A Short Post

We returned from our month-long trip to Peru last Friday (May 13).  It was our best family vacation ever and we will blog about it once we get all of our notes and photos organized.  While we were sorry to end our trip it was nice to come home and re-connect with our adopted community.  It felt very good to be greeted so warmly by our neighbors and especially sweet to see Emma and Hannah get mobbed by their classmates when they returned to school.

Aileen jumped right back into her job.  She is managing the construction of multiple schools, preparing for a work brigade from the United States and training her replacements, Mina and Chamba who will take over on July 15 or so.  Mina and Chamba are from the USA and El Salvador and have two wonderful daughters.  Aileen really enjoys working with them and we look forward to spending some time with their family.  However, for the next week or so Aileen will be occupied with her brigade of twenty college students.  The girls and I will only see her briefly in the mornings.  I am not sure which of us will have a harder time but we will soon find out.  Please wish us both luck!

Emma and Hanna are back in school and doing great despite missing almost three weeks of classes.  They just received their semester grades and both did very well - we are very proud but not surprised by their success.  They are now back into the groove of their after school activities, playing with their friends, etc.  Hannah spends a great deal of time at the home of a classmate who lives behind us and is still enrolled in an afternoon education program.  Emma is busy with guitar, art class and a variety of other activities.  Next week she is part of a group that will be reciting a poem to the entire school for Mother's Day which is May 30 in Nicaragua.

I am back into my domestic routine and am excited to try a few new recipes I picked up in Peru (I cannot believe I just said that).  I am also back into taking Cuate for marathon walks and continue finding wonderful trails and little villages just outside of our town.  The other day I stumbled across a community called La Pita that has been set up for "rural tourism" with the help of a nonprofit organization.  They have a little hotel, a pool and other amenities for visitors in this town of about 30 families who are primarily subsistence farmers.  While exploring La Pita I saw the father of one of Hannah's classmates and found out that they make the hour walk to school every day.   He showed me around a bit and it was really nice to make some new discoveries within walking distance from our house.

Of course something unexpected always comes up to make things even more exciting and this week we had an unfortunate distraction.  Our neighbor's roof caved in due to the rains which have recently returned.  Amazingly, nobody was hurt but their house is a disaster.  The household consists of two grandparents and four children and they are not really able to deal with the situation.  We spent a few days making temporary repairs and Monday we will go to the mayor's office to solicit their assistance.  I was kind of surprised that nobody else really helped them out and later found out that this is because the grandmother allegedly practices black magic.  They have always been very kind and generous to our family so hopefully I am not turned into a toad when the roof leaks.

Ironically, now that we are getting ready to leave we all feel more settled in San Ramon.  Life is sometimes boring in this little town but as we get to know more and more people it feels more and more like home.  We are looking forward to enjoying our last two months here and are also excited (and a little anxious) to figure out what comes next.

P.S.  We have had major issues with our credit and debit cards making our trip in Peru a bit challenging (it can be hard to travel without money).  To make a long story short, after MAJOR hassles we have finally received our new debit cards which were sent via Federal Express to our tiny town in just a few days.  We have no love for our evil bank but kudos to FedEx - they put DHL to shame (it took DHL 62 days to deliver my replacement Kindle and never actually brought it to our house).