I had one of the best weekends of my life this weekend, along with some of the worst experiences. And to top it off, I am hurt, and might have to go to the doctor here :-( So I guess I¨ll start from the beginning. We left at 10:00pm on Friday night to drive to Paracas. There were 11 of us, plus a guide, his sister, and the driver. So 14 total, in a tiny van. We all thought it would be smart to take sleeping aids for the 6 hour drive, so we could just fall asleep and wake up [View Full Entry]

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I was just reading through the blogs and wanted to apologize to everyone about the grammer/wrong words/etc. I do run a spell check, but have never read any of them until now. So anyway, sorry if they are impossible to read. Also, sorry if I scared anybody (meaning, sorry Mom). I am fine. I do believe I have bruised a rib, but there´s nothing I could do about that even if I was in the States. I have pain killers now, and even though I don´t know what they are, they are made by Bristol Meyers...so I can trust them. Goodnight. [View Full Entry]

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Sorry if this is a little broken up, but I´m just going by my notes from the lecture: Between 1980-2000: 69,000 people were killed in the Ayacucho Highlands by both the Shining Path Movement and the military. The ones who lived, did so by fleeing the country. Recently the older people are coming back, but all the younger people have found better lives elsewhere and prefer not to come back. Shining Path was started in 1980 by a professor of philosophy at the university here in Ayacucho. His name was Guzman. The man who gave us this lecture was also a [View Full Entry]

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So today is Friday, and you could tell by how excited the kids were today. I don´t know why it´s such an exciting thing for them, being that they took yesterday off of school because there was a soccer game in town. Even though they were so excited about the weekend, we still have a great English lesson today. Yesterday I went to a few different placement s (since my kids were at soccer). It was nice to get around the town more and see what the other volunteers were doing. I now walk everywhere, instead of taking the bus. You [View Full Entry]

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Had my first day of school today. It was much more productive than I thought it would be. I taught a class of about 30 students English descriptions. We went over eye color, hair length, height, weight, etc. It became very interactive, and was a lot of fun. I think these kids are younger though, so maybe I was actually teaching at the primary school. I don't really know, because nobody speaks good English. Spanish is actually their 2nd language, as Quechua is their native tongue. After my first class we had recess where all the kids gathered around and bombarded [View Full Entry]

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I am here. I am tired. I am out of it. This morning was hell. Got to the airport at 330am, running on 1 hour sleep. Julie did not have a flight, but I did. We ended up dealing with it. She had to buy a one way ticket. When we got here everyone was eating breakfast and getting ready for their first day at their placement. I went straight to bed and slept until noon. The house is much different than the one in Tanzania. It is actually more hotel style, with all the rooms in the same building, and [View Full Entry]

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I could not sleep at all last night. I seriously found myself online responding to work e-mails about how to manage the channel business at midnight. What a pathetic way to spend a night in Lima! But this morning I was up at the crack of dawn, and on the road to exploring the massive city of Lima. Julie met me at my hotel around 9am just as I was finishing breakfast. Our tour guide picked us up shortly after, and we were on our way. We went to an archeological site on the southern border of Lima. This site has [View Full Entry]

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Julie, a friend that I met in Tanzania last year, is stuck here until Tuesday with me! There are also two other girls that are stuck here as well, but we don't know where they are. So Julie came and woke me up today and we walked out to the main strip. There were thousands of people around and the streets were blocked off. I guess they are celebrating their Independence Day this weekend, even though the real Independence Day is not until July 28th. The parade was just getting started this afternoon, and has been going well into the night. [View Full Entry]

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Somehow I have made it to Peru, but my luggage went back to San Francisco. I guess it got fed up and decided to go home. I would normally be pretty upset about this, but I'm not really in a normal state of mind right now. Things just can't really get to me anymore. I seriously considered staying and volunteering at LAX for 2 weeks instead of coming down here. They could really use the help. And I was already prepared to teach conversational English and computer basics, and I think the majority of the employees there could greatly benefit from [View Full Entry]

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I left my house 12 hours ago and I have only made it as far as LAX! My flight out of SFO was delayed, and I missed my connection to Costa Rica. So in other words, I am screwed. I tried to sleep on the floor at LAX last night, but it didn't quite work out. I would've gotten a hotel, but by the time I realized I was screwed in was 2:00am and the ticket counters opened at 5:00am this morning, so I decided to stay. United now has me on a flight to JFK at 1:00 this afternoon, connecting [View Full Entry]

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