acmcgin
Alana McGinty Joined: December 10th 2008
Logged in: January 3rd 2009
Logged in: January 3rd 2009
Travel Blog Posts
Today we woke up very excited for another day of service. We got on the bus, arrived early at the other home only to find out we were going to have to wait an hour for a bus to take us to our site. Once the bus arrived, the childcare people were all quite excited to see our children again. How our service works is half of the day we are in the three different sites, and then in the afternoon we meet up and go to the community center where everyone else is working. We realized once we began to go up into the mountains that we were going straight to the community center. This was confusing because we were supposed to go to the orphanages but the combi driver (combi is what they call ... read more
Last night we went to the plaza for the Ano Nuevo celebration. It was slightly nerve racking because we took seperate taxis there with no good way of getting in touch with each other. We got there fine though we all met up and some of us decided to walk around. We took a walk around the plaza and got asked to buy many different cheap souvenirs. Yellow is the color of luck so they had yellow necklaces and yellow confetti, and 2009 glasses. I bought the glasses and the necklace. It was fun and crazy, we obviously were not drinking, but everyone else there was good and drunk. Everyone was setting off fireworks all over and having a good time. A girl go me to pay her dos soles (soles is the currency in Peru) ... read more
1st day of service was a blast! The childcare group was split into three groups in the morning - my group which is Emily, Kristin, and Anita went to a boys and girls orphanage. The other groups worked at an all irls orphanage and with special needs children. The moment we walked into the orphanage the children ran up to us and welcomed us with hugs. They also wanted to know our names, and they quized me on knowing theirs (I did badly). We took some of the smaller ninos to the park and played futbol. We also played "lift me up so i can hang off the goal post" and "spin me around" OVER AND OVER. Once you did one thing with one, they ALL had to do it too. It was very fun, even ... read more
After starting our journey yesterday at 2pm and beginning flights at 6pm and not stopping until 9am this morning we are now FINALLY in Cusco! It was quite an exhausting travel, but I am so excited to be here. We arrived and were driven off to the Maximo Nivel (that´s the orginization we are volunteering through)school for orientation. Everyone was pretty out of it myself included. All i could think about was sleep. We arrived at our home which is about 20 minutes away from Maximo Nivel and the other half of us. Our home stay is amazing, we are with a very nice family Lise, Ivan, Patrick, and Gabriel. Patrick is 12 and knows a little bit of English. Gabriel is 9 and doesn´t but is SO CUTE. We played cards with them and it ... read more
There are 19 DAYS until my big trip to Cuzco Peru! At this point I've gotten my Hepatitis A shot (which made my arm hurt for three days btw), and only have one more Typhoid Fever pill left to take (I didn't have any horrible side effects like the pharmacist made me believe I would). Now I'm just waiting and freaking out that I'm leaving so soon, and still feel like I have NO IDEA what to expect! I'm very very excited, slightly nervous (but not really), and anxious! I think all of those emotions will only be getting magnified as I get closer to the actual departure date! I wanted to say thank you to everyone who helped me both in financial and emotion support. It means a lot to me to know that I ... read more
