Photos are Coming!

I´ve spent the last hour and a half trying to download my photos to Picasa and then onto my blog. Of course nothing is ever as easy as you would like it to be. I´ve had to download Picasa and then the photos and the photos are taking forever. However, I´m hoping that by the time I finish this blog post, we will be ready to roll. The photos are not in order b/c I named them so now they are all over the place. But, just be happy there are going to be photos. I will let you try to figure out the order. The ones with the beach and churches and buildings are all from Lima. The ones where there are more people than just Keri and I are from our time here in Ollanta. The two girls are Michelle and Hallie, two of the other volunteers. The Peruvians are Hallie´s host family.

Now that I have this all set up, hopefully it won´t take as long the next time.

So our plan for tomorrow is to meet the others and our guide Miguel (who also is the Peruvian Director of Awamaki and the owner of a couple restaurants in town) at 6am to catch a taxi or collectivo to Patacancha to start our huge hike. However, the roads have been impassable the last two times the group has tried to get up to Patacancha to see the weavers (Sunday and Tuesday). So, we will not know until we are on the road tomorrow if we will actually get to try to hike to Lares or not. It rained a ton last night and today so if it rains even more tonight, we may be screwed. Our back up plan is to go to Puno and Lake Titicaca for the weekend. Regardless, we will be going somewhere cool.

I am battling a sore throat, head cold right now so I am a little nervous about the hike, but I will just go slow and it will all be okay! Will and Jessica decided to join the group so it will be a really fun and upbeat crowd. There will be the 6 of us plus Miguel. Wish me luck with the thin air! I meant to buy some coca leaves but I forgot during this struggle to get my photos uploaded. Maybe someone will be in the market tomorrow morning when we leave.

Today was a very interesting day at the clinic. We got to hang with the obstetrician. We got to press on pregnant bellies to feel the position of the baby and to use the Dopplex to find and hear the baby´s heartbeat. It was really neat. I am still amazed by the amount of young women who are pregnant here. Most of the girls from the mountain communities have babies by the time they are 17. The girls in town are more likely to use birth control. Some of the girls from the mountains use birth control after they have had a couple kids. One girl came in with her 2 year old son, her 7 month old daughter and was scheduled for her Depo shot. She was only 19.

The plan is to start going out to the communities with food and clothes and make a big day of things. I said we need to add a bathing station for the kids when we do this since so many of them do not bathe regularly. We will be meeting with Dr. Arnaldo, Cristina and a new health volunteer this weekend (if we don´t go to Puno) to make all the plans. Things are definitely getting busier!

We are meeting with the woman who runs the after school program at the local school to plan when we can start our health education classes. We believe it will begin on Tuesday and be every Tuesday from now until we leave.

Okay, I think there are only about 15 more photos to download. Hope you all are well!