I’m spending my summer in Ayacucho, Peru.  I just got here about a week ago, and I already love it.  It’s funny; I think attitude makes all the difference.  During my first month in Spain, when I was living with my mean host mom, I tended to focus on the negative things.  Here, it’s really hard to do that.  Don’t get me wrong, I definitely have days where I feel very homesick, but I feel like the culture here is so welcoming.  It’s pretty chaotic, in fact I think chaos is the only rule on the road.  I may have seen a couple of stoplights, but for the most part I’ve just heard a lot of honking.  They have two kinds of taxis here, regular ones, and then these little ones called Moto taxis with one wheel in the front.  The Moto taxis always seem like they are about to crash into other cars, but they never do and they have a very distinct honk that kind of sounds like a dying duck.  They are a lot of fun! Anyway, pretty much right away I was thrown into my internship, working for a microfinance organization called FINCA Peru.  Basically, FINCA has a bunch of village banks and a different group of women belongs to each one, and takes out a loan from that bank.  The village banks aren’t really like banks at all, more just like small groups of women, and these women get to know each other and form a bond.  It seems to me that it’s not just the small loans they take out, but also the small group and their discussions that play a huge role in their empowerment.  Anyway, I keep trying to upload pictures, but it takes forever.  So, expect to get a link to a picasa album some time in the very near future.  Hasta pronto!