Whew! After a long, long day of traveling I've made it! I got into Lima last night around 11pm after a layover in Miami. I met up with the other students working here and we sat in a 24 hour cafe waiting for our 5:15am flight. Finally got our tickets and boarded the plane to Ayacucho. Needless to say, our heads were nodding the whole flight but we got to watch the sunrise over the Andes as the pilot somehow landed the plane admist all the mountain peaks. We met up with our in-country staff leader, Rudy, who took us to "home base," the house in town that we will be staying in. We had some breakfast and took an hour nap. We dragged ourselves out of bed and walked throughout the town. It's so beautiful here despite the obvious poverty. Everyone is so friendly and little kids kept running up to us for high five's and to try out their English skills. After our walk we had some lunch of rice, vegetables, and some of the best chicken I've ever had and went to bed for a 4 hour nap. We got up and had dinner and now are just relaxing, trying to adjust to the high altitudes (which really takes a lot out of you!) and the slight time adjustment. Tomorrow we have orientation early in the morning and will be going to our worksites.
I am so excited to be here and love the other volunteers so far! Everywhere we look in this town is beautiful, as the peaks of the Andes are on all sides of us. The people are so friendly but I would definitely suggest reading about the Shining Path movement, as it's clear that it really wreaked havoc on this town and it's still trying to recover from that time in its history. I was saddended to hear that Cross Cultural Soluti0ns will be shutting down it's Ayacucho location in August due to the struggling economy and lack of volunteers. It's easy to forget that our American economic issues have such a direct impact on towns like this.
I miss my family and friends but really believe that this trip is going to be an eye opening experience. Feel free to email me at kmdight@gmail.com with any questions!
Miss you all!
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