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So good news! I discovered an internet cabina about 15 minutes from my house by mototaxi that is open during the day! This has motivated me to write a quick blog entry and come to post it as an excuse to respond to some waiting emails and check facebook.

The past couple months I’ve been pretty busy with visits from friends from home, our Close of Service Conference, med checks, presidential elections, and a trip to visit Paulo’s family. It was so nice for Cappie and Kara to come visit me, they were such a breath of fresh air and I really enjoyed spending time with them. Kara’s blog entry summed everything up pretty well, but let me just add that it was an amazing experience for me to see my site through my friends’ eyes. After being here for a while, it’s pretty easy to forget that the majority of the people I work with are poor. They just don’t seem like it once you know them. It was a good reminder for me of why I am here and why what I’m doing is so important. I also think it was really good for the girls to see a different part of the world and a different way of life. Lots of people come to Peru and never get to see the reality of how people live. They got a unique experience because they met real Peruvians who felt comfortable with them because they know me. Right off the bat they were asking Kara and Cappie questions, giving them hugs, and making them dance. Classic Peru. It was a great time for all. I just laughed as my friends made the same observations I had made 2 years ago.

Close of Service (COS) was a good time for the volunteers from Peru 13 to get together and share our experiences of the last two years. More than anything it was a shock to me that we were finally there. It was something that always seemed so far away. We had a career planning session that was a total wake up call for me. I can’t believe that in 3 months’ time I’m going to be back home in the States with a completely different reality. I started to really think about the adjustment we’re all going to have to make and how I’m going to possibly be able to leave the people I’ve lived and worked with for 2 years. It seems like an extremely drastic step, just to pick up and leave, but I know I have to do it. Mostly because I think my mom will have a nervous breakdown if I stay any longer. I will be home on September 16th.

I recently went on a trip with Paulo to meet his extended family in a small city in the mountains north of Lima. His mom is from there so I met all of his aunts, cousins and grandparents from that side of the family. I am so used to meeting Peruvian families that it really didn’t faze me and I felt right at home. Like all Peruvians there were extremely nice and generous, but a little difficult to understand because their accents are different than those from the north. His grandparents are in their late 80s and still going strong! One day his grandpa prepared pachamanca, which is a typical Peruvian sierra dish that involves cooking meat, potatoes, platanos, and other vegetables underground with hot rocks. He was bending down and lifting rocks with no problem. I was amazed! We had a great time and it was hard to go back to site, but I made it just in time for the Peruvian elections.

On June 5th we had the final presidential elections here in Peru. Keiko Fujimori v. Ollanta Humala. Keiko is the daughter of Alberto Fujimori, Peru’s president-turned-dictator-turned-jailbird for human rights violations. Ollanta is the nationalist pro-Chavez candidate. In the first round there were also three other candidates including Toledo (former president), and PPK (who apparently has American citizenship), but they didn’t make it to the finals. In the end, Ollanta won, and will be inaugurated on July 28th (Peru’s July 4th) this year. We’ll see what happens after that and how that affects the country.

There is a lot going on in my town right now because it’s the week of Vice’s 91st anniversary! Tomorrow’s the día central of the fiesta, but I’ve been super busy this weekend with all the events going on. Unlike last year when I was mostly an observer of all the activities, this year I am an active participant and planner. I’m going to write another entry on the anniversary when it all ends, but be assured that it has not been without its drama! Tomorrow we’ll have a parade, lunch with the whole town, a soccer game, and a dance at night. Hopefully should be a lot of fun!

Just trying to take it all in and live in the moment. That’s all you can do when you’re a Peace Corps volunteer and you know you have to leave your town and all your new friends and family in two months.