Jeff
In late June I returned to the United States for job interviews. While I was not happy to be leaving 3 weeks before my family, there appeared to be some good opportunities that would start right away so it seemed worth the effort. Unfortunately, things did not work out as well as expected. I did not get the job I wanted and was offered a job I was not interested in. I had a few other interviews and those irons are still in the fire. Regardless, the trip felt like a very expensive waste of time. To add insult to injury, I took a friend to a Peruvian restaurant to cheer myself up and not only was it terrible, it cost as much as we spent on groceries each week in Peru. I left my lunch for a meeting and was feeling pretty darn depressed until an idea popped into my head - I have enough frequent flyer miles to go home! "Wow," I thought, "I am calling Peru home." Without giving it any more thought, I booked a ticket and the next day was on my way back to Peru to surprise the family. I landed in Lima around 10pm and had to wait until 5:30am to get my connection to Arequipa. While trying to sleep in an airport hallway, I felt someone pulling at my bag. I sat up quickly, ready for a fight, and saw a friend of mine from Arequipa grinning at me. We passed the long wait together and it made my return feel even more like a homecoming.
When I got back to our apartment building at 7:30am, I rang our unit from the front gate and hid from the security camera. Hannah buzzed me in without knowing who it was, (going against our repeated warnings), and I ran up to our door for a game of knock-knock zoom-zoom. When they finally figured out who it was, we all started screaming and crying and hugging. It was a wonderful reunion and I was so happy to be back in the White City (I am referring to Arequipa, not Gondor). Aileen and the girls had an amazing surprise waiting for me - a painting of Emma and Hannah walking up my favorite street. They planned to give it to me when they arrived in San Francisco but I got to see it in Peru and was even able thank the artist myself. I did not do a whole lot during my last few weeks in Arequipa but was so happy to be back and have the opportunity to end our 2 year adventure together. Like Emma used to say when she was 3 or 4 and we tried to give her a time-out, "it is just not a family if we are not all together."
Emma
Here is a poem that I wrote:
Feelings - by Emma Kositsy
My feelings are complicated, especially when I am in nature.
When I am in nature I feel free and alone.
When I am in the city, I feel trapped, trapped as a mouse.
Warm, cold, warm, cold; that is how feelings are.
Feelings are a rainbow of colors.
Feelings are all different, that is how they are.
In this poem, I am trying to explain the way I felt in Huaraz. Free and alone is how I felt, surrounded by glaciers, mountain, lagoons, natural vegetation, etc. Trapped is how I felt when I came back to the city. I felt even worse when Daddy went back to the USA. It made me feel like two days was a week and one week was a month. On Sunday July 1, Daddy came back! I was really excited to see him and he really surprised me.
Two weeks later I had my goodbye party at school. It was really hard to say goodbye to my friends and I cried. Actually, I did not think I would be so sad to leave and how many things I would miss. It is really crazy how the time passed so fast with my friends in Peru.
Today we are getting ready to leave and will be on a plane tonight at 5:45pm. We will not get home until tomorrow afternoon. I can't wait to get back to the USA because I miss my family and friends, house, big parks like Golden Gate Park, Science Academy, Atlas Cafe, bagels, pickles, drinking water out of the faucet, burritos, putting toilet paper in the toilet, etc. I will miss my new friends, the Meza-Romero family, the weather, etc. I will not miss my English teacher, the food, everybody being late, etc. Thanks for reading this.
Hannah
Today I am kind of sad and kind of happy because I am leaving my friends but I can see my family and start a new school in San Francisco. In Peru, some friends are really nice to us and they try to do play dates with us but we could not always do it because we were busy. It was very sad at my going away party because my friends said don't go and my teacher was crying. I will miss Mama Techi, Don Nelson and all my friends. I will really miss this restaurant called Cebillano and we are going there today before we leave. I will miss other food too and the restaurant called Nami. Also, I will miss my violin teacher Carina who is sad I am going. My gymnastics teacher Jaime was really nice to me and is sad too. On my last day, all the girls in gymnastics lined up to say goodbye and they were pushing each other so they could hug me. I am happy to go home and see my friends like Nora and my family like my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers. That is all I want to say.
Aileen
Like everyone else, I have a lot of mixed feelings about leaving Peru. On one hand, I am very excited to be going home, and really looking forward to seeing our family and friends. On the other hand, there are also a lot of people and things I will really miss. Of course, we will sorely miss the fun-loving Meza-Romero family, who've included us as part of their family since we first came here last year. Also, the other moms at Hannah's gymnastics program were so sweet about saying goodbye to me, bringing in treats and presents for our last day at the gym. I guess some kind of solidarity formed after sitting together for hours in that frigid gym on those concrete bleachers.
Below is a picture from the classroom at Unamonos, the school for special needs children where I volunteered. The teacher, Giovanna, has worked there for about 15 years, and she'll be managing a classroom of 8 moderate to severely disabled kids on her own. Martita, on the left, is one of the higher functioning kids in the classroom. She can speak, feed, toilet, and dress herself independently, and is very helpful with the other kids and keeping the classroom tidy. But sweet little Martita is also as stubborn a kid as you'll ever meet. On the right, Nicole is also very high functioning, and is surprisingly good at doing jigsaw puzzles. Unfortunately, the teachers say that in the years she's been there, her eyesight has gotten steadily worse, and the decline hasn't shown any signs of slowing. These are just two of the sweeties who gave my experience here in Peru extra meaning.
The other night we spent a few hours looking at all of the pictures from our last two years. It was incredible to see how much Emma and Hannah have grown in every way. This has been an amazing experience for them and in some ways I am sorry it is coming to and end.
