Back in the U.S.A.! But not quite home. I am now in Islandia, New York. I am sitting in the Marriott Hotel across the street from my office. It was been a long day! And it is not over yet. I woke up at 5:00am yesterday morning and said goodbye to Ayacucho. It was sad to leave, but I did have a nice last night. The girls made S'mores in the microwave (because we were too tired to make a fire), then we all gathered in the common room and watched the Director's Cut of Donnie Darko on my laptop, while [View Full Entry]

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On the 2 hour bus ride to the starting point for our llama trek I finally finished ¨CHE¨, the biography of Che Guevara, and I can say I now see why he is held in such high regard here and elsewhere in the world. He was a violent man, but a dedicated man as well. Maybe a little misguided, but a man who wanted the right things for people. Finishing that book really added to the excitement of trekking off into the Ayacucho Highlands, a place he had been. It gave me the drive I needed. The hike was not as [View Full Entry]

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Almost forgot, yesterday I was at a boy´s home. Not too much to say about it, except that it really seemed like a clean, healthy, positive place. All the boys seemed pretty happy. I spent most of the day with a kid named Freddy, teaching him geography. Freddy´s parents come and see him, but can´t afford the take care of him and his 4 sisters. So they put him in the home. There is also an albino kid there who had 20/100 vision. He had glasses, but would never wear them. So, Dick and Lynn took him to the optometrist and [View Full Entry]

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Earlier I told you the kids live in the prison with their mothers, but I really didn´t know why. Well, I found out today. Most of these children were born in prison; they allow conjugal visits. The prison has both men and women, but they are segregated. However, if a husband and wife are in prison together, they get visits, and if just the wife is in there, her husband can come visit from the outside. So, needless to say, these women get pregnant in prison. I guess it has become a pretty big problem, so now, if a women wants [View Full Entry]

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One thing I have forgot to mention about this trip is the food, and people getting sick. This was a major theme to the Africa trip, but here it´s not really a big subject. The food is boring. That´s about the only way I can explain it. Not bad, not good, just food. For example, last night we had white rice (which we have with every meal), some veggie dish, and this potato-based dumpling with some kind of meat and egg white in it. Eatable, but definitely not delicious. A lot of nights there is only vegatable dishes, and on those [View Full Entry]

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OK, so I am on such a high right now. I don´t think I have been this full of energy since I´ve been here! Jackie, Kira, and I went to the Old Folks Home today because our schools are just too messed up with their schedules. I thought it would be cool to see something different, but I had no idea how amazing it would be. And I probably won´t even be able to express why it was so amazing in words. This place was the cleanest, most beautiful place I have seen in Peru. It is set right off a [View Full Entry]

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Had to drop a quick note about what I did after work today. My hair is getting too long (meaning, you can actually see it) so I had to go find a place to get a haircut (yes, Elisa, you were right). So I wandered the streets of Ayacucho for awhile, and dropped in on a few beauty salons, where all the women looked up from their soap operas to stare at me as if I´d just landed from Mars. Of course, I can´t speak Spanish, so I would just rub my fist along my head and make a buzzing sound. [View Full Entry]

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So I broke the first rule of traveling, I let the outside world affect my trip. I come to these developing countries to balance my life as much as to help the people here. These trips make me put my own life into perspective, and make me realize that the little things that get me down are really no big deal. But somehow yesterday I lost sight of all that. I let the combination of a few events overwhelm my emotions. Events that were really no big deal. I thank everyone for their comments, and the people I spoke with yesterday [View Full Entry]

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So no matter how well traveled you are, there can come a time in any trip where you just hit a brick wall. Where out of nowhere, you just can't go on. I am at that point. I am supposed to be on a tour of the Sacred Valley right now, and I could not get myself out of bed this morning. It took all I had to get up at all today. I was fine on Friday. We flew from Ayacucho to Lima, then here to Cusco. I was a little worried because the girl I am seeing back home [View Full Entry]

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Tonight is my last night in Ayacucho. Well, that is IF my flights all go as planned. I ended up having a problem with my return flights being canceled on me, but I think I have it worked out. If anyone ever decides to book travel on Travelocity or Yahoo Travel, please reconsider! So this last week has been exciting, but not very productive. It has been extremely hard to achieve any progress with the students, or with anyone else in the community. Today is their Independence Day, but the celebrations have been going on throughout the week. There was no [View Full Entry]

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