see alot, hear alot, experience alot

Well this past week has been pretty damn exciting. I started my other classes, which are all focused on Peru and South America. The classes are politics, art and history, and development.
I really enjoy the combination because they are all very closely linked and we get a lot of similiar information which I think is good because I am going to really understand the complete history of Peru. At first the classes were very overwhelming because they are all taught in spanish so the amount that I am absorbing is small but I am still doing a lot of imprtant learning. My Spanish is improving daily by leaps and bounds and I really love the people and the language. My Peruano mom rides me hard and helps me make sure I have the correct pronunciation, I love her.
Overall I feel very content right now, I feel my balance between work and studying is good and just the way I am relating to the people feels very comforting. We have done a lot more work on our project and it is certainly coming along. There are a couple peruvians working on it as well, as they are the skilled laborers. This past weekend we moved probably close to 350 wheel barrol loads of dirt, it is really good work. The mothers of the communitty where we are doing the project made us lunch one day and it was fantabulous. I think these women really respect the work we are doing, and I really respect the work they are doing, which is learning how to raise a child at an extremely young age. The next couple weeks we have different activities on the weekends so we won´t be working on the project but I look forward to going back.
On a lighter note I saw and experienced some pretty wild things this week. Last monday all us students went out for the night, had dinner and went dancing. So at around 2 in the morning I was walking one of my friends home who happened to be extremely drunk and were approached by two men. As we were walking down this very narrow street (alley) I felt these two men´s presence gaining on us so I decided rather than feel uncomfortable with them behind me we would stop and let them pass, so we did. When we stopped they slowly approached us and one of them began to beg for money.(There is a common tactic among pick pockets where one will destract you and the other will steal your money) As the one was asking for money I saw the others hand begin to creep toward my firends purse. I don´t know what happened but I had a total gut fear type reaction. I immediatley pushed the pick pocketer very hard away from us and started yelling at him like crazy and cussing, I then proceeded to chase these two men down the alley yelling and screaming at the top of my lungs. The end result was that I was very riled up and energized other than that nothing happened. My friend had not seen the one mans hand drifiting toward her purse so she probably thought that I had absolutely lost my mind as she saw me screaming and yelling at these two men, non the less it was an experience worth remembering. Generally the people down here are very peaceful people and are not looking to create violence but mereley just to obtain easy money.
Another experience worth noting happened not very far from my house and right next to the office of the program I am in Peru with. The students at the university went on strike and barracaded themselves inside the gates of the college. It all seemed very organized, with marching, chanting, and a list of what they wanted taped to every wall possible. It was very interesting to observe, but was over within 24 hours. My mom said that kind of stuff is pretty common, but usually not always that succesful.
Well I guess for now that is the majority of what I want to say. I really enjoy the people and culture and look forward to living here for several more months.
Hablamos pronto
-nate