No solid night´s rest...

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And...I´m here.

This has been such a tiring last two days! So, I left Birmingham at roughly 7am, arriving at the airport at about 530. From there, I made my way to Dallas, then Miami, and finally a 6 hour leg with a two hour delay to Lima, Peru. I got into Lima around 11pm and proceeded to stay awake until boarding my final flight to Ayacucho. The waiting wasn´t all that bad. Of course, I was exhausted, so the tile floors I sat on for 4 hours might not have been as comfortable as I thought they were. I got to experience some quality sleep deprivation with my new volunteer friends.

I have met some good people. It was a group of 27 of us that flew from Lima to Ayacucho together in two very small planes. (Seriously, when we walked into it, my back was parallel to the ceiling because of my not-so-Peruvian height, and they handed me a pair of ear plugs. I sat next to the propeller on the puddle jumper.) But the people have been great. At first, not everyone could find each other, and so I was in a group of all girls and all the guys (from West Point) were in another group. But, contrary to my expectations, when we met, I was not completely emasculated on account of my lack of military experience...or gym experience for that matter.
But today, despite the fatigue, has been great. I got to the house and slept for a bit. Went to buy a calling card. Spoke in Spanish. Check. Good start. But after that, word got out that there was a bull fight going on. Um, of course I´ll go. So there was a huge parade that took us up these really windy and narrow roads until we reached an "arena" and found our seats. It looked more like a rock quarry where people liked to sit with their dogs, kids, and beers. But it ended up being pretty good. For all you animal enthusiast, no bull was killed. But a man was gored in the back. An intense welcome to Ayacucho.

So now I´m headed to dinner. After that, I´ll probably hang out in the Plaza and then sleep a solid set of consecutive hours. It will be glorious. Well, orientation is tomorrow and work is Tuesday. Stay tuned for more. Keep me in your prayers. I will certainly need them. I miss all of you.

Juan

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Comments

[Jenna]

Sounds great, Juan! When do you want to meet at Machu Picchu? :-)

[Mom]

Bull Fight???
That is quite an event for your first day in Peru! Keep us posted. We miss you. Aunt Cindy asks to be added to your auto-post for the blog. I will send you her address by email.