Summarizing a week.

I am alive and well for all those worrying about my whereabouts. I arrived back to lima on Sunday after a 16 hour bus trip from the mountains of Peru. While this sounds like a tough trip, I will say I was riding on one of the nicest buses I have ever seen. I can only imagine it was similar to flying first class in a plane, but the backs of the chairs reclined almost all the way. We were even entertained to 27 dresses (for the 2 second time on this trip) and the award winning movie “phat girls”. Could you ask for better entertainment?? Yeah, I did not think so.

So, for those of you not up to date on Peruvian cities, I will tell you Cajamarca is known for great cheese and meat. Needless to say I did have the need to test these rumors. I will assure you that they are in fact true. They also have quite tasty coffee and coconut ice cream.

Activities of the week included visiting several sites of current volunteers, interviewing many community members, and working in the school systems. In groups, taught classes on self esteem and English. It was very interesting to stand in front of a class, and attempt to explain English phrases, in Spanish. Definitely a new experience.

This week I am looking forward to Spanish training, because it is obvious I am not fluent yet. But, my family did tell me yesterday after an hour of conversation, that they were not struggling to understand what I am saying!! Poco a poco (baby steps). So that was a bit of a pick me up.

I completed the second interview for my volunteer placement. I am completely clueless where I will be place in Peru, but I do know that I will find out at the end of next week. After the interview I officially had a bit of a freak-out, but now I am just stoked to find out and go. I really want to get started learning about my new community.

As might be inferred, life is VERY busy. So I will try and post more soon. I will also scrounge for some more pictures at some point. I keep praying for ya’ll of you keep praying for me.

Peace and Blessings,

Tim.