We finally made it to Peru Luz de Esperanza, the organization that we´re volunteering for! The house we are staying in is located in Chupaca, which is a short drive from Huancayo. The organization works with 4 different schools and the volunteers are scattered throughout, depending on each school´s needs. The house itself is a pretty decent building considering we are in a developing country. There is running water which allows us to take (mostly cold, sometimes freezing) showers and meals are prepared for us Monday through Saturday, which typically consist of bread, potatoes and rice. Nilton and Ely (the founders of the organization) are super friendly and they have a cute son, Andre whose favorite phrase which he sings non stop in the most annoying fashion is "Mira, mira, mira (X100 times)" but we still love to watch and play with him all the time. To our surprise, there are three other volunteers living in the house with us. They are all in their early twenties and very friendly. One is from France, Antoine, one from Canada, Marisa, and one from California, Christina. We have yet to experience our first full teaching day (Monday will be the start of our teaching week) which will be interesting. We did, however, visit classrooms last Friday and made hand puppets with the children who are aged between 4 to 6 years old. They are adorable! We brought arts and crafts supplies from the US and the children were fascinated by the pipecleaners, pom poms and wiggly eyes. They call us "Miss" 24/7 and love to give us kisses on the cheek whenever they greet us (in fact, Jenny was told we were probably going to get TB, but oh well). There is a fairly large temperature drop between day and night in Chupaca - it is freezing at night! We noticed right away that all the kids had extremely pink, dry cheeks and hands - we think this is due to the cold and arid climate but we have yet to discover the exact reason. Their "houses" are in poor condition, often missing a fourth wall so the kids must literally be freezing at night. Most of the schools are located in the mountaints so there is a bit of trek to get to our destination every day. On Saturday, we helped organize a field day which children from all 4 schools attended. This was pretty cool for the three of us because it allowed us to meet all the children at once prior to teaching them. However, we were told the attendance rate was a little short of expected given that many children are forced to work on the weekends to supplement the family income. There were a large variety of team sports such as volleyball, soccer, potato sack races, three legged race etc. It was a LONG day. Peruvians are running on crazy energy and can go for hours on limited food and water, as well as hot temperatures. We saw the same kind of endurance when we participated in a crazy dance party yesterday night. The attendees included: the three of us, Ely and Nilton, Ely´s mother, Ava, the crazy uncle (unfortunately we dont know his name), Antonio - a family friend, and the three other volunteers. We danced to 80s music, Peruvian folklore music and modern Peruvian dancing. Strangely enough, the dancing took place in a circle and typically one or two people (mostly the crazy uncle) would be thrown in the middle. Good times! Those are the highlights for now, we apologize for the lack of pictures. As you can understand, Peruvian internet is not the best in the world so uploading takes a bit of time. We´ll do our best. We have our first day of teaching tomorrow so fingers crossed! Renee: Thanks for the comment! It brought a smile to all of our faces, we miss you! GO SPEROOO!