My first "vacation"

Wow...its been two weeks since I've given you guys an update about whats going on down here. I am going to dedicate this entry to our first retreat as YAVs in Peru. It was my first trip outside of Lima and I really got to see some of the beauty of Peru that people are always talking about. Now I don't mean to say that I don't enjoy Lima, but you have to remember that I am a country boy from Mebane and I need some green trees and hills every now and then!

We were leaving on Sunday, so I got out of working that day even though we didn't leave until 10 pm. It was a two story bus with plenty of room and TVs so we could watch movies in Spanish. There were 4 of us leaving from Lima, 3 volunteers and the site coordinator. Its about an 8 hour trip to get to Huanuco, so we tried to sleep, but none of us volunteers had much luck. Ruth, being an experienced Peruvian bus traveler had no problem. We arrived in the small town of Ambo at about 6 the next morning with a van waiting on us to take us to our home for the week. The other 4 volunteers had arrived the night before so we waited for them to get up and have breakfast. And by waiting for them to get up I mean we talked really loud until they woke up. If we had to be up at 6...so did they.

Our first session was to basically bring everyone up to date on what we were going through, what our jobs were, how we were feeling, and of course our failures as Spanish speakers. It was good to see that I wasn't the only one struggling. In thinking back over my time here, I came to realize a few things about myself. The main thing is that I thought that just in coming here that my life was going to change. That in coming here my future was going to be clear and I was going to know exactly what my next step in life was and how I was to continue my walk with God. This has not been the case. I have had to learn, or i guess re-learn that God is in everything around me. Like in Elijah's story, God is not always in the earthquake or the hurricane or the fire, but sometimes just there in a whisper. Thats what I have to be looking for or I might miss out on the things that He is really trying to teach me and show me.

After the deep dive into ourselves, we went on a hike/tour around the place we were staying. It is an ecological farm that is run by the people at Paz y Esperanza (Peace and Hope). They have cows, guinea pigs, and lots of fruit. It is really a beautiful property. There is a house there that they have turned into a retreat center. It once belonged to a wealthy German who was forced to leave in the 80s when the terrorism was so bad there. The farm is surrounded by mountains so we took a stroll upwards and then also to a nearby town. All in all we probably walked for about 4 hours, this on about 2 hours of sleep.

The next day we headed into Huanuco where a fellow volunteer, Emily, is living for they year. Huanuco is the poorest region in Peru. We went to the Paz y Esperanza office where she works and walked around the city some. Their office does a lot of work with young girls that have been sexually abused in some way. They are working on a case now that has been on the national news here, an 8 year old girl who is 7 months pregnant. After arranging our bus rides back, we headed back to the farm for a new treat for most of us, cuy. Now for those of you who don't know spanish, cuy is guinea pig. I know that many of you have been waiting for this, probably more so than I have. I knew that it was coming. It really wasn't all that bad. It was cooked in kind of a peanut sauce and that was petty much the flavor of it. When it comes down to it, its just too much work for the little bit of meat that you get, that and it looks like half a rat on your plate! That afternoon we talked some about culture shock and all got prepared for when we will hate it here and hate everything about it, and then how to deal with that and move on. Then we had a rousing game of soccer. It was really nice to not be as horrible as I am when I play against Peruvians.

Our last day was a real treat, dispite having to get up before 6. We went on a 3 hour van ride to a national park called Tingo Maria. We spent about 45 minutes hiking almost straight up a mountain, we knew that out destination was a waterfall, but the image in my head did not even come close to how great it was and the photos don't do it justice. We were able to swim in it and just spend some time relaxing, and all of this was before lunch! After eating we had the chance to go visit a cave. There was some sort of owl-bird that lived there, but it was dark, and we couldn't see anything.

The trip was really great to reconnect with our YAV friends that had left Lima and just spend some time being able to process our experiences and talk with people in English. We get together again in November for Thanksgiving!

Here are some pictures from the trip!
http://unc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2076039&id=2717014&l=734c0

I'll try and upload some more pics later this week or next!