My first month

apologies for the lack of posts, ledge i know i said i would post one or two a week, but sadly I fell through with that ha, any who here goes. I have nearly completed my first month here in Peru. I am still at the Hogar home for children, and am continuing to have a phenomenal experience. Each day I am getting to know the kids better and learn more about their problems and there stories. The Hogar home is not a orphanage by name or practice, although there are some orphans here. The Hogar home is primarily a recovery home for children who are sick or injured. Many children have missing appendages that are here in the home to have there leg or arm lengthened slightly to be fit for a prosthesis. Also many kids have cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy, which both affect motor skills. Burns are another huge issue here. There are children who have been here for years on end recovering from severe burns. Here's the story about one of the kids, Jefferson. He was in a house fire when he was 2 months old. He was in his crib when the fire started, and the parents rushed out to save themselves, but forgot him. When they were outside the realized he was still inside but figured he was probably dead by then so they left him to die. By some miracle  he survived and lay in the burned rubble until a nun passed by and found him and brought him to the Hogar. Thats how he ended up here, he is now eight years old and has overcome so many obstacles to come this far. He has burn scares covering his body. It is an disheartening story but one similar to many of the other children. It's hard to be surrounded by so many suffering children, but it feels amazing to help in the small ways that I can.

One a different note. I took a trip down to Cusco with two other volunteers this last week. Cusco is a wonderful city. So much cleaner and prettier, and way smaller, than Lima. Cusco has about 300,000 people I think, but it has no high rise buildings. We had planned to go to Machu Picchu but on arrival we found out that there was a transportation strike taking place right in the middle of our time there. The strike went from tuesday until thursday afternoon, and we were only there from monday until friday morning so it was impossible to get to machu picchu and back because of the strike. It was far from a wasted trip though. We went to Pisac our first day and saw some amazing ruins there. The Andes mountain range has a powerful feeling to it that draws your attention and eyes to them. Its magnificent to see. We hiked around the ruins and walked down a trail that took a good four hours to go down back to the town of Pisac. There was a market in the center of town that we ventured into. I ended up buying a Alpaca sweater that is sooo comfortable. The market took up the good part of the plaza. A funny thing about the markets i have seen here is that they are all practically the same in regards to the products they are  selling. Back in Cusco we went to three museums, saw four more ruins on the outskirts of Cuzco, and I went bungee jumping at the third highest place in the world, the highest in all of the americas. The food is delicious. We went to pizzerias, sandwich spots, and even tried guiena pig, not sure how to spell it.

I have to go now because I am heading into Lima with a group of kids that have appointments at the hospital but I will try to write again soon when I have time. Until then ciao amigos.