"Stop, Drop, and Roll"

We have been so busy these last two weeks I hardly even know where to begin.  I am currently back in the convent in Lima, enjoying a few precious moments of free time. Since the students arrived last Thursday it has been a constant go go go. Students? Lima? What am I doing you may ask yourself. So remember in February when Larry was the only one to respond to the plethera of emails I sent out, and we were lucky enough to work with his contact here? Yes, no? Maybe? Well we have actually been working with Larry and the other wonderufl people involved in his organization Solidarity in Action. The organization takes 30 college students to Peru to do volunteer work. (They also are going to Ecuador this year). A totally new experience.  Jana and I are kind of in this limbo area. We are not really part of the students group, but we are not trip leaders either. Sometimes we take on leadership roles, but other times we go with the current of the students. It has been interesting.  It is a totally new dynamic being responsible for the experience that others are having. Trying to help them cope with what they are seeing, and give them the opportunity to thrive in an uncomfortable and new environment. Larry set up several different volunteer placement sites for the students, including Cerrito Azul (the school for mentally disabled children), Cristo Rey (teaching English), the orphanage where Jana and I spent most of our time in February, a clinic, a daycare, and a couple other projects including a day of a health campaign of which Jana and I did a lot of in February. I bounced around but was at the clinic for two of the four days with two students to my charge. These students had no medical training or even interest for that matter. The first day, student number one almost passed out when the nurse was trying to start an IV and later made a newborn almost aspirate while feeding her her second bottle of her life (the baby´s second bottle. this was the first time student number one had held a baby). Both of these events happened for the 5 seconds I was not in the room. Student number two we ended up giving IV meds for a really bad reaction to the sun and or sunscreen. Not really sure. Lesson on how to give IV meds in a clinic (nurses will appreciate this, the rest of you, try and keep up):  1. Break glass ampules  2. draw up meds without filter needle and undiluted 3. change to smaller needle (woo hoo!!!) 4. tie off arm like you are going to start an IV  5. place needle with meds attacthed directly into vein 6. undo turnakit 7. inject meds directly into vein.  For those of you who cannot picture this, it´s basically like shooting up (so I´ve heard). Something we would never do in the states, but a very effective and efficient process. All and all the clinic was a pretty good experience, but the students were unfortunately not able to do that much other than observe. 

I am having trouble organizing my thoughts at this point in time so I am going to refer to the bullet method of writing and hope I do not offend anyone by the sloppiness.  Two weeks is a long time, espeically when everyday feels like three.

- Saturday.  We did a dental hygeine campaign in the shantytown called Pacifico. We showed up all bright and ready at 9am and the building was closed where we were supposed work. So we move to the "soccer field," by which I mean flat dirt area, and no one was there, except for the people we brought (we brought a bus with 40 kids from Clara´s orphange and the surrounding community). We had told the town´s president several days (weeks?!) in advance that we were doing a campaign with FREE toothbrushes and toothpaste, but still nobody showed. So we waited around, played soccer, freeze tag, and so on, and somehow Larry rounded up some more people so we began. Sang a song, did some demonstrations, gave away some supplies, a dentist actually cleaned some teeth.  After all that, we took the 40 kids from the orphange and another 40 kids from the community (Pacifico) to a park.  There we were each given three kids to look after for the next four hours or so. My kids were older, 5,8 & 16. Piece of cake, self sufficeint. Others were not so lucky. Some of the students were running around frazzled, chasing toddlers, trying to mime actions at 6-year-olds who are yelling in Spanish, while holding five juice boxes and three backpacks.  Everyone kept in good spirits and the day was an overall success. Lots of happy, exhausted kids and adults. The best part of the day was seeing Clara sitting in the grass relaxing. She is always doing 1000 different things and has 10 kids hanging off her at all times.

-Machu Picchu. We went with the group to Cusco, to see Machu Picchu and do some other things. We rode on an AIRPLANE! We got really cheap tickets and decided to take the opportunity. Jana has been to Machu Picchu before, but hiked the trail for four days so didn´t really get a chance to enjoy it. I obviously had not seen it before. So we woke up at 3am, got in a car, drove for an hour and a half, waited for the train, rode train for an hour and a half, arrived to Aguascalientes, got on a bus for 10 minutes and arrived! Machu Picchu was amazing. There are better words to describe the experience, but they are not coming to me at the moment. A few of us did the hour long hike to the sun gate, which is the last part of the Inca trail before you come into Machu Picchu. A few interesting things. One of the temples has two windows in it. In one window, the sun shines through it perfectly the dawn of the summer equinox. The other window, the same for the winter equinox. Pretty amazing. A theme for the Incas was three windows.  One window represents "heaven," or the Incan version of heaven. The other represents the earth, or present life. The last window represents the underworld.  Interesting. Seeing Machu Piccu was an incredible/spiritual experience and I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to go there.  We bought our train tickets apart from the rest of the group, so Jana, Jenna, Javier (so many Js!! Just realized!), and I stayed in Aguascalientes until 9:45 and didn´t get back to the hostal until 12:30am. We were pooped. We luckily were able to sleep in a little bit the next day.

-I got a manicure, pedicure, and my hair straightened for $10

-This entry is kind of stinky. I´m not sure if it´s because I am tired, or I can´t put into words everything I have seen and experienced these last two weeks. Mybe it´s the dramimine. I suppose time will tell.

"That might save my skin, but it won´t save my soul."