Tomorrow we make chicken parmesan.

I'm leaving Saturday for field-based training in Piura and Lambayeque, so this may be my last post for awhile.

This week, two things happened. One, I had one of the longest days of my life. Two, Valentín Paniagua, the ex-president of Peru who held down the fort between Fujimori and Toledo, died. People here LOVED him; he was president for less than a year, but his approval rating then was something like 80%. This was a very big deal, with all-day news coverage, flags at half-mast, and yesterday afternoon (and in some places today) being a don't-go-to-work holiday.

For me, however, Paniagua's death only meant one thing: logical fallacies.

Let me explain: yesterday we had technical training all day in the dreary building of the Municipalidad de Santa Eulalia. The session had its ups and downs, but by 5:00, the appointed time for leaving, we were all ready to go. Imagine our surprise when at 5:15, they announced that we would begin to prepare a presentation, give a presentation, and receive individual criticism about it, all before leaving. It was expected to take, if we were good Trainees, 40 minutes.

An hour and a half later, our boss got in front of everyone and said something to the effect of, ''I know you're tired, but our guests are here and they want to finish the session. After all, they came in on their day off to speak to you.''

At the time I accepted this, because it was in fact their day off. It was only until later, after knitting class, when Libby pointed out that this session was probably planned months ago, when they had no inkling the ex-president was going to die, thereby more or less negating that logic.

We did not leave the Municipalidad until 7:15, making for an eleven-hour day. I seriously entertained thoughts at some point that we were unknowingly participating in a psych experiment about captivity.

Alas. It was just a hard day all around, with blame to go around, or at least to a couple people. We're all tired of training, and this week is particularly strenuous. My family and I had a good laugh about it when we got home, but maybe they were laughing at my conjugation of the sentence ''They didn't know the president was going to die.''