Friday night we celebrated Kim’s birthday in true Peruvian fashion. We all gathered in her neighborhood and collected all of our friends from their houses to come join in the celebration at her host family’s house where we sang happy birthday and shared cake and champagne before heading to Chosica. I think by the end of the day Kim had at least 4 different birthday cakes, which I believe translates to a very successful birthday.

Yesterday I woke up early and headed to the market to buy apples to make pies with Melissa’s host mom to help raise money to refurbish a park in Chacrasana. We all gathered in her kitchen and helped make the desserts, which turned out beautifully. Afterwards, we decided to venture into Lima and see a movie. We saw El Origen (Inception) with Leonardo Dicaprio and all felt like we took a mini escape to America.

One of the projects volunteers tend to do at their site as an initial way to introduce themselves to their community and connect with youth is to paint a giant world map in their community. Heather was able to organize the painting of a Peru map in Yanacoto, so this morning a bunch of us went over to help her paint a huge map of Peru on the town’s cement soccer court. It was probably at least 15-20 feet long, so it was pretty impressive when it was complete.