilled pollo (chicken) at a barbeque fundraiser for the clinic. We also came prepared with our dancing flip flops, which was good because our Peruvian friends had a few moves to teach us. And these people can move! Latin America lives up to its reputation in more ways than one.

During our downtime we have taken advantage of a few of the local spots: swimming at the treehouse pool of La Casa Fitzcarraldo Jane and Tarzan style; enjoying the local fare of ceviche and other fresh fish, plantains, chicken, and cecina (except Sara—no jungle pork for her); and visiting Laguna Quistacocha, a nearby lake, zoo, and fish hatchery with excellent eats. We snapped some good photos of animals and food while we were there, and wanted to share a few with you.

The animals above are a marmoset and an "anta." A marmoset is essentially a cross between a tiny monkey and a gerbil, or maybe just a ball of fluff. They love fruit and are very difficult to photograph because they move their heads around so much—they’re very skittish. An "anta" looks like cross between a pig and an anteater with a miniature trunk (like an elephant’s trunk) that is very flexible for sniffing after food. They were super friendly and loved to try and lick our hands and faces.

Meal Blurbs:

Hannah—For lunch, I had “chaufa con pollo,” which is Chinese fried rice with chicken. It was very tasty, but my favorite part was the “madura,” which are the fried plantains around the edge of the plate. They are just a little sweet, so they were like dessert after lunch.

Jenny—I cannot get over how good the ceviche was at this place. It’s impossible to explain in broken Spanish to the servers that I don’t like fishy fish, so I just ordered the paiche ceviche and hoped for the best. I was NOT disappointed. Holy yum. Fresh. Not at all super fishy. Almost melts in your mouth. Behind the ceviche are these fried plantain medallions (can’t remember the name for sure). Will be returning to Quistacocha for the food!

Sara—I absolutely love the food here, especially the fish! I have had whole grilled fish twice now and I am loving it- it is very VERY delicate, moist, and I don’t mind having to work to get the fish meat off the bones. I don’t know what exactly it is that makes the fish here so incredible- working at a seafood restaurant has made me appreciate the finer taste of fish, and boy would this make the cut! I look forward to eating more and more fish the rest of my trip despite my fellow team lacking the desire to have to deal with the bones of these little guys! Love love love it!

P.S. Apologies everyone, for the quality of the photos. We are uploading this blog post from an internet cafe and things are going very slowly, so we couldn't upload full-sized images and cutting and pasting into paint messed up the area around the photos. We just really wanted you to see them!