Time is flying

Now that I am stepping into the full-time health coordinator role, time is flying by. I have 7 volunteers here that I am trying to keep organized and busy. I have 8 more coming in within the next six weeks. I had three and half hours of meetings today! I felt like I was back at the VA, bouncing from meeting to meeting!

Life isn't overly exciting, it is just busy. We had a bit of a rough end to our week last week. The Cinco de Mayo party went amazingly. Everyone enjoyed the taco bar and we played some Peruvian drinking games before going over to Porfi's bar and drinking margaritas. I spent more time behind the bar making margaritas than I actually spent drinking. Which was a good thing for both my wallet and my head!

My trip to Cusco went well on Thursday. I ran around like a crazy woman for 5 hours trying to get everything on my list and meet with the woman named Ariana who runs another NGO down here. The problem with going to Cusco is that everyone asks you to buy them things that we cannot get (or are outrageously expensive) in Ollanta. I had to buy a cutting board for Annie, marshmallows for Marjo, pain killers for Nick, saline solution for Ben, etc.

My meeting with Ariana was great. She is coming into Ollanta on Wednesday to sit down with myself and Kennedy to try to determine how Awamaki can get involved in her nutrition project in some really, really remote communities. Her communities make our Patacancha look like a metropolis. And believe me, I couldn't handle more than a week in Patacancha at the most. I can only imagine what these communities are like. So we will see how involved I get with her work.

However, on Thursday evening, after I got home from Cusco, I found out that our friends' kittens were dying. The mother cat had rejected the kittens about a week and a half ago but they were taking milk and some food. I guess they just started going downhill fast and by Thursday night, three of the 4 kittens (only 4 weeks old) had died. We set up a rotation of holding and syringe feeding but it did not do any good. They were just too little and weak. One kitten held on until about 4am on Saturday morning, but he too just couldn't make it. They were covered in fleas, had worms and were just so emaciated. It was one of the most heartbreaking things I have ever had to see. It was a relief in many ways when the final kitten died. We were all exhausted, both tired from caring for them as well as emotionally drained.

I could not go to Patacancha for the tour on Saturday as I had a horrible lactose intolerance episode due to the immense about of milk and butter that we used to cook our chicken pot pies on Friday night. I should have known better. I have avoided the milk here for 3 months and now I know that I need to keep avoiding it! So I had a lazy morning and then we started the preparations for Ben's potluck dinner. The dinner was awesome. Pretty much everyone brought a dish of some sort. I was really impressed. We had a relatively quiet night though.

Ben, Hallie and I went to a town called Pisaq, about and hour and a half from Ollanta, on Sunday to go to these huge craft markets. Ben wanted to buy some gifts for his family before he left. They have these hysterical looking hats that are perfect for gardening. I am definitely going back to get one for myself. Hallie took a couple of photos. I will have to post it. When we came back, Hallie and I baked about 7 dozen oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to give as gifts to our old host moms for mother's day. Of course, we had to give some to the volunteers who were hanging around the kitchen, some to Ben for his flights home, and to Will and Jess for their anniversary.

I then went to visit Ana and give her the cookies. She and Celestino chastised me for not visiting last week. I promised to go over for lunch on Friday of this week. The baby is just getting bigger and bigger each week. He has doubled in size since he was born (only a month ago). Such a little cutie. He just stares right up at you. He has the silkiest black hair.

So now I am just trying to get ahead of myself with all of these new volunteers. It is nice to be busy and feel like I am doing good. Exciting!