Well, I’m back in the states, as most of you know. I turned in my two weeks notice my first day back at work, Wednesday, and now mostly spend my time at work reading back issues of features on McSweeney’s. In fact, this is generally what my work day looks like:

8:30 – should be at work but am actually still several streets away
8:40 – get to work, log in to computer, stare into space while it loads
8:50 – open outlook and delete junk mail
9:00 – open firefox, read gmail, begin with McSweeney’s online
11:30 – take a break from McSweeney’s to make tomorrow’s log, pretty much my only job function
1:00 – go to lunch
1:40-ish – come back from lunch. Commence McSweeney’s reading
3:00 – take break from McSweeney’s to answer ringing phone. It’s a telemarketer.
4:45 – finish McSweeney’s story I’m on, begin shut down procedure

I am still trying to sort out everything from Peru. I suppose I should be spending some of the free time I have at work trying to process, but this isn’t really a very conducive environment for that. I am trying to get pictures posted… I am hoping over the weekend that will successfully happen. I am trying to caption them all so that you can see what happened.

So far possible “big lessons” – humility (because working with Zach wasn’t enough to pound that into my thick skull), joyful giving, hospitality. I’m also noticing that most everything around me (especially at work) is annoyingly excessive. Florescent lighting. Air conditioner. My 10 ball point pens. All the equipment. Radio in itself. Our office which is big and has carpeting and a door that locks. Two doors that lock, actually. Maybe three.

en yanoca

we are back in yanoca where our favorite family lives. we stayed last night and bob and i will leave this afternoon for cusco so we can catch the early train to machu pichu. Then erika and mary kay will meet us in cusco tomorrow night.

the time has gone by so quickly, we just need so much more. so many people here need help, are giving help, need help themselves. the things that they are proud of make me cry. our family just installed a closing device for thier outhose - some string and a nail in the adobe wall. this is fantastic, such a big improvement, we don´t have to wake eachother up in the night to go to the bathroom... but... but this is horrible. they should have a bathroom with a sink, a proper door, a mirror, tiles.

yesterday we visited the internada, which is a bit of a bording house for girls from the campo that want to go to high school, since there aren´t any out there. Some of these girls walk 8 hours just to get there. Right now there are 14 girls living in two small rooms. They stay for a week and then go home for the weekends, because their parents wouldn´t let them walk so far every day. What they have means so much to them, and it is so little. They are working on building better dorms, so that there will only be two to a room, but they have run out of money, and construction has stalled. they are so excited. can you imagine, having a bathroom down the hall, inside, with tiled floors! you wouldn´t have to put your shoes on in the night to go to the bathroom. oh, it will be lovely.

The other day, who knows when it was, yesterday maybe, Erika and I hung out with a baker in Siqani and we learned how to make empanadas. We didn´t wash our hands, we didn´t have clean water to wash the pans in, it was wonderful and lovely, and crazy.

Something that is becoming clearer to me daily is this: there are people all over the world who are giving their entirety to other people. there is hope. restoration is occuring.

estoy in peru!

have i written from peru yet, i can´t remember? wow, the keyboard in this internet cafe is really hard to type in. um... a quick up date, we are in seqani, i thikn that´s how its spelled, staying with the bishop, which is by far the nicest place we´ve been since he has wooden floors and hot running water. in a few days we will head back to yanoca, dirt floors and no water, anywhere, hot or otherwise. then back to cusco, where I shoudl be able to do a fair amount of updating, since there will be internet in the convent thing. okay, times up, hasta luego, mel

traveling

The last time I tried to fall asleep in an airport I was eleven years old. We had an overnight layover in the Natarita Airport in Japan. That paticular overnight stay was easier for many reasons, the most influential of which was probably our age (our refering to April and myself). Being so young, we could hardly imagine the importance of somebody staying awake to keep watch. Even if we had, the task would surely never fall to us. After all, wasn´t that why dad traveled with us, for situations just sucn as this, to keep watch?
Second, we were much smaller then, sliding easily under arm rests, settling comfortably on the floor. The carpeted floor. For of course, that evening we spent in the Red Carpet Club, tucked into a dark corner by the bar (closed by now of course), our parents dozing in the Club´s overstuffed arm chairs, my sister and I sprawling almost luxuriously accross the floor, claiming that corner as ours. It was so much easier then, our corner was dark, maybe a single lamp burned somehwere narby. It was exciting, a night spent in that most magic of rooms, the gifter of gingerale and lime - such a grown up drink! And weren´t we brave there on that dark floor, only half listening to the jet engines outside, coming, going, coming again like a tide.
But from the artificially bright food court at the Lima airport, sleep is ipossible, adventure still illusive. I have not yet quite arrived (well, I guess I have now that I´m writing this in Cusco...). You can not hear the planes from here. Their methodical lap against sleepy shore has been replaced by the low hum of the tile waxer. No, no carpet here. None in sight anywhere. And of course, here, someone must at least feign alertness, even now wiht a special table situated against the wall of the second story windows. For now it is Bob, though he´s reading and tired and may silently slip into sleep at any moment.
...

We are staying at a hostel run by dominican nuns in Cusco, there may be a teacher´s strike tomorrow so not sure when we´ll be leaving for the mountains. I realized as we unloaded the van-taxi that we brought an insane amount of luggage, thank goodness we´ll be leaving half of it here. Bob and Jerry are off somewhere exciting, I woke up too late to follow them, Mary Kay and Erika are still aleep. I wish I could wake up more completely. I´d better go and try to figure out what we´re going to do. I will try to wake up .... um, update... again soon. I love and miss you all!!

mel

En solamente una semana, yo voy a Perú, y tengo solamente una cosa a decir: No estoy listo. Yo dime, “por supuesto, estoy listo. Tengo todos las cosas que yo necesito. Tengo comida y ropa y libros.” Pero in mi corazón, en mi cabeza, no estoy listo. No quiero abandonar Tomas a la Mercado y la Panadería a el mismo. No quiero pensar sobre salir de Tomas y todos mis amigos.

Sin Embargo, es la verdad que un poco parto de me es un poco entusiasmado. Un poco.

mj