Happy belated birthday USA

Its strange to be outside the US on the 4th. To be honest I have only done it a couple of times. Once was in Mexico where I was with 65 other Estados Unidenses or Nortenos (the Spanish term for what we mistakenly call Americans - South Americans are also Americans) so that doesn't really count. On the one hand the 4th can be a bit overwhelming. Take, for example, any fireworks display. You have to sit in traffic for an hour, wrestle an old lady and her grandkids to get a good spot, then sit in traffic for the rest of the night. I didn't miss that this year, for me the 4th was just a Friday. On the other hand I probably would have chopped off the first hand to go to a barbecue on a lake somewhere. Anyway, back to Peru. I finally had the opportunity to go to La Encantada which is world renowned for its ceramics. Okay maybe only Peru renowned but you get the point. Anyway they've been making pottery and ceramics here the exact same way since the days of the Vicus and Tallan cultures. The owner of Ceramica Ynga is Aurelio Inga, the best ceramista in La Encantada. Side note: I think he is related to the guy who started the resurgence of this type of ceramics - Max Inga. Side note part deux: Aurelio, coincidentally, had dengue about a month ago - he said it was "really ugly". He showed me the oven where he bakes the ceramics and colors them with mango leaf smoke and shaped some palomas (pigeons) while I watched. Then I wanted to buy everything in the store. Instead I spent around $20 and have an entire box full of stuff that I have no idea how I will get home.
Here is a picture of Aurelio:


and his ceramics:


I'm still working on my study protocol. I'm really beginning to think that I won't get any data collected before I leave. Maybe I can get started with a couple of interviews. I don't know everything takes a while here and even if I finish it up early this week I'll be hard pressed to start doing any data collection before I leave for 10 days to go to Cusco and Machu Picchu. I guess I'll just have to cross that bridge when I come to it. Peace out.