The dirt washes off, the smiles don't

Today was the first day that we went and helped a small town in Rural Peru by building an adobe building for their guinea pigs to live in. It was great work. They had already made some adobe bricks, so we had to hall them a little ways and then use mud as mortar. It is amazing how they can build whole buildings out of dirt basically. There were dogs everywhere running wild around the town; they were very friendly.

Aside from the service work classes are going well. They seem to all be interesting so far. I walk to class every morning, back for lunch, and then back and forth again for my evening classes. All in all it ends up being 3 and a half hours of walking, which is really good because they feed me a lot here. The food is great, a lot of rice, and chicken is very popular. Potatoes, and alpaca meat. I still haven't gotten to eat that guinea pig. soon.

The Mines and Maray

Well, i have been here now for about one week. It has been really amazing so far. When i walk through Cusco there are remains of the Incan Empire everywhere. The days after my last entry went very fast. I met the group that is here through pro-world and they are very nice. Most notably i met the family that i am staying with here in Peru. There is the parents who are in their mid 30's, and they have a daughter who is around 1 year old. She is very cute, and the parents are very very kind. The food continues to be great. There is a lot of rice, and a lot of chicken. I still look forward to eating Guinea Pig. We have traveled some visiting places such as Moray where the Incas planted crops at different elevations to conduct experiments. It is amazing how intelligent they were. After that we visited some salt mines where native people have been getting salt for thousands of years. No school has started and i am taking a spanish class, biodiversity of Peru, Contemporary Peruvian Society, The History of the Inca's, and Institutions of Peruvian Society. They are very interesting and i think the professors will be good.

Two miles up

After three flights and 16 hours either racing through, or sitting around in airports, I made it from Chicago to Cusco Peru. If i had to summarize my first impression of the city, and the country in one word, i chose different. Everything is different from the food, the people, to the cold showers, and the thin air. The people are so kind though. The people at the program that i am going through (Pro World) were so kind and helpful. they took me to lunch, and the food was fantastic! The thin air hasn't bothered me much aside from being a little short of breath when climb the stairs. When i say that the country is different, it is not at all in a bad way, and i think that it will be very good for me to experience the differences. I even think i want to focus on them because it is so interesting and awesome to me.