Where has the week gone?

Wow! It is already Friday. I don't know where this week has gone. But the scary thing is, as I am trying to remember what I did on Monday, I really have to dig deep. Oh, yes, I had meetings all day on Monday. My 9am meeting was supposed to be with the woman who is a liaison to the disabilities office here. Unfortunately, she did not show so that was a bust. I had been told on Friday that there was to be a mass for an Intern at the Posta who had died in a car accident. This mass was supposedly on Monday morning, but when I was walking to Jess's house early in the morning for P90X, I saw Eloy (who works at the Posta) and he said that the mass is on Thursday. I love how things are just so disorganized here!

Anyway, we had a brunch for Margo's despidida (going-away). It was delicious, as always. We had bagels courtesy of Jess, crepes, fruit salad, banana bread, yogurt and juice. Yummy! After the brunch, we had our health meeting for the week. Sunny is out of town so I ran the meeting. We have some help from some of Leander's volunteers this week so we planned another toy-making day for Tuesday. I had some lunch with the fam and then it was back to the office for more meetings. I had some Skype dates that day too.

I ended up talking to a 3rd year midwifery student from Yale. She was great and was really able to give me an honest view of the program at Yale. She pretty much told me to go with my gut feelings. I had not gotten a good feeling from Yale when I had my interview. I had some serious reservations about their faculty. Morgan was able to tell me that yes, the Yale program has had tons of faculty turnover recently and that although the faculty are leaders in the field, they are just not good teachers. So, I have decided to follow my instincts and go to Vanderbilt. I am sad that I will not be near my bro, sis-in-law and cutest nephew in the world, as well as near my good girlfriends. But, I have to make the best decision for my future, and Vanderbilt is it!

Then, after dinner, I went over to the volunteer house to watch Inception with Katilyn and Carrie. What a great movie. That was my second time seeing it and I still would like to watch it again to try to figure it all out!

Tuesday's toy making day was a success. My Small Help's volunteers got really into it and made some great toys. Matt is going to be helping Laya build a scooter for Natividad. Natividad cannot walk so they are hoping this scooter will help her be more mobile. We have been on the search for wheels and wood for the past few days.

I slept horribly on Monday night so by the afternoon, I was pooped. I spent the afternoon doing administrative stuff for the health program. Shura and I went to Cusco on a shopping run on Wednesday. We are holding a t-shirt contest for past and present Awa volunteers. Lillie, Emma and I are the T-shirt Contest Committee members. Our job is to decide on the rules of the contest and choose the winners. As I am not creative at all, I jumped at the chance of being on the committee! We had a quick meeting to get the email ready and then Shura and I were off.

We had a great lunch and then shopped and shopped. We had to buy lots of stuff for both Awamaki, other volunteers, her mom and things for Fabricio's birthday party. So it was a very long day, but also very productive. We didn't get back until about 6:30pm. We had some chow and then hit the sack pretty early. I am psyched though because we bought some DVDs. You can get DVDs for $1 here really easily. I just hope they are of good quality. Now I have something to watch if I am bored at night.

P90X is still rocking. I need to add some hikes into my routine, but it is still pretty rainy on and off all day. We have actually had some torrential downpours at night. On the drive to Cusco, I got to finally see the place in the road that fell away into the river. It is pretty freaky to see the road just dropped away. Luckily no one was on the road when it happened. On our way to Urubamba yesterday, there had been a landslide within the last hour so that was freaky too. Huge boulders covered one side of the road.

Yesterday was another long day. I went to the mass at the Posta for Ana Gloria, the Intern who passed away. Then I met up with Kaitlyn and we walked to Rumira to meet up with Leander and the Director of the school in Rumira. He is also a doctor who currently runs his own naturopathic medical clinic. So we talked to him a bit and then went to his clinic in Urubamba. Sunny wants to start up an after school rehab center in the school in Rumira two days a week to allow the disabled children in the surrounding communities some time with peers and to get some rehab. We needed to ask Mariano if we could use the school.

Leander, Matt and I left Mariano to his patients, and then went in search of lunch. After lunch, we went in search of wood for Natividad's scooter. Where is the Home Depot when you need it??? Trying to find wood is extremely difficult. We went to a couple of places but they will only sell you the entire huge piece of wood. We need one that is 50cm x 75cm. We were told to search for Carpinteria Valentin. They should have smaller pieces. But we had no luck finding it. It was starting to rain and we were tired, so we just decided to head home. They are going to search again today.

I have been looking for housing in Nashville, now that I know I am going there. It is exciting! I really like Nashville, so I think I will be quite happy there.

I was up early to get the chocolatada ready today. It was a successful chocolatada. I was able to serve it all up -- no leftovers! The patient numbers have been quite low lately due to the rains. Many people cannot make it down from the mountains due to road closures and landslides. As I walked into the Posta at 7:15am this morning, I saw a huge puddle of blood and a man laying in the Topico room. I later learned there had been a car accident and a woman had died. The man had some head injuries, but he ultimately left later that morning. The scary thing here isn't the actual car accident, although no one uses seatbelts, but the fact that you are screwed for medical treatment in many ways.

After the chocolatada, I have been catching up on this stuff. So it has been a productive week. I am excited because I have date night tonight with Will and Jess. We are going to eat at Puka Rumi and then watch a movie at their house. I like to ingratiate myself in their relationship! They don't mind because they are the greatest. Then on Saturday night, a group of us are going to dinner at the Polleria. That means rotisserie chicken. Yummy!

Well, I hope you all have had good weeks. Starting next week, I am planting myself in the Posta and that is it!!