A Great Time to Give Back: Lima...beans

Before I get into how I got here I want to let everyone I made it safely to Lima. I am actually sitting here in the Hotel Bolivar (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Bol%C3%ADvar). I just woke up from crashing hard in my little humble chambre after an exhausting journey. It began yesterday around 5:30 pm at the Charlotte-Douglas Airport where after saying goodbye to my parents (a thing that they have become all too familiar with) I headed through security and to my gate. I had been looking at the weather prior to arriving at the airport and conditions did not look too good in Miami (my connecting city on the way to Lima). We boarded the plane on time and set off on our little regional jet headed southbound. Halfway through the flight the pilot notified us that there were some storms in the Miami area so we would be redirected around the tip of Florida over Key West and come into Miami from the southern side. As we approached the city all you could see were thick storm clouds and flashes of light from all directions. At this point my heart started to beat a bit faster. This only contined as we neared the city and it seemed an impossibility that we were going to be able to land safely. After some intense prayers we manuevered our way around the storms and roughly below the clouds. We finally landed safely in Miami and I made my way into the terminal in search the location of my next departure gate. A bit anxious and tired I stumbled across a little bar that was showing the USA-Honduras World Cup Qualifier. It was the second half and tied 1-1 at this point. I am by no means a drinker but boy would an adult beverage help to calm the nerves at this point. After watching the remaining minutes of the second half which resulted in a 2-1 victory for the US thanks to a Bocanegra header, I found the gate for my flight to Lima. It had just occured to me that as I entered the terminal after getting off of my earlier flight I noticed a long line for those waiting to rebook flights that had been cancelled due to the weather. At good ol gate D43 there was quite a crowd as apparently the flight had been overbooked with people who had come from the line that I just mentioned. They were all waiting anxiously to see if their lucky number would be called.

Just as I was gathering everything that was going in that moment I saw a little bright green object out of the corner of my eye. An XO laptop! Soon its owner returned and I approached her to introduce myself as I assumed she was headed to Peru on the same program as myself. She confirmed my assumption and told me her name was Kate. She also mentioned how she should have already been in Lima earlier that day however, she was one of the victims of the cancelled flights. We talked for a while and I found out she is from Massachusetts and pursuing an undergraduate degree in a multitude of disciplines. It was at this point that I got my first taste of just how intriguing the XO laptop is tochildren. A precious and hardly shy little girl approached Kate, who has kept her laptop out, and asked her what she was doing. For the next hour the little girl, Sammy, who I would actually end up sitting next to on the flight to Lima, was completely drawn in by everything the little laptop had to offer from digital painting to solving puzzles. It was also interesting because at first Kate was mostly controlling the activities they were working on but by the end Sammy was sitting on the floor oblivious to us working intently on the laptop by herself. This event made me extremely excited for the work we will be doing in the schools over the course of the next six weeks.

We finally began boarding the plane and to our dismay Kate was not lucky enough to land a ticket on this flight. She is actually still in Miami at this point and hopefully arriving tomorrow morning. Everyone was thankful to finally have boarded the plane. There was one minor detail that the crew failed to mention. Apparently a couple of people had accepted vouchers to allow other passengers to take their place on the flight. That is all well and good however their luggage had already been loaded into the airplanes cargo area. After a 2 hour delay we finally took off in the direction of Lima. The flight was fairly uneventful except that I could not sleep. Around 6:30 am (5:30 am EST) we landed in Lima. After making it through immigration services I changed some money and collected my checked bag. Having been to Peru last year made things less anxious for me which only made me concerned for the others in the program who were arriving alone without any previous experience in this unique city. Once you collect your bags in Lima you get to play a game before you exit. Essentially how it works is that you hand your declaration paper to the airport worker and then you proceed to press a button. If the button comes up green you win and get to exit the airport...but if it turns red. You dont even want to know what happens. Ok well you have to step to the side and workers check your bags thoroughy which I would refer to as losing the game. In the three times I have played I have maintained an undefeated record. After the excitement of winning the game I passed through the automatic doors into the land of taxi drivers. They crowd themselves anxiously awaiting potential suckers...I mean customers. Luckily I had done this before so I found a man that looked legitimate and agreed on a 45 Sole (Pronunciation: Soul-ehs, the typical exchange rate is 3 nuevos soles to one dollar) fair and proceeded toward the Hotel Bolivar where I was staying. This taxi driver turned out to be first-rate. He gave me some history on the city that I had never heard such as how in the mid90s a group of kings and ambassadors were held hostage by terrorists in the Japanese embassay in Lima. (the conversation was in spanish so this is my interpretation of the story) After four months of negotiations, the special forces group surrounded the building and created a plan to enter into the building and take out all of the terrorists who said that if they didnt get their demands fulfilled would shoot a person a day until they were all gone. So the special forces dug tunnels into the embassay and ambushed the terrorists killing all of them in an intense fire fight. The jolly old peruvian man had successfully gotten me to the Hotel Bolivar by the end of his extraordinary tales of Lima. I checked into the Hotel which is quite large and historic in appearance. After a quick arrangement of my things in my room I laid down on the bed around 7:30 am and awoke six hours later.

So that brings me to the present. After finishing this entry I will head to the store for some bottled water. Tomorrow I will meet the rest of the group in the lobby around 8:30 am and begin training for our deployment assignments.

God bless!

Ryan

Sunset from the plane to Miami