Christmas in Pucallpa Dec 08 to Jan 09

After meeting up with Andrew in Lima, we headed to Pucallpa on an evening flight. We were greeted in the pucallpa airport by a MASS of people, I think there were lik 15 people just waiting for me and Andrew. We headed to the Lucas' house to chill out and get settled in to our rooms where we would stay the rest of the month that we were there.


We went to BBC, a bible center for Shipibos, to give out gifts with the missionary kids to the shipibos.


Dick and I can be goofy on occasion... this was at Receka's house, I had the worst allergic reaction in my life to the dust in her house.


Amy and Kara were in their church's musical. I arrived late though..because Dick was in a major motorcycle accident.


Just before heading to Amy's play, we received a call from Solomon in the hospital telling us that Dick had been in a bad accident and had hit his head hard on the pavement. I called my friend Rebeka to go with me to the hospital to visit him and when we arrived, he was hardly conscious. He doesn't remember anything that happened that day but basically when I arrived they had already given him stitches, bandaged up his head and were about to give him an injection to help prevent infection. He had a really strong reaction to the medicine and was vomiting for quite some time and then finally could rest for a while. Rebeka and I headed to Amy's play but were late because we didn't want to leave Dick until he started to look better.

He's a little melodramatic about death... those who know him well know exactly what I'm talking about. One day, however, he was laying there just like in this picture with all of us around (it might've even been that day) and he was pretty quiet until his eyes sprung open and he hastily said "sorry, sorry, sorry!!" and whamm he ripped a big, loud fart and everyone laughed hysterically.

This is the emergency room entrance, the two christmas trees in the corners both had those lights that play christmas jingles but they were on different songs at the same time and it was really annoying while we waited to see Dick.

We went out to San Jose and he let me drive his 4wheeler a little bit. We didn't do much because we weren't wearing helmets or much of anything protective.

On Christmas day, John let me use his motorcycle and taught me how to drive it. It was pretty easy to learn because it was a light bike, like 250cc or something

We helped Monica and her husband move into their new house, those boys had fun loading all the stuff and climbing all over the truck

This is Monica with her baby in their new house, she actually just had a second baby girl. She is one of my favorite peruvian ladies, she is so understanding of my inability to say some things (especially during this trip my spanish wasn't really the best..)

Christmas day, our official Christmas day picture with the Lucas. They take this same picture every year and have a whole photo album dedicated to just this picture setup. Minori (the mom) has changed quite a bit over the years, she isn't in this picture however.

While Dick was in the hospital recovering for a week, we had fun swimming in Yarina lake with our buddies. This is Amy and Rebeka

Andrew got reallllly sunburnt. He needs to learn to wear sunscreen.

Gerardo then let me take out his 600cc motorcycle (wearing proper gear of course) and we hit up what I call the turtle pavilion in the nearby Shipibo village called San Fransisco

We, unfortunately, got REALLY stuck in the mud. This kind of mud is the kind that sticks like crazy and sucks your shoe right off of your foot. So just imagine the mud buildup on the tire.. we ended up having to call his friend to come pick us up and drive the 4 miles out of this mud. In his 4wheel drive truck it was a little bit iffy at times.

Some of these pictures are a little out of order.. this was actually Christmas eve, the day Dick got out of the hospital. In Peru, they celebrate Christmas on the 24th and visit each other all day. Then at night they have a nice dinner with friends and relatively, shoot off fireworks (the small ones that just make a lot of noise and let out a small flash). Then at midnight they all go out in the street and greet each other. If they exchange gifts, they do so at midnight. Most families don't have money to spend on gifts, like Dick and his brother didn't get a present and he didn't get anything for his parents or brother. He thought it would be funny to wear angel wings all night.. I dunno hehe. We danced a little bit too, but don't tell anyone cause it's strictly forbidden in their church. opps.

My favorite picture of me, Dick and Rebeka on Christmas

Raul and Andrew by the Christmas tree that they assembled on the 24th and take down on the 25th... why they have Christmas trees like this in the middle of the jungle is strange to me, it's also funny that they only put them up for about 24 hours.

New years eve everyone wears a ton of bright yellow. They have whole stands dedicated to yellow stuff, yellow underwear, hats, shirts, everything

I celebrated it with the missionaries. I'm pretty sunburnt in this picture... I spent too much time in a park without realizing how much sun I was getting.

We played with sparklers and Andrew had a setting on his camera to draw things with the light. it was pretty cool

John took us out in his boat through the thicker park of the stream, we had troubel getting into this section at first but persistence paid off. It was really neat back there. I think it would've been especially cool in a small kayak like the native's use.

John's boat in route to the lake which feeds into the stream. It's so gorgeous in Caimito

Just hanging out with at Dick's house with his cousin, neighbor and brother.

We went on an excursion to Dick's grandparent's house out in the more remote area. His grandpa is an 'ecological engineer' and does a lot with the forest and so forth. This is Andrew with Cucu hehe, cucu (real name is kenneth) is like Andrew's favorite

This is Dick with his little grandfather. Dick and I are the same height so you can only imagine how tall his gpa is. He's so used to mosquitos that they would land all over him and it wouldn't even phase him.

Andrew turned 21 so we had a big surprise party for him, everyone had to dress up as a superhero. I think that Dick is a flintstone's character (not a real superhero) and Kyle is like the math wizard or something (also not a real superhero). It was mroe of a costume party anyway

Even Dick's parents came, this is me and Andrew with Berita and Raul. Raul never looks at the camera...

They smashed Andrew's face into the cake. This is such a cute little picture of drewdrewbear

Andrew with Miss America and Miss Peru (both raised in Pucallpa their whole lives).

We got him a spiderman pinata. There's a funny video of him trying to knock it down and failing

Saying goodbye... we had to leave Pucallpa but we knew we would go back again someday

Divine Redeemer Scholarship Fund

As many of you know, I have safely arrived back to the States, just a few days late. We all recieved emergency passports and shortened our debriefing in Charlotte, NC with the staff members from SAM.

Upon returning to the United States, I was overwhelmed by how much I pay for college compared to my new Peruvian friends and their peers, and just the degree to which they struggle to find the means to pay for education. My culture shock prompted me to form the Divine Redeemer Scholarship Fund (DRSF) to address the need for financial aid among Divine Redeemer Church’s college aged students. The goal of the fund is to provide opportunities for Peruvians to attend universities and trade schools while minimizing the stress of tuition costs. The organization is based at the Divine Redeemer Church which I attended this summer on the trip. Finances also extend to individuals at their several sister churches and others in the community.

It has been an amazing few months developing this organization. Here in the US, I am in charge of raising money. I have spoken with several churches about donating, many of which have expressed interest in providing support. My home church, Christ United Methodist Church, has been overwhelmingly willing to help in any way they can. The money heads to a bank account in Miami which has branches in Pucallpa and then a committee of 5 Divino Redentor members are in charge of making decisions concerning how much and to whom the scholarship are given. The 5 members include John and Minori Lucas (the missionary couple who took care of us this summer), Pastor Abel, Noemi the youth leader, and the church's treasurer. With the help of a very large check cut this week, the organization now has $2000 to give out in scholarships. Though that does not seem to be very much in the context of our culture, tuition in Pucallpa averages only $300 per semester.

The people of Pucallpa really won me over while I was there and it only took about 2 weeks to decide that I wanted to go back over December break. I will be leaving December 13th, spending Christmas and New Years there, and returning January 13th. Due to recently reaching our financial target for the scholarship fund, the DRSF committee members and I will meet in Pucallpa within the first week of the trip and decide on how to divvy out the fund's first scholarships. On the rest of the trip, I will be spending time teaching English with Minori, going to Oansa (the equivolent of our "Awana") to spend time with the youth of the church, and a variety of other things.

The past few days have been an absolute fiasco and at the same time, amazing. I looked at the ticket confirmation for my tickets to Peru, which I thought I had purchased for Sat Dec 13th but apparently I had bought them for Wed Dec 03, which is off by just ONE DIGIT! So I immediately called the hotline for American Airlines, they determined it was my fault and said it would cost $700 to correct this error. The woman I spoke with had an accent and was hard to understand, so I thought that we were miscommunicating and that it wouldn't be that much. But, I called back a second time and spoke with a different woman who said there would be a hefty fee. Instead of dealing with it that way, I went to the Pittsburgh airport to settle this knowing that they are always nicer and more willing to help in person. When I got there, absolutely no one was in line and I walked up to a really nice young lady. I said "I bought my tickets for what I thought was the 13th but on my confirmation it says the 3rd" and she's like "ok no problem, let me see." So I showed her, she did a bunch of typing, and then said "is an overnight flight from miami to lima on the 13th ok?" And I'm like "yeah that's perfect." She printed out my tickets and said "ok, you are all set" and I paid NOTHING. I thought I would have to pay a ridiculous amount but it all worked out, amazingly.

This will be the first year that I will not be home for Christmas, which is a really strange feeling but it will be really neat to spend Christmas and New Years in another country. I'm really looking forward to the trip, I just have to finish all my projects and tests this week. I will be posting here like I did this summer, feel free to follow along :)

Getting to Peru, Dec 13 - Jan 13

I'm REALLY far behind with this blog! I'm further behind than I was thinking.... so I suppose I need to back up as far back as 10-11 months ago or so:

Before I even left Pucallpa in the summer, I had decided to return during my December break. In September I started the scholarship fund and so that became part of my agenda for heading back, and I really wanted to see my friends and spend time in the church and with the Lucases again. September through November the scholarship fund collected a significant sum of money and by the time I arrived in December, various organizations had donated over $2,000 and I was really excited to form the committee which would give out the scholarships in Pucallpa.

I bought my tickets for the day after school ended (December 13th) returning a few days after school started again (January 13th). WELLL, at least I thought I bought the tickets for December 13th....


Over Thanksgiving break, mom and I were looking over the itinerary for my upcoming flights and I saw that it said "wednesday" instead of saturday for my day of departure which wasn't right and then I rechecked the dates and it said December 3rd! NOT the 13th! So after a period of great panic, I called the airline's hotline and explained the mistake and asked what I should do about it. Naturally, the airline tried to suck out every bit of money they possibly could and said there would be a $200 penalty for changing an international flight and then I would have to purchase a new ticket. Grand total: over $700 which would've been more than my original tickets....


Feeling even more panicked, I called everyone I knew who was even remotely travel savvy but it seemed like there was no way to avoid this penalty. Everyone seemed to come to the conclusion that I would just have to pay the consequence... I would be heading back to Geneva pretty soon and decided that a 45 minute drive to the Pittsburgh airport might be worth a shot. I figured that they had to be nicer in person because when I had trouble flying to Costa Rica the year before, the front counter was where I was able to fix my flights.



Nevertheless, I spent a good portion of that day praying hard because I really felt drawn to go back and didn't have the budget to be making this mistake. The next day (sunday), I went to church at Christ United Methodist wanting to thank Laura Kline for her help in donating money to the scholarship fund from the leftover undesignated mission committee budget. Before I could tell what was going on, Laura said something to the effect of: "yeah, it's no big deal! We had a lot of money left over and decided to spread it out over several ministries and it's just so great that we can help you. AND there's money in the education fund that we are looking to use before the end of the year for missions so if you want to go on a mission trip soon to like hondurus or the dominican republic and would need money, we would LOVE to sponsor you!"


I couldn't believe the coincidence and said "Well, actually...." and told her what had happened the day before. I was absolutely shocked, she said that there was $600 in that extra fund and was overwelmingly willing to have me use it. I felt really embarrassed to take it though because it was my error and the church didn't need to cover up my mistake. Erin Corne told me not to be embarrassed to take the money but I decided I should still go down to the airport and see if I could get the tickets fixed any cheaper, knowing that the goal of the people on the phone is to get all your money and the people at the ticket counter is to fix problems.


I borrowed my friend Chito's car the day we returned to school and went down to the pittsburgh airport december 1st (cutting it pretty close). I dressed up as innocently-looking as possible, had everything with me that they could possibly want to see and prayed HARD before heading out. To my surprise, when I arrived at the American Airlines counter, there was absolutely no one in line and the girl at the counter was about 25, really sweet and couldn't be more perfect for the occasion. She didn't look upset or annoyed from earlier in the shift or anything. I said, "I bought my tickets for what I thought was the 13th but in my email confirmation it shows december 3rd." She asked to see the papers and I waited for her to ask me anymore questions, but all she asked was "You said the 13th right?" and "Is an overnight flight from Miami to Lima ok?" A few minutes of typing and she looked up at me and said "alright, you're all set" and I tried to keep my cool but I was bursting with excitment. I asked her if there was any type of new confirmation that I could have and she said that she was printing the tickets right then and there. I was jumping up and down inside with excitment, honestly, thinking about it makes me all giddy even though this happened almost a year ago.

All in all it cost a grand total of $1.50 in tolls and 1/2 hour parking fee! Lesson to learn here: go to the ticket counter if you have an issue. American Airlines has saved me twice now and both times that is how I fixed my problem.


The mission committee still gave me the $600, most of which I felt bad using on myself so I gave about $450 of it away and spent the rest on tickets to and from Pucallpa. I flew from Pittsburgh to Miami and then flew from Miami to Lima where I met up with Andrew (from the summer trip) and spent the day with my buddy Joseph. At night, Andrew and I headed out from Lima to Pucallpa and I don't believe I've ever been more excited/giddy in my whole life as I was when we approached and finally landed in Pucallpa.

















My buddy Joseph




















Andrew, the robo foco claun

Joseph is insane

July 27, staying in Peru

hello all,
I just wanted to update everyone on the current happenings: on our last day in Lima and the country, our passports were left in a taxi by accident. That happened to be a sunday and so the embassy was closed, today (monday) is Peru´s independence day so today and tomorrow the embassy is closed as well. We are going on wednesday to get this all cleared up and we have new reservations to leave thursday night. None of us were inicially upset by this because we realize it´s a mistake that anyone could make, but it has become inconvenient for a few of my teammates. I personally don´t mind staying here, I love Peru and it´s kinda cool to see how they celebrate their independence day. My leader, who left the passports in the taxi, is really torned up about the whole situation, this whole trip has gone smoothly except for this incidence. I personally think that God has a funny sense of humor and had a hand in this, I´m honestly not upset at all.

Besides this, we´ve been up and down the coast and into the mountains in the past few weeks. A few days ago we hiked to a glacier lake in the Andes near Huaraz, which had the most brilliant blue color. The only problem was how very cold it was compared to the 95 degree jungle weather. We also went to Puerto Supe to meet up with a few missionaries, talk, tour, see a bunch of ruins, and hold a service. I gave my testimony, first time in front of people I think, Liz did too and we sang a few songs. The next day we painted a room in the cafe they run as part of their ministry. Unfortunately we put on a layer of paint and it began to chip so we had to scrap the whole room, we did an inicial scrap but i guess the underlying layer was bad, as soon as it got wet it would peal, bummer. We are now in Lima hanging out until thursday, we´ve seen batman and hancock, and we were able to go shopping in the Inca market. I guess that´s all for now, it´s kinda late, I just wanted to update everyone on why I´m still here.

I´m planning on hosting a quasi-party for whoever wants to experience Peruvian food, see pictures and hear all about the trip, I´m thinking it will be on a saturday or sunday in the next few weeks, contact me if you would like more information. Cuidate, Dios les bendiga ustedes

July 9, Jungle Flights

I meant to add all this earlier but didn´t have time/I forgot so I´m just gonna update now.
Since I´ve been studying aviation with the intent of taking it to the mission field, John and Minori arranged for me to take a flight with SAMair which is SAM´s mission aviation organization. Sierra, a modelesque navajo young woman, and I went with Craig, a 50 ish year old whose father started SAMair. We went from Queshibo to Sepoua (I need to check on the spellings for both of those) which is about 1hr 45min ride, to pick up two gringo missionaries and their peruvian friend (btw, gringo is not a harsh term, it just means white). When we picked them up, they told us that that same 2hr flight would be a two day boat trip followed by a two day truck trip. Let me tell you how incredibly long and probably uncomfortable that would be. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous here, there are little Shipibo villages sprinkled along various lakes and rivers. This area, unlike the Andes, is very very flat so the rivers flood the Shipibo villages every year. This is currently the dry season, so we took a wheel plane and landed on a very nice gravel runway. I really enjoyed the flight, Craig let me fly for an hour on the way back, how totally cool. This flying experience was several weeks ago actually but we also got to take the float plane up just the other day.

Everyone else from the team didn´t get to go with me that day to Sepoua and so this time they all got the opportunity to go up in the plane and fly around Pucallpa. David, the mid twenties pilot, took us up in the float plane and towards the end did some zero gravity pushes. Everyone´s stomach jumped except mine and David´s, i think, but it was really cool to see everyone´s glasses float up to their faces haha, never seen that before. A while ago, off the same lake we did this flight, John brought his boat and I got to go water skiing.

This whole trip has been full of totally amazing experiences but what´s more than those is the way my heart has been changing. The people here inspire me, especially the younger ones I mentioned earlier; they are some of the most talented, hardworking, amazing people I´ve ever met and it has slapped me across the face to think that I´ve had soooo mannny opportunities handed to me that I let breeze by and don´t take hold of as my own (in terms of education and work) while the people here have so little but are completely passionate and determined and good at the things they do. I came to Perú rather down with a lackluster perspective on a lot of things but I feel a change. When I return to the States, I hope I don´t give right back into complacency and comfort but that I would challenge myself to be like those Shipibos who were incredibly hospitable and kind, or that I would not settle for doing an okay half-hearted job at anything. I want to return to Perú in the winter and see these amazing people again, I have no idea how I will pay for it, but I´m sure it will work out. I wish that anyone and everyone reading this would have an experience that touches their hearts to want to be a better person, to live better and for the sake of loving others. When giving a testimony (which I did earlier this trip), it is very easy to carp on the old hurts or less than perfect experiences of childhood and adolescence and think that it defines our lives but our life comes from the joy of our hearts, from peace and deep love which manifests itself to others. Our life is that pulse in our chests which convicts us to do what is right, to care for one another, and walk humbly and peacefully with others. I´ve discovered it to be ironic that sometimes those who have gone through the least could be the harshest and most frustratable and that others find a life within themselves amoung hard circumstances. One guy, a hilarious, athletic, talented Peruvian fellow, has an alcoholic abusive father, drug addicted brothers, one brother in jail, he lives in poverty and has no money but he never ceases to smile and sing (song after song like a jukebox), somehow he is immune to it all. I have not gone through what he has but during the harder times of my life I have felt that same immunity or tolerance or endurance, probably endurance is the best word here. On this trip I have truly begun to grasp in my heart that God and I are buddies and He will be the only person,thing,being who will never leave me. He is that endurance and immunity for me, the reason to hum as I work and smile all the time. Over the last couple years, I let that goofy joyful person I used to be slip away for reasons I can explain to people who really want to know, but now, slowly but surely I am being refilled and trying to assist in refilling others. It is my prayer that people would find it within themselves to quit exasperating others.

July 7th, around pucallpa and the ucayali river

Wow, so much has happened since I last posted. We have been doing kids programs with skits and correography for the past couple weeks. We have a particularly hilarious clown skit in which we are trying to get to Heaven using a balloon, mattress and finally a superhero, me, ´superchica´which is really fun to act in. The kids, and their parents, laugh quite a bit at the skit. I really enjoy the opportunity to act in Spanish, it´s muy chevere. My Spanish was pretty bad at first because quite frankly I´m a lot worse at it than I thought but I can understand a lot more now which is really nice. I´m becoming very close to Victor and Dick, Victor even wrote me a little song haha. A few weeks ago, I learned to salsa dance a little, which has always been a goal of mine.
The highlight of this trip has been the river trip that I just returned from less than 4 hours ago. All the gringos (us white folk) took a boat trip to the Shipibo village of Caimito along the Ucayali river to do more programs and to get to know the indigenous people. The village is on Lake Imiria, named after a flower plant (like a lilypad) which grows in the lake. We headed for the boat at 2am, boarded two hours later at 4am, and didn´t leave the dock til 5:30 or so due to engine problems. The boat has no cushions and the benchs were not made for american-sized bums but there was no complaining by anyone. The boat ride lasted 22 hours. We took the Ucayali river south (which is upstream in the south hemisphere) stopping along the way at sand bars for potty breaks. The neatest sleeping experience of my life was resting in the hammocks which were strung from one side of the boat to the other, there is a lovely gentle swing and the breeze is peaceful. Unfortunately after the sunset it was very cold and the bugs were bad at the potty breaks. Poor Liz and Erin have so many bug bites they look like they have chicken pox. We arrived at the Shipibo village at 1:30am, cleaned two teranchulas out of our sleeping areas, setting up mosquito netting and finally got to rest of something not made of wood. The following 3 days we did programs every morning for the children, 130 of them, singing, doing skits, and playing games. As we left each morning, the kids would follow us back to our place and would watch whatever we were doing. Liz and Sarah and i think Erin too played with them quite a bit. The first night I played futbol with a bunch of guys, the only gringa girl around, and they laughed at me as I showed up because they didn´t think I knew how to play but I actually did pretty well, yay breaking down stereotypes. We bathed in the lake at night and all the kids would watch. After a candle lit dinner, we watched movies with the village and sang a few songs in Spanish with one verse in English. When we first arrived here, they were a little worried that we were just coming to the village to fulfill some type of requirement for school but then they really grew to like us. The Shipibo (at least the ones I´ve met) are more kind and friendly than any I´ve ever met. They picked fresh fruit every day for us and would help us make dinner and clean, anything that needed to be done. The last day, John, Amy, Kenji, Sarah and I all took a walk to find a path through the forest and on the way we found one of our friends who took us to his house for fruit. I bought some jewelry from his mother and then she gave us each extra jewelry for free cause she liked us. I think that that walk was one of the most pleasant experiences I´ve ever had; the weather was perfect, we ate fresh fruit with a local family who treated us like family, I can´t describe it, it just seems like the way people should treat each other. The river trip was hard to wrap my brain around, how on earth did I get to a remote indigeneous village in the Amazon basin? It still seems surreal to me. The last night before we left they presented each of us with hand made gifts such as wood carvings and jewelry. I´m blown away by their hospitality. Oh, and i got a sweet Shipibo skirt, sooooo cool. The trip ride back was fun, a little tiring but nice. The weather here is absolutely perfect, 80-90 degree weather every day, a gentle breeze, big puffy clouds, blue skies.
Tomorrow Pucallpa is going on strike, for what exactly i´m not sure, but all the transportation will be shutting down for 2-3 days. We´ll be safe, i promise. Hopefully we´ll go water skiing again. oh, totally forgot to add that last time (maybe?), I went water skiing in Peru. Also I took a plane ride, that was another sweet experience but I am out of internet time now.

June 23, 2008, In and around Pucallpa

Hello everyone, sorry I have not had a chance to update my blog yet. This has been the first time we´ve been able to access an internet cafe.
The trip from Charlotte to Miami to Lima was long and the air on the planes were pretty dry but we finally arrived at 4:15am in Lima, Peru´s capital city. Baggage claim took a long time because they lost a bag which actually worked out because John Lucas, our leader, happened to oversleep his alarm. He called another missionary who was picking up another group at the airport and asked him to find us. When I walked through the doors to find John, Tom approached us and said ¨hi i´m tom, is the rest of the group coming?¨ which was really ambiguous and a strange way to approach someone but luckily John met up with us just at that moment. John reminds me a lot of my uncle Hugh, the way they stand and talk is similar. We went to the guest house in Lima where we spent the night. We walked to the mall in downtown Lima which has your typical american influences of KFC, McDonalds, Chili´s, etc. Near the mall was a type of food fair, I ate seco de res which is a type of beef. Sarah wanted to try cuy which John advised her against because it is guinea pig, gross.. on Monday we took our flight to Pucallpa, on the other side of the Andes mountains. The flight to Pucallpa was one of the most beautiful experiences I´ve ever had; the mountains were sticking up through the clouds and we could see little villages of maybe 50 to 100 people along small streams. Once in Pucallpa, we met Minori, Kenji, and Amy, who are John´s wife, son and daughter respectively. Minori is a 90lbs Japanese woman who is absolutely adorable, Kenji is 12 and very quiet, and Amy is an absolutely gorgeous and intelligent 16 year old. The SAM base is only a 5 minute drive from the airport, which was sorta disappointing because we didn´t get to see the downtown area.
For a few days we just tried to get used to the area, we played a lot of games which were great for getting to know eachother. After a while we went down to the downtown area to the Bible Institute, which is a pretty big (but tightly packed) place for Shipibo indians and other Peruvians to go to learn trades and take classes. Jim and Rene, an older couple who has been in Peru for40+ years, started this complex. Both of them have amazing stories which I don´t have time to share but Rene started a drug rehab center, which I will explain in great detail later.
Starting on Wednesday, we began to spend a LOT of time at Divino Redentor, the church that the Lucas famiy (john, minori etc) attend regularly. Victor, Dick, Jimmi, Harler, Pati, and Pati are a group of people our age and the ones we have been working with on a skit for kids, which is very funny and in the end has a Christian message. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we spent a lot of time with them, learning coreography to a few song, practicing music, and trying to learn the skit so we can do it on our own. Victor, Dick, Jimmy, Harler, Pati and Pati are all incredibly talented and all of the guys are absolutely hilarious. Trying to talk to them in Spanish is pretty difficult (more frustrating than what I was hoping for) because they joke around and it is hard to follow, especially when they use local words (I´ve learned Spain spanish) and say them quickly.
In addition to working with these funny people, we have been experiencing what SAM has been doing in Pucallpa. The Bible Institute employs Peruvians for all of their construction jobs, all the worship is done by locals and Shipibos (the jungle tribes) and they learn very practical trades to make progress in their lives and in Pucallpa. The drug rehab center, started by Rene (the older woman), takes in people who seek rehabilitation (she no longer goes to them asking if they would like to participate, it is all by word of mouth from former addicts who have recovered). Their facilities can hold around 45 people, but usually they take in around 20-30. They stay for a year and work in their bakery, wood shop, or doing maintenances around the site, and additionally take classes during the week. She has had a few teams come down from the US to do projects but she said ¨they are what you call ´white elephants´¨ because the things they build are incredibly sloppy and could be done so much better by Peruvians. I took a picture of one wall which just looks horrible and it erks me to think that some team from Florida went home saying ¨we helped this drug rehab center blah blah blah¨ when all they did was waste material and money because the rehab center is tearing the wall down and rebuilding.
Some things about Pucallpa:
The city is pretty poor, especially by the Ucayali river. Some parts are better than others. There are moto-taxis everywhere.
want to say hi to karen, hope you are doing well babe. thanks everyone for your support i am loving the trip!

June 15, I have arrived

After a long train ride and several planes, I have arrived safely in Lima, Peru. We will be heading to Pucallpa in the morning and be at the base before 10am. My teammates are hilarious and Liz tells the same type of corny jokes that my stepfather, Ken, tells, which I´ll forgive her for ;) I´ll post more tomorrow hopefully, I am going to go play Spanish scatergories.

June 12, heading to Charlotte then Lima then Pucallpa

Hello everyone, I am leaving for Charlotte, NC tomorrow on the Amtrak from Philadelphia. The train ride should take about 11hr45mins so I'll have plenty of time to re-read my Spanish text book. Once in Charlotte, I will be staying with Christian Listro and his family who will not be heading to Peru for a while (long after we've come and gone). The next day my five teammates, Erin, Paul, Liz, Andrew and Sarah, will arrive in Charlotte and we will stay the night at Kirk Ogden's house. Then we will be heading to the Charlotte airport to head to the capital city Lima, Peru. From there we will make our way over to Pucallpa on the East of the Andes Mts, along the Ucayali River which nearly border's Brazil. I will try to post once in Pucallpa.

A quick but important update on my life is that on Saturday, June 7th, I passed my check ride and am now a private pilot. I have been working on my license for a while now, my dad as my instructor, and I am very excited to say that I was able to finish it before heading to Peru. I fly a Diamond Eclipse, a very sporty cute plane.