Had a delightful breakfast in the room this morning at eightish, then headed down to meet Kate and Max, two more students, and Patricia. I guess Laura had a hang up in Atlanta and coulnd´t catch her flight! Sad day. Oh, and Gabriella, who will be teaching a couple courses on field photography !!! Sweet. Kate is a grad student in Denver. She did 6 months of her undergrad in Southern Africa doing a social justice thing! How awesome. Max is pretty quiet. He is Costa Rican and lives in Lexington, Kentucky! Wicked. So yeah, we all walked down to Patricia´s office, which is a ways away, but a nice walk, and did an orientation. She is really focused on experiential learning, applied anthro as opposed to traditional academic anthro. Also PAR-Participatory Action Research, which involves ... read more

I met Claire finally, when I found the cab driver, which was nice, because as independent as I like to seem, being alone in a foreign country is a little scary, and it is nice to know someone. Tried to rent a cell for the trip but my credit card didn´t work...not sure what that was about! Barranco´s Backpacker´s Inn is delightfull! Very colorful and no bed bugs! We slept in a 3 bunk bed room (all beds full) and fell asleep to snores. Delightful (no sarcasm implied)! Got up, had a good shower, and breakfast, then walked down to the beach, which is really close. Down, and up, lotrs of steps though! A lot of the windows we passed were broken and closed up by bricks. I think the thing I will miss most about ... read more

Hola! Been a while, I know :) I am in Carhuaz in Peru right under the Cordillera Blanco, in a valley between the Cordillera Blanco and the Cordillera Negro. It is absalutely beautiful here, and we{ve already been very busy. I´m pretty impressed by how much spanish i´m understanding, since i have only one semester of it, but necessity is great. We had a wonderful class yesterday about local herbal medecines from a man who has been a practicing herbalist and midwife here for the last 50 years, Don Pancho. He was incredible! We also have spanish lessons every night and have had a few photogrphy classes. Our prof (Dr. Hammer) practices applid anthropology, so we are learning thru experience, which is cool. She has been here for 30 or so years and her projects here ... read more

June 9th We woke up at 6:30 this morning and were ready to set out for Petra at 7. We crossed the border very easily, although it definitely took more time than I am used to! Lol. I guess this is one of three open border crossings in Israel, and we are going to a second tomorrow!I was certainly more than a little wary of handing over my passport to a very nice man named Osama with just a reassurance that I would get it back if I waited by the Cafe/gift shop for half an hour or so. But I got it back, we all did, and we got on a little bus, drove into Accaba, changed to a bigger bus, drove around Accaba for a while looking at the sites and hearing about the ... read more

June 6th Today was a gloriously free day. I had breakfast and went straight to the beach, but I forgot my bathing suit, so I waded around a bit, bought a delicious iced coffee for the use of a beach chair, and went back for lunch. And then returned to the beach. Of course. This time I remembered my suit and dove out into the waves. So much fun, though very salty. Had another iced coffee, took a ton of photos, including one of a dude with an Elvis hairstyle who was playing a guitar and singing Johnny Cash. It was awesome. We went back to meet at the hostel for an evening walking tour of Tel Aviv, which was pretty sweet. The guy who took us knew a lot about the history, from a secular ... read more