An End to a Great First Two Weeks

Today marks my first 2 weeks of participation in the Cross Cultural Solutions Lima, Peru Program. To put this into perspective: I have 9 more weeks to go... BRING IT!!! Unfortunately though, today also marks the end of 8 volunteers' participation in the program. They all work for the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, and were on a paid trip to be here, but have to return now. This afternoon we had a debriefing session about each of our placements, and we all got super emotional at them all having to leave. It's a bit like high school theater (if anyone can relate), in that you spend SO much time with a select group of people, that you all begin to really care for eachother/share inside jokes etc. These 8 wonderful people include Kate (a soft-spoken, intelligent professional), Ann (a hilarious, outgoing scientist whose sport of choice is shooting), Bianca (a shy, sweet australian pharmacist), Patricia (an optimistic, bubbly woman who actually isn't part of Eli Lilly, but is leaving the same day anyway), Laura (a really motherly woman whose side interests include blood and guts and axel rose impersonations), Angelo (an introspective yet talkative man with many interesting life stories to tell), Jorge (a fatherly guy from Puerto Rico),  and LaShanda (a relatively shy woman with a great sense of humor and love of Basketball Wives [just like me!!!]). Spending these past 2 weeks with all of the above people, I have to say that my faith in humanity's intrinsic goodness has been restored. Each and every one of these people absolutely loved the specific volunteer work that they did (whether it be working with autistic kids, preschoolers, or the elderly), and it was obvious that they all had strong core values of respect, responsibility, and genuine love for the world and other cultures. I think that in today's society there's the very real danger of getting too caught up in work or getting ahead or looking for the next big break/big thing that people lose sight of what is truly important and fulfilling, and I think that it's beautiful that these people have such important priorities in life. I can only hope that I'll be able to see them again soon, but until then, I'm so grateful to have been able to spend two wonderful weeks with them (volunteering, singing some crazy karaoke, and coming up with inside jokes). These types of people are the reason for all the goodness in the world.

Fun Fact: Kate introduced me to a website called www.askames.com ... where all of your life's weirdest questions can be answered. Subscribe, type in a question, and ta-daaaa you have a hilarious and oftentimes very sardonic response. Do yourself a favor and try it, it'll make you laugh! :)