Lucy's Gap Year Blog

7:04pm: Why I did it
Finding my way on my own. Inhaling thunderstorms through the open window. Bougainvillea. Really exhausting hiking at 14,000 feet. Andean sunrise in freezing cold on my birthday. Llamas. Being la gringa con los ojos azules. Se puede desocupar el cuarto cuando quieres... pero nunca puedes salir. Being helpful for one day. The Volkswagen on the roof. The beach in Pisco at night. An afternoon in the home of a stoned hippie jeweler doing my hair. Paying for one drink in three nights out. The best dancing of anywhere. Andean chinchillas at Machu Piccu. Ships passing. Coming home in hiking boots and beads. The sign with the guy falling down the cliff. Hand in hand with Pia, wine straight from the bottle and sparklers on Guy Fawkes day. That one perfect landing. De-icing planes with a hairdryer. Dominoes with bears. Not being allowed to disclose the purpose of a trip. Rain in Windhoek where everyone loves it. Joe's Beerhouse. Job offers. The rubber rat, pushing around gas cylinders, Willy's truck. Potjie. Pulling a boat away from hippos in a J.Crew bikini. Sunny places for shady people. Drinks and gutting fish in the rain. Low blood pressure. Being a grown-up. Camels before dawn. Getting personal bodyguards. Singing show tunes coming home through Delhi. The Faulty Towers. Bare feet on marble. Really long emails. Sweet Caroline. "Where exactly are you?" Bicycle rickshaws in narrow streets filled with bright colors and Bollywood music. Holi. The International Eagles Fan Club. Walking alone in the morning. Rhododendrons on mountainsides. Finding the butter sculptures. Fluffy monkeys. Panoramic pictures. John le Carre and tea by lantern light on a houseboat. Sleepy afternoons with slow paddling. Awkward sled sherpas and lots and lots of snow. Maxie sleeping on my shoulder in the car with the windows open on a spring afternoon. Chilled out mornings in the sun. Spending too much money. One last night. Literally everyone I met. Realizing everything is different. A million other things... And coming home with $83 left. And no regrets.

Thanks for reading

5:18pm: (to avoid more confusion)
It was an April Fool's joke!

3:55pm: Back in Dehli safely - we decided we'd had enough of twelve-hour or more buses or cars (and it would have been twenty-four hours back to Dehli) and flew home (two and a half hours) on Friday morning. Which was totally worth it, except security at the Srinigar airport is such that I was frisked three times and had to remove everything from my carry-on twice before being allowed to board the plane.

Our last few days in Kashmir were really wonderfully relaxing. Spent a huge amount of time lounging on the roof of our houseboat in the sun - really peaceful, really wonderful, except people keep coming by in their boats bringing silver work, leather work, etc. etc... bad news bears. Ended up with quite a few things that I wasn't really sure why I bought... also sunstroke, apparently. Spent most of the plane ride home warming freezing hands on my really hot face and wondering if I had malaria. Fever and cough were probably not aided by a wonderful night out when Maxie and Flora were able to meet my CCS friends - totally worth it, but I spent a lot of time yesterday sitting around feeling feverish and weak. This was not made better by the fact that it is suddenly ridiculously, unbearably hot: lots of sitting under ceiling fans and air conditioning watching TV or reading, or falling asleep - I felt that I needed a two-hour nap after a trip to the coffee shop, and a moto rickshaw home from the travel agent (a five-minute walk from my flat). Felt still feverish last night, but I think it broke sometime this morning as I woke up feeling much better - still coughing, but at least now I can move my head without a headache. Or at least not as bad of a headache.

Wrapping up last minute things here in Dehli - I'm currently stalling in the air-conditioned internet cafe before one last trip to the market as I have exactly three more presents to get, but it's so hot. Then tomorrow one more errand and packing - I fly out at 10:45, fifteen hours to Newark. I'm not really sure whether to continue the blog - I'll probably try to get a job at home, I'd like to work at the Brandywine Airport that I've been taking flying lessons out of. Just fueling planes, cutting grass and such, but you can learn so much just from being around the airport, and I think it sounds like fun. Also I'd like to learn something about mechanics, but I'm not really sure how... I'll hopefully be flying a lot, but I'll probably shut down the blog after I get home. I'll put up my last few pictures, so be sure to check them out on the same site - I have some really great ones of Kashmir and Dharamsala. So strange, this whole India trip has gone ridiculously fast. I really feel like I got here last week, or that, with all the buildup before it, I'll be getting on a plane to START my program tomorrow. It's unbelievable how much has happened and how I really feel I've only been here a week or two, yet have met some of the most amazing people I know and had some of the most unreal experiences I can imagine. I can't think of anything I really regret.

More when I get home... love.

7:59pm: I am either very brave or very stupid
My god you people are dead. I write that I've given up meat and alcohol and found God and I get NO responce??

In other news, I'm now in Kashmir. Obviously this could be trouble. My friends Maxie and Flora pretty much had their hearts set on traveling up here, so after a lot of back-and-forthing and researching the situation, I decided that to not go with them would be worse. We had met someone in Dharamsala whose family has a houseboat here, and we took a car with him and a driver all Sunday night to arrive here in Srinigar on Monday morning.

Let me say that thus far (touch wood) it has been a VERY good call. The houseboat is moored on Dal Lake, a beautiful area filled with similar houseboats and surrounded by snow-capped peaks. The houseboats are long, flat-bottomed wooden boats with several rooms, often given to renaming themselves after countries or cities, i.e., "The New Panama" or "The New Colombo." So far the only relic of the U.S. has been the New Manhattan, but bizarrely there is an entire Australia section containing Australia, Melborne and Sydney. Ours, with the title of "Better Sweet", is really beautiful and comfortable, plus all our meals etc. are supplied. The guy who brought us up here is taking us on expeditions every day; I was a bit skeptical of his willingness to do so at first, but it is really nice to have a guide in this largely Muslim community. Also one of the first things he said to me was, completely out of left field, "Do you like 'Hotel California'?" I tried to write the Eagles but I couldn't find a link on their website.

The best way I can describe Kashmir is New England meets the Caprivi strip with soldiers thrown in. It is stunningly beautiful, though the poverty of all of India is still evident. Driving along roads edged with fields with mountains in the distance one encounters a soldier with very large gun every few hundred meters, and we have to take our passports everywhere. On the other hand, all have been very friendly. Yesterday we took all afternoon to be rowed around an enormous lake - very peaceful and decadant to just sit back and observe. Today we drove about two hours into the mountains to where there was snow with the idea of going skiing, but it turns out the skiing season has JUST finished. I was very dissapointed, but we compensated by being pulled around on sleds all afternoon. Seriously, just a wooden sled and a guy with the rope - I told my English friends it was part of their heriatige.

The internet is unbelievably slow here, and I don't really have access to email very often, plus my feet are still wet because the only shoes I had other than flip flops are Pumas - not ideal when wading through a foot of snow. But this place is so beautiful, so peaceful, and I'm having a wonderful time... More probably when I'm back in Dehli on Friday. I'll be home Tuesday morning, give me a ring!

8:40pm: I just wanted to tell everyone who's reading this about the lifestyle change I've encountered while I've been in Dharamsala. For the first few days, I admit, I noticed no great change in my principles. But it didn't take long for the serenity of the mountains, the calming peace of the religion that surrounded me, and the influence of those I met to take it's toll. Observing monks walking around I have noticed that they all wear expressions of deepest peace - with themselves and with the world at large. Seeing the Dalai Lama a few times has strengthened my regard - I want to join their ranks and study this ancient and most beautiful religion.

This is, obviously, a gradual process. I still plan to attend Brown next year, but I hope to focus on meditation, yoga, mental control and peace, and other aspects of Buddhism that I truly believe will enrich my life. I will spend all the time I can here in Dharamsala or similarly spiritual retreats, and I plan to devote my summers to living in monasteries and similar places where I can focus on these essential subjects in a spartan environment that will enable me to commune more with the spiritual world and the few essentials necessary to life; peace and harmony of the spiritual world, not the physical or material. I have already given up drinking, eating meat or anything that comes from animals, and eating anything that contains preservatives or unnatural substances (I do not want to use the word vegan as I don't believe in labels). I have not abandoned all of my previously held beliefs, but I find it extraordinary to reflect on how I have changed - my previous conviction in no higher power or God is now laughable to me, as I believe that all in life is balanced and has a purpose. How else could I have come, so serendipitously, to Dharamsala and the home of the Dalai Lama? Even his exile to this place, I think, was the work of a God who wanted the mantras of Buddhism to be spread to India and those who visit here.

I sincerely hope that you all will support this change in me, as it is extremely important to me. I hope I will be able to enlighten some of you on the religion I have found, and I hope it can change your life as well as it has changed mine. I am no longer afraid; I am no longer uncertain. I know that I have the support of God and the world, and my spirit is at peace.

With best wishes to all of you for a safe, serendipitous and pleasent APRIL.

4:17am: Raise your right hand, place your left hand on the lonely planet...
(I'm working on the Backpacker's Oath).

So I'm in Dharamsala. How did this happen? Am a bit puzzled myself but I'll try to sum up the last few days - not an easy task. Maxie, my friend from England (and Botswana) met me with her friend Flora on Saturday, after a lot of Logistics and running around. But finally we met up and went out to dinner with one of my best friends from CCS, which was lots of fun. Sunday was largely devoted to shopping / trying to figure out where we wanted to go, which involved a lot of discussion about whether or not we should try to go to Kashmir - not, was the decision, which I think was wise. So we decided to try to go to Jaisalmer, a place to the east where you can go on camel treks through the desert. This was all very well until we tried to book a train and found that we couldn't get a reservation until Thursday, which messed up everything. So around one in the afternoon we decided to come up here to Dharamsala, and after being mildly ripped off by a tourist booking company we were on a bus by four. We got here around 6 AM, after a fairly hellish trip during which we were tormented (nothing dangerous, just annoying and icky) by some of the Indian guys who were(worryingly) assisting in driving the bus. One of them said to me at one point (obviously as I was trying to sleep, and really randomly), "Do you know 'Hotel California'? I like that song." Seriously, what IS it with Hotel California?!

Was very hard to find a place to stay as apparently there's something important going on (not sure what - I think I may be the least 'spiritual' person within several miles) but I resolutely called every number in the Lonely Planet in ascending order by price, until we came upon one that is very reasonably priced and has hot water and an amazing view. The hot water is key as it's suddenly FREEZING! Maxie had a broken window right next to her head the whole bus trip, and we all got off feeling we would never be warm again. I'm currently wearing sneakers, a scarf and a jacket - clothes I haven't touched in weeks.

A bit on Dharamsala. We are actually about 4km above the town of Dharamsala (where there isn't a whole lot to do) in a town called McLeod Ganj. Tons of backpackers wandering around, hippie-style in dreadlocks and beads, and monks in everywhere. Monks are pushy. Maxie tried to make eye contact at one point, then turned to me and whispered, "Are you allowed to smile at monks?" Very funny as you see them everywhere in their red outfits and shaved heads being very monkish, then doing things like checking their email and using instant messenger next to me (like right now) or carrying Umbro sports bags etc. off the bus. Dharamsala is known as the 'little Tibet', as the Dalai Lama came here when he fled Tibet after the Chinese invasion (seriously, I love the Lonely Planet) and a lot of other Tibetans followed. The streets are narrow but much less crowded than Dehli, there are a lot more tourists, and it's unbelievably beautiful. Our hotel looks over a valley and mountainsides from which white butterflies have been flying in hundreds all day. In the other direction you can see craggy snow-capped Himalayas. There are prayer flags on the streets and in the trees, where you an also see fluffy, fat langur monkeys (I tried head bobbing them but it didn't work.) It's cold, clear, sunny and clean. We took a nap when we got here, then I got up and went exploring. I walked down to the Dalai Lama's residence, but was unable to enter because I had a camera, so instead I had a cup of tea in a nearby shop and chatted with some other tourists we had met on the bus up. Then I tried to go down to a temple that apparently makes sculptures out of butter (I can't decide if this is freakishly awesome or just freakish - I mean, butter) but again struck out as I walked down approximately a million steps to what turned out to be a monastery, and then had to walk up them again. That was painful, but it did warm me up and there were monkeys. It's just so beautiful here it completely makes up for the stress of the last few days. We just ate a late lunch and are planning to explore, I think, a British church down the mountain that goes by the name of Church of St. John in the Wilderness. Does this 'in the wilderness' refer to the church or St. John? If, for example, this church was transported out of the wilderness, or if it's surroundings were to cease to be wilderness, would one have to change it's name, or would it remain the way it is because St. John was IN the wilderness (or it was in the wilderness) at it's time of origin? Similarly, if St. John were to leave the wilderness, would the church cease to exist? I'll stop now.

On Friday we're planning to take a bus to Amristar, where there is the Golden Temple (a huge and really beautiful Sikh temple in which travelers can stay for free) and meet up with a bunch of my CCS friends, before heading back to Dehli. But it's part of the Backpacker's Oath that plans may change at a moment's notice...

Love from a very chilled out (literally) and hippie-backpacking Lucy

3:03pm: it's my last day again...
So today is my last day with CCS. I've been running around like a crazyperson for the last few days trying to get a hotel for me and friends who are coming, getting last minute stuff done, etc. etc... but I think I'm actually impressively on top of it. And things are looking up... not that they were looking down before, or anything, but humor me.

This week I was giving a lecture on immunizations. On Monday I was halfway through it when my translator (who had asked me to give it in the first place) announced, "The womens already know about immunizations." O-kay. Also on Tuesday we were instruced to teach English to the kids in the community center school as one of the teachers hadn't shown up. It turns out I'm not bad at teaching the kids, but the other girl I work with, although she has difficulty holding their attention (or more accurately getting them to listen to her), is better at playing with them. The result of this is that this morning we walked in and about eight kids ran and gave her hugs. NO ONE hugged me. It was depressing. But anyway, I was teaching English. I got them to write and recite the months and days of the week, but when I asked them to say them one by one, it became clear that they actually can't read. They can copy the letters, recite the alphabet and things like "A for Apple" and the months, but if they mess up they'll simply guess - their sounding-out skills are pretty much non-existent. I did mention this to several people, but who knows if it will be addressed. The highlight of my morning, though, was when I was holding up flashcards and having the kids count the number of objects on the card and tell me in English what they were. They got really into this, announcing the names as if they were announcing a football game - arms above the head, the whole deal: "CAAAAAT!" "APPPPLLEEEE!!!" The best part was when i held up a picture of a frog and all the kids simultaneously yelled, "RABBIIIIIIIT!" This morning as I was leaving my translator told me to come back to India when I was married. My telling her that this could take a while didn't seem to lessen her resolve - ten years, five, whatever. Right.

Yesterday a friend of mine and I were going shopping and discovered a store that sold - wait for it - BRIE. This is a MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH. Any actual shopping was abandoned in favor of a picnic. We were unable to splurge on champagne, but we got two small bottles of sparkling cider, a wheel of brie, garlic bread (that turned out to be normal bread with embedded garlic cloves, but whatever), and a piece of chocolate cake. Then we headed off to the Lodhi Gardens, a huge park filled with flowers and some temple-like buildings. Everywhere people were walking, pushing strollers, jogging, etc. and the light on the buildings and flowers was really beautiful. It really hit the spot... And tonight I'm going out with some volunteers and staff for my last dinner, and then tomorrow moving ACROSS THE STREET to a hotel to stay with friends. And switching into holiday backpacker mode. I think it'll be awesome to travel and just chill but also hopefully be able to hang out with my CCS friends, who are fabulous - I have met so many amazing people on this trip. I'm having the BEST TIME.

This year is very awesome. You should take one. Seriously.

Is it bad that when, in your final feedback meeting, they ask you about places you'll miss and your answer is the coffee shop and the internet cafe? In my defense the coffee shop is awesome.

5:00pm: Holi shit
I absolutelylove this holiday and it's not even over.

I don't actually know what the religious significance of Holi is, but basically it involves getting smashed and covering yourself with dye. So that's what we did. If you walk the streets people will attack you in celebration and cover you with colors - started with just powder (at work yesterday my very hard-ass translator was stuffing it down our shirts) but people now use water with dye and sort of paint-like substances - deadly if you're wearing anything you actually like. It's awesome. All of us had put together white (or white-ish) outfits that we didn't mind destroying. This morning a friend and I got decked out and, with cameras in a plastic bag, went to say Happy Holi to the inhabitants of the other flats. On the way, of course, we were attacked by small children with cans of what appeared to be colored fake snow, colored water in water guns, and water balloons often filled with dye. I know that a lot of Holi is marked by people being sleazy or overdoing it, but I found that everyone we encountered (who, granted, were mostly people in the apartment complex we live in) was really good natured and pleasent; lots of "Happy Holi!" exchanged, good natured fun, and the older people walking around in clearly un-Holi clothes were left alone. When we reached one of the flats there were lots of scuffling sounds when we rang the doorbell and finally a "just a minute..." before we were attacked with what a believe to be water balloons filled with what was basically paint.

As we got home we were picked up and taken to the house of the head of the program, who happens to be in the U.S. right now. As we reached the roof we were met by friends and staff members armed with colored powder - lots of smearing on faces in good clean fun. Of course, there were also colored water balloons, water guns in a barrel of colored water, the paint balloons, beer, and vodka. Before long everyone was soaked and dyed and my hair cloth was pulled off. There was a prevailing you-got-me-I'll-get-you-back mentality: everyone was fighting everybody else, the CCS staff as much (or more) than any of us. I think I had about four buckets of purple water poured over me, plus color rubbed in my hair and face by each staff member at least twice. Also they all tended to attack me at once, pick me up and soak me. Before long I was a more or less uniform purple color, dripping, having been smeared by every color so they kind of solidified in layers. I felt like some kind of guerrilla fighter camouflaging myself somewhere purple with only the whites of my eyes showing - but then of course someone would sneak up with bright yellow or pink or green and make it more interesting again. We danced Bollywood dances to Bollywood music and everyone was drinking and hugging each other. I can say with absolute certainty that it was one of the most fun days I have ever experienced.

The post mortem is that most of my hair is still bright purple (with a blue/green section, though I washed it four times) as is much of my skin, which makes me look like a zombie with really bad acne and also a punk rocker. My eyes are killing me - my contacts actually became dyed so you could see an orange ring around my irises. Completely, completely worth it.

We got a new group in. My flat has now become a very bizarre group of people, including two 18-year-old boys (who actually act like 18-year-old boys - I'm not used to this) from Cincinnati who claim to be Buddhists. I wrote a song called "death by political correctness". There are some really great people, though, and as usual I'm having an absolutely amazing time.

More on work and stuff later but I'm in holiday mode right now... and entirely purple.

Until next time, pet the dog and screw in the lightbulb. Peace.

2:21pm: the good, the bad, the downright embarassing
Which means my pictures are online. Yay! It only took six hours in a coffee shop on a borrowed computer... Also, through no fault of my own (really), my camera has come to be known as the 'community camera'. This basically means that I got up once and left it on a table... I cannot be held responsible for any pictures in which I am dancing, or any of the bizarre head shots of other volunteers. But there is some really good stuff, so check it out: http://lucyseyfarthspictures.shutterfly.com. I tried to add captions to the photos so those of you who have been hearing about the other volunteers can put names to faces, but it didn't work, so just write me an email if you want me to describe them or tell you who's in a picture or something.

That's all I really have at the moment... it's hotter by the day and very dry, but work goes fairly well, etc. Had a very nice relaxing weekend in Dehli and we're getting a new group in this coming weekend.

I just want. to eat. a cow.

Cheers

7:15pm: Seen on a sign outside the men's room at a truck stop: Leave the birds alone.
Hey y'all. Don't actually know if anyone's still reading this... aren't you bored already? But I'll update anyway. See, that's how bad EVERYONE I KNOW is at communication. If you knew what was good for you... (and wanted presents from India...) But I digress.

So just got back from a weekend at Haridwar and Rishikesh. Both northish of Dehli, both these cities are right on the Ganges and thus very holy, especially Haridwar. Unfortunately we got there too late to see the ceremony where lights float on the water (the traffic is such that it takes seven hours to drive 200 km, compared with Namibia's less than two hours), but walking around the next morning was stunning. For more than 100 km leading up to Haridwar we had seen people walking, carrying beautifully decorated containers of water home. Rishikesh is the 'yoga capital of the world' and was described as entirely dry and vegitarian. NOT something to recommend it in my book, but the hotel I stayed in had an unbelievably beautiful view of the Ganges and we visited many temples and holy places, and got a bit of a chance to relax. I have to say what I most appriciated about it was the chance to see a non-city part of the country. I realized that up until this past Friday I hadn't seen anything that could have given me an idea of what the country was like before the population was so large; coming from Botswana this seemed very depressing. Rishikesh is in the foothills of the Himalayas, and a view of mountains rising above the river, the smell of woodsmoke instead of the mingled urine-and-too-many-people of Dehli, and even a few moments of silence were enough.

Things in Dehli continue as usual. This week I'm doing a lecture on HIV/AIDS. Have only given it to one group of women so far, but it seemed to be well-recieved. At least, it ended in a lot of giggling, and I heard my translator say (in English, I guess some ideas are universal) "No condom, no sex" several times, so at least some message went through. Although our translator is really good, I'm finding the translating a little frusterating. Not that I don't trust her to translate correctly, but I can say something like, "The most important thing is to talk to your family about AIDS," and maybe, if she doesn't think this is the most important thing, the idea won't get across quite as firmly. Perhaps this is pretentious - after all, she knows the culture a hell of a lot better than I do - but with such important ideas I worry how much is sinking in, and having to translate increases the risk of losing some. But I can't speak Hindi and thus must do my best.

Today we visited some temples and a mosque, which was very interesting. I still have no use whatsoever for organized religion, but the buildings were beautiful and it was interesting to hear some of the CCS staff talk about it firsthand. More than when I arrived I'm noticing the poverty and dirtiness of Dehli - I was so used to the cliche of India that it just passed over me, and now I'm beginning to see it more. Which I guess is good, in a way... Saw another mongoose today.

Write me!

3:28pm: India: Feel a Sense of Accomplishment After Crossing The Street Alive
Hey everybody! I've now been in Dehli a week and I feel like I've been here for ages. The other people in my group are fantastic, I really like them - I'm the youngest by about two or three years, but on any given day I'll pass for maybe twelve (to get a reduced rate into a site or something) and then twenty-five (to get a drink) so who's counting? Anyway, really fun people, though the flat I live in is the crappiest of the bunch - we've started calling it Faulty Towers. It has a rat problem. Ah well.

My work placement looks to be really good. I go every morning to a slum-like area and lecture to women about healthcare. Hard to give a whole lot of insight at the moment as I've only ended up going twice (our presence is based on our interpreter's presence), but it's really heartening to see the women at least show up, listen, as questions, etc. Who knows if anything we say will actually make a difference, but at least someone has a chance to hear it. These women have such busy lives anyway, it's a big deal to me that they'll take time to come and hear us talk, and to have lessons reading and writing; we get all ages and on the whole people are really friendly. Perhaps we haven't entered the worst areas, but I find it less depressing than I thought I would, and less depressing than some of the things I've seen in parts of Africa: the walls are made of bricks, not cardboard; kids show up to school; etc. But I've probably seen a sheltered view, and may well eat my words in the future.

Also I got back yesterday night from Jaipur and Agra - exhausting, but a really cool trip. In Jaipur we saw a bunch of forts and monuments (and the shopping was great!). I love the archetecture - it's well catered to the needs of the area and consists often of cool, open stone rooms that are beautifully designed and very pleasent to walk around, especially in bare feet! The Taj Mahal, in Agra, was one of the most beautiful things I've seen. A friend of mine and I spent ages wandering around the landscaped grounds and the marble floors; besides the building itself there are some beautiful gatehouse-like buildings on the side, surrounded by trees and grass. However, no fewer than thirteen groups of people wanted their photos taken with us. I tried to ask one of them why, but didn't really get a straight answer: "just to show we are here with tourists." Read: just to tell my friends I met someone blonde? Didn't mind so much if it was women or kids, somehow, but far too many groups of teenage boys in stonewashed jeans. Ew. I mean, who wears stonewashed jeans? After a while we went to lounge on the grass and somehow accumulated bodyguards (two guards and a gardener) who would literally blow their whistles when people approached us. So that was interesting.

I have to say that the Taj was a nice contrast to a mosque we visited earlier in the day, which was so filled with people trying to sell stuff and be your guide that you couldn't walk twenty feet. I'm afraid we started being a bit rude; I don't want to buy anything, even if it's cheap, I don't want a guide... a common occurence was someone demanding to be a guide for free, not leaving you alone, and then insisting that you come and examine the postcards or elephant statues they were selling behind some door. I was very torn between feeling sorry for people and noticing the level of poverty and just beaing annoyed - it's very hard to be sympathetic when you're being hounded all the time. I was also frusterated with the fact that all this was going on in a place of worship - not that it really bothered me in a religeous sense, but it could be an important area to some people. In a dark stone room where you were meant to make wishes men were selling wall hangings, and in another an old man instructed me to tap my forehead and then touch it to a table before leaving a donation on the table. I deposited a few rupees which he immidiately transferred to his pocket.

Also I rode on an elephant, which was very fun although my instinct was to run away when I was standing next to it on the ground. We left Jaipur for Agra at five AM, and I opened my eyes briefly as we were leaving the city to see, emerging in the darkness, a cart with a man sitting on top pulled by an enormous camel, lumbering down the street in pre-dawn darkness. Talk about your Arabian Nights. I had no idea camels were so big. Altogether new experience driving down the road (feeling like you may die at any moment, I might add - Indian driving is unlike anything) dodging bicycles, horse carts, elephants, camel carts, and elaborately decorated trucks. There is so much here I've never seen before.

It's really hot outside (for all of you stuck in slushy February, ha!) and this is the first free time I've had in a while, also the Indian disco music in this internet place is driving me slowly nuts. More sometime this week...
Cheers!

8:02pm: I saw a bird with a black face on top of a cow and also some weird grey chipmunks.
Hey Kids, I'm in India! Alive, though no credit to Indian airports. The Mumbai airport has almost no signs, so when I arrived from Joburg I had to ask about eight people how to get to the domestic flights area - between the eight of them I got the idea, but it wasn't easy. By the time I got on the plane I was so tired (it was about 3 AM India time and about 1 AM Bots time, rough when you've been on a plane all day) and somehow I lost my boarding pass. But whatever, i was already on the plane, right? WRONG. As we got off the plane everyone presented their boarding pass to be stamped, which apparently was necessary to enter Dehli, even on a domestic flight. So I struggled to find it and finally after everyone else had gone through i tried to explain the situation to the guy in charge, who didn't really speak English. Finally I got across that I didn't have my boarding pass or ticket, which caused him to exclaim, "Then how do we know you're here in Dehli!?"

Yesterday I slept most of the morning after getting in at six and then had to sign about a million forms - even in Bots i have never seen so much beurocracy (don't ask me to spell it). In the afternoon we toured some of Dehli, seeing MONKEYS on leashes in dresses and also on rooftops! Obviously I had to ask what kind of monkeys, but the man looked at me like I was nuts and said, "They're just monkeys." Also there snake charmers, which are very cool and creepy. He was hitting a is cobra under it's chin, on the road to the prime minister's house, no less. We also saw a huge temple that reminded me of the Sydney opera house and a tomb that was really cool.

Tomorrow i'm going to go to the place where I'm going to be volunteering, an NGO that deals with socially handicapped people; I think it's just an introduction day, to get to know it. Another woman is working there and I think we'll be lecturing to lower class women about healthcare, which if it works is just what I wanted to do; I might do a lecture on AIDS (so the brochures we read in all sorts of clinics last summer will finally pay off). In more flippant areas, I'm also doing yoga Tuesday and Thursday nights and I think I'm going to go to Agra, where the Taj Mahal is, this weekend.

In other news, YOU ALL SUCK AT KEEPING IN TOUCH!!!! You know who you are. I'm using gmail again now and I expect news of everyone's life.

Love to all!

3:06pm: Something CAN Be Done About It
(this is the message emblazoned on the enormous, bright yellow Scientology truck parked accross the street)

Just got back from Namibia! Really interesting trip. We started off by visiting some friends of friends in Windhoek, the capital. Crossing from Botswana to Namibia was amazing. Suddenly, the houses were neat, there were no livestock on the roads... how strange. Windhoek is a really cool city and the people we were staying with were really nice. As aforementioned our quest (or the quest of my decreasingly sane parents) was to locate baboons that herd goats, which is scientifically relavent for reasons that (although they're actually really interesting) I won't go into here. Write if you want details - you may get too many. Anyway, our friend called a farmer who had once had such a monkey, and had a long talk with him. Unfortunately he was too busy to meet with us, but as he speaks only Afrikaans it was kind of a mute point. So the pilgrimidge was a bit of a bust, but we got some really weird anecdotes. Which of course was part of the point. And anyway I was only along for the trip.

As most of our other leads had kind of dead ended, we drove across the Namib desert to the Skeleton Coast, 'Where the desert meets the sea'. And funnily enough it DOES. After about five hours' driving through about five different kinds of stark, bam, ocean! We went to a seal colony where the annual rainfall was supposed to be 5mm, and in one night got three. This is especially amazing as our family used to bring drought. Clearly we have COMPLETELY changed this, though I'm beginning to wonder how our weather karma will change next. Imagine if there were a plague of locusts everywhere you went. Or, like, winter mix.

The other cool place we visited was a lodge near a foundation that also rehabilitate cats for the wild. Really interesting. A lot of farmers shoot leopard and cheetah who kill livestock, and the idea (besides helping cats who are injured or raised partially by people and so have to be slowly reintroduced to the wild) was to get people to trap the animals and then call the organization, which would move them. Saw a bunch of cheetah and leopard closer than I ever had before, and also got to talk to the owner who (the reason we came, of course) used to have a trained baboon who ate at the table with a spoon, drank coke and beer, and was trained to know the difference between tools and hand the appropriate one when his owner, often working under a car, told him, "spanner" or "screwdriver". Of course, the man explained, every so often you had to dominate the monkey to show him who was boss, which involved allowing him to bite your arm, then grabbing his throat and hitting him in the stomach. Fortunately once his canines, which would go through the man's hand, were removed, all he could do is cause big bruises and the occasional fractured bone. Anyone who has ever asked if the monkeys are my pets, if they come when called, or if we touch them - now you know why not.

So now we're back in Maun, where it's still raining. Write me emails!!!

2:32pm: things that are better left unexplained for 200, alex
Hey everyone! I'm able to update because I'm in Maun, the town near our camp in Botswana, right now at an internet cafe. We had a really wonderful Christmas and New Year up at Baboon Camp. The most amazing thing is that it's been raining almost constantly. I have only spent a decent amount of time (more than two weeks or so) here in the rainy season twice; once in 1995 and once in 1997, two years of some of the worst drought in Botswana history. This is where my obsession with rain comes from - I connnect summers in Baboon Camp with staring into the distance at a single puff of cloud and contemplating the impending buildup, or listening to thunder and watching dramatic lightning knowing that it will never come to us. Well, now it's different. We've had over 200 mm since Christmas (the average rainfall in January, the month of the most rain, is usually abou 150 mm), and even I have to admit it's getting a little old. Turns out it's not fun to live in a camp when it's damp all the time! But of course I still can't stop feeling that this is totally wonderful. I mean, old habits die hard... When it's not raining it's ridiculously hot. I have a tank top and shorts tan second to none, and I am the MASTER of Sudoku.

The rain also means, though, that there is pretty much no game around. Usually the flood goes down and all the animals congragate around the river this time of year, but this year they just haven't needed to and we are seeing absolutly nothing. Except a couple hippos that wander through at night, of course, and Riley the one-eyed hyena who eats shoes (also known as Jimmy Buffet, after he savaged Keena's flip flop on Christmas day).

Tomorrow we are going to Namibia to search for baboons that heard goats.

Ta ta! Miss you all and write me about your holidays! xxx

10:41am: The Plan
Sorry it's been so long, but there's somehow less of an incentive when one is at home. Realized a little while ago that I hadn't been home for more than a week since June, so it was really nice to just chill for a
little while. I've been flying pretty much every day, which I LOVE. Hopefully I'll be able to continue, at least a little bit, in Bots.

So here's The Plan. I'm leaving for Christmas in Botswana tomorrow, and really excited about it. Obviously Bots is the best, and this is my favorite time of year there. It's about 120 degrees in the sun every day, but really beautiful - everything's green, all the animals are concentrated near the river, all the migratory birds are down, and it's the rainy season. Rain is a bit of an obsession, as many of you know.

My parents are on sabbatical this year, so they (and I) will be out there until early February. On February 10, I think, I fly Joburg to Mumbai, then Mumbai to New Dehli. I'm doing the same program I did in Peru in New Dehli, for six weeks. Really excited about that - I've never been to India or indeed anywhere in Asia, and although I'm not crazy about cities (and Dehli is definitely a city), I think it will be a really interesting experience. I'm so excited just to BE there, so that's a good sign. I don't know where I'll be volunteering yet, so right now I'm just counting on doing a lot of wandering, a lot of exploring, and a lot of coming back with a ton of cool stuff. Requests can be submitted with personal check, credit card, cash or money order.

My program officially ends on March 25, but a really close family friend who is also on her gap year will be traveling through Dehli with a friend just as I finish. My ticket out is scheduled for April 10 (I think) so I'm planning on hanging out and exploring with them for about two weeks. I can't really say any more about that at this point as I'm not sure exactly what we'll be up to, but I'm really psyched.

I will be more or less out of contact while I'm in Botswana. I might be able to check my email once or twice, but I'm not sure yet. I probably won't be able to update the blog, but it's always possible. I will, however, be in contact while I'm in India, so please write me emails while I'm there! Or write them while I'm not, because you miss me that much and want me to have something to read when I arrive! Heh. Again the address to use is lucy.seyfarth@gmail.com, and all my pictures are online at http://lucyseyfarthspictures.shutterfly.com. If I figure out how to put up pictures while I'm in India they could be updated, but no promises.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HANNUKAH (I've given up spelling) AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!!!
Have a great break and keep in touch!! See you all in April!

3:19pm: Switzerland and England
Hello! Just got back from a week in Switzerland and England. My parents were going to a conference in Switzerland and giving talks, so we went about three days early and a friend of thiers took us hiking in the Alps. I found Switzerland very satisfying in that it looks exactly as it's supposed to look. Everything is exactly on time - all trains, all buses, everything. Just like clockwork, heh heh.

On our first day we took a train through Luzern (I think that's how it's spelled), a beautiful town on a river. Then took the train further to a village I won't even try to spell. It was a town that is obviously very touristy during the seasons, but we were kind of in the off season so everything was delightfully peaceful. It's a big skiing area, and although I was dissapointed not to have the opportunity to ski (weather was actually beautifully unseasonably warm - we were hiking around in short sleeves), it was really nice not to have too many people, except perhaps everpresent Japanese tourists. I don't know why.

The next day was stunning - sunny and warm. We took several cable cars to near the tops of snow-covered mountains, then hiked up for about an hour before lunch. For some reason hiking makes me more hungry than anything else I can think of. The rest of the day was more or less downhill, and so beautiful. We weaved through the ridge of a mountain down to the edge of a lake, then walked down through a forest with streams trickling through pine trees and waterfalls emerging from sheer rock.

The next day we took a train to Grindelwald, the gatepost to what is known as "The Top of Europe". We didn't actually go to the top of Europe, though... very expensive, very touristy. We had a lovely hike around the town, though - up a steep path to cow fields. The Swiss put bells on every single cow in the herd. Apparently the sound is meant to be charming (my mother has a theory that they're just being socialist and not singling out a lead cow), but I have to say, a bell on one cow is charming. A bell on each of twenty cows will drive you absolutly out of your mind. But this is just my opinion. Anyway, we hiked all day through mountains that would have been unbelievably stunning were it not for the fact that they were covered in clouds. Still beautiful.

While my parents did thier talks etc., I went to Wales! Well, Herefordshire, right on the Welsh border, to visit extended family (practically) the Longdens who we know from Bots. I haven't seen them for about two years, so it was so fantastic to see them and some other friends from Botswana and meet some of thier new friends. Maxie is also on her gap year, and we may be able to meet up somewhere in the spring. We had a great time riding and shopping and generally hanging out - they are the kind of friends who are so close that our families can yell at each other's children. I never feel like a guest in their house, and it is so wonderful to find them all unchanged.

I don't really know what I'm doing for the rest of the year yet, but I'll put it up as soon as I do. I'm also trying to find a job - I have a couple interviews, but I can't imagine anyone will hire me... Please for the love of God, if you know anyone who will pay me to do ANYTHING (within reason), let me know. I have no money!!!!

I've posted my pictures from Wales and Switzerland. The new link is http://lucyseyfarthspictures.shutterfly.com - my Peru ones are on this link too, as it's just easier to put them all on one site, so don't go to the other website anymore, I'm going to try to delete it.

I hope to see everyone soon over Thanksgiving, but in the meantime, give me a call!!

2:02pm: sweet dreams and flying machines
This entry's pretty short... just a general update on life and a link to my pictures! After much drama I finally got my Peru pics online - the website is http://lucysperupix.shutterfly.com. Or that should work, at least.

In other news, I've started flying lessons at the Brandywine Airport in Westchester. I love them!!! The instructor is really great and I'm really enjoying it. I'm not flying today due to rain, but hopefully I'll be starting to go pretty much every day, as everyone agrees that this is the best way to do things. More on that later, I'm sure. Other than that, I've been looking into ways to make money, which is difficult as I have zero work experience and will only be home until December. Fun! So... babysitting, tutoring, and possibly being a soccer mom? Please let me know if you have ideas... this is getting pathetic. And I'm going broke.

On Saturday I'm leaving for Switzerland and returning the following Monday. My parents are giving a talk and we're going a few days early to go hiking and exploring the Alps, then when they do the boring scientific stuff, I'm going to see friends in Wales. Yay! Not sure exactly what the place names are, but it looks to be great! Again, more on that later.

Ok, that was a lame entry. More when I have more to say. Enjoy the pictures!

7:31pm: Cuscotopia
Home again! But going to write as much as I can about the last four days in Cusco. Sorry this is a bit day-by-day and disjointed, there's just far too much to fit in...

We arrived on Friday morning and went through a bit of hell with the travel agent our guy in Ayacucho had used. We hadn't yet paid for our plane ticket to Cusco, we had no plane ticket home yet, we had no train tickets to Machu Picchu, and our rafting was going to last too long and was probably non-refundable. We were pretty annoyed at Pancho, but the travel agent was fantastic. We did have some free time that afternon, and walked around a bit, had lunch, shopped in a arts and crafts area with great jewelry, and saw a meuseum-type thing in a tower that had a huge statue on top. Cusco is a beautiful city. It's very touristy, but after Ayacucho I didn't mind too much. The Plaza de Armas was about two blocks from our hotel, and is really stunning with cathedral and an enormous green fountain. A little annoying is the fact that everywhere you go people are trying to sell you something - tours, food, entrance to a club - and won't take no for an answer. After spending kind of an exhausting evening working out our plans, We went to have a nap at seven and never woke up.

On Saturday we went on a tour of the ruins around Cusco. We had changed our rafting to horseback riding so we could only do a half day, which turned out to be a good descision as it was very wet and cold. We rode through the rain quite a bit, but it cleared up in the late morning and the ruins were beautiful. It would take forever to write about them all, but especially spectacular was Sacsayhuaman. Cusco was built in the shape of a panther, and Sacsayhuaman, a combination religeous and miliary center, was the head. The walls were designed to cut in and out like teeth, making the structure very difficult to attack. It was huge, and really amazing. That evening we spent some more time at the travel agent, visted some more meuseums, and were well rested enough to hit a club or two or four. Cusco is good for this.

The next day, Sunday, we had a tour of the Sacred Valley. The Sacred Valley, or the beginning of it, is about half an hour outside Cusco. We took an all-day English-speaking (finally) tour in a bus to several different sites, and again, I'll just try to touch on the most famous, Ollantaytambo. Ollantaytambo is the only place where people still live in Inca-constructed houses, and is famous for being huge and windy. In front, there are dramatic Machu Picchu-like steps; we climbed a smaller stairway to get to some ruins of temples at the top. Across from Ollantaytambo, on one of the mountain sides, you can see some arches that used the wind for natural refridgeration (this was really amazing) and a face cut into the mountain side. Below, near the villiage, are some ancient fountains and evidence of a still-functioning irrigation system. It was really extraordinary to see all the things that were accomplished, and this was before we saw Machu Picchu.

We visited Machu Picchu the next day. Everyone tells you that you can't visit Peru without seeing it, and although I kind of waved this off, it's entirely true. We saw it on a misty day that really emphasized the mystery around it, and the structures are unbelievable. I can't possibly write everything there was, but for those who don't know much about it, Machu Picchu is an Incan city that was used for religeous and scientific purposes. A lot of it has to do with astrology, and they think they only people living in it were scientists or priests (or the equivilant thereof). There are some fascinating temples, for example, the most famous Sun Temple has a ray of light that falls perfectly into the center of it on June 21. A lot of the other monuments are perfectly aligned with the points of the compass. We weren't able to do some of the hikes we wanted in the intrest of time (we had less time than we planned as there had been an avalanche on the train tracks the preveous week) or see all of the temples, but it was unbelievably beautiful. For me, one of the most amazing things was how far away Machu Picchu is from everything else. We were in a very mountainous cloud forest, and yet we were still at least two hours by train from Ollantaytambo, where I think our guide said they got most of the stone to build Machu Picchu. It's not like the Incas could just hitch up a horse and pull things - this is very difficult terrain. Why build so far apart? Jess and I speculated on this and other parts of the civilization for quite some time after our tour, watching the llamas and wild Andean chinchillas meander through the ruins. It was pretty near indescribable. That night we saw traditional dancing at a touristy restaurant in Cusco, and I finally got to try guinea pig. The guinea pig came roasted and completely whole on my plate, with a little pepper in it's protruding teeth. Disturbing? Pehraps. And yes, I did have a pet one when I was little. I ate it anyway, or as much of the meat as I could get out. Our waiter says that I was wrong to use a knife and fork and disregard the skin, but there are limits.

We spent the next day mostly on the beach in Miraflores, a really nice part of Lima, as we both had tickets to leave late at night. My trip home was uneventful, unless you count having my nearly vacuum-packed backpack opened and searched in Lima (I'm amazed they got it shut again), running into obnoxious American tourists (but of course that never happens), or having the man in Lima cross himself before stamping my passport. It's great to be home, of course, but really difficult to say goodbye to all my friends in Peru... This trip was really, really amazing, and I think Peru was one of the best descisions I have made. I'll update a bit more over the next few weeks, as I'm going to Switzerland next Saturday and have my first flying lesson on Monday! In the meantime, drop me an email or give me a call. Over and out.

4:50pm: It´s my birthday gift to me!
This was my last week in Ayacucho. Sad! But not without it´s own special dramas.

Tuesday night a lot of people went to a discoteca. Lots of fun, needless to say. The next day was my last day at the lab, but was so quiet that I spent most of the time sitting around doing nothing most of the time - kind of nice, on not very much sleep. Around eleven I pulled out my camera to take pictures of people, and ended up showing them all 519 pictures I had taken up to that point. So that took up most of the time... then said goodbye to Ever and the giggly nursing students I´ve been working with. Then today was my last morning at the kindergarden. I did puzzles alllll day. Kind of awesome, actually; a huge pile of mismatched puzzle peices, go sort them out. I hadn´t finished by the time I left, but it was a kind of fun, if bizarre, way to spend several hours. I took pictures of the kids, too.

I´ve been kind of frantically racing around trying to get last-minute things that I want, which was why it was annoying that my entire afternoon yesterday was taken by getting my hair braided and beaded (just one strand but kind of complicated - it looks really cool) by one of the guys we just refer to as the hippie jewelers. This man is a rastafarian with whom I got into a huge fight with about reality and who I am, spiritually, last week. We - there were three of us, but only two were getting our hair done - had to go to his house, a cement cube, and he had to smoke a joint before he started each braid to get in the proper mindset. I had expected to take about an hour, tops, but I ended up being gone for almost five. Literally every two minutes the guy would give some sort of giggle and murmer, ¨ahhhh, la paciencia.¨ They use the word patience as a kind of greeting or goodbye: See ya later! Patience! By the end I was so stir crazy that I started hysterically laughing every time he said this and just wanting to slap him. It was an interesting afternoon.

Leaving for Cuzco tonight with my friend Jessica, so today we met with Pancho, who is supposedly planning our trip. All was good until I said, ¨So, how do we get the plane tickets you said you´d buy for us?¨ He suddenly looked very alarmed, ¨You didn´t get your tickets yet?¨ Long story short, we´re leaving tonight, and we had no tickets. No bus tickets to Lima. No plane tickets to Cuzco. No train tickets to Aguas Calientes, where Maccu Picchu is. Several phone calls later and a long trip to the bus station, I think we´re going to be all right - but it wasn´t fun. Here are our plans:

Tonight: Take the night bus to Lima, leaving at 10 and getting in at 6
Tomorrow: Fly at 9 am to Cuzco. Spend the rest of the day wandering around Cuzco
Saturday: We´re supposed to go on a rafting trip, but Pancho (this is the other reason we´re frusterated with him) booked a full-day trip after telling us we could go on a half day one. We don´t really want to go on a full day trip, but we may not be able to cancel, so we may or may not be going rafting. In any case, at some point we´ll try to work in (if not Saturday then another day) a hike around the ruins near Cuzco.
Sunday: Full day tour of the Sacred Valley. Take an 8 o´clock train to Aguas Calientes
Monday: Wander and hike around Maccu Picchu. Take a 4 o´clock train back to Cuzco
Tuesday: Fly to Lima, possibly wander around the Miraflores district. My plane leaves for Miami at 11.

So at the moment I´m a bit frusterated with this trip, but really excited. I don´t know if I´ll be able to update over the next four days, but I definately will when I get home. Talk to you all soon!

12:53am: Christopher is certain...
Coast trip! Another long one coming up...

Thursday night we (me, three other people from CCS, and Pancho, our guide) left around ten and caught a bus to the small city of Chincha and, after a brief rest in an extremely crappy hotel, caught another to Ica, a slightly larger city near the coast. We arrived in Ica in time for breakfast and then went off to view some wineries, which apparently Ica is famous for.

The first we went to was one that retained the old fashioned ways of making wine and especially pisco. Pisco, named for the Quechua name for bird, is a ubiquitus local liquer, most often used in pisco sours, excellent cocktails that taste just like margharitas. The pisco itself is more like white brandy than tequila, though, and is distilled from grapes in a very complicated two part process. Pisco is so synonymous with Peru that the government actually made a rule that to celebrate, people must drink pisco sours instead of champagne. This first winery had a bar-like area and a large room that held all the flasks of liquer. Everything was decorated with old stuff - ancient typewriters and telephones, saddles and brides, musty busts of random people, and (a little bizarrely) a case of trophy heads. The room of wine was filled with roughly cylandrical cement-like casks. Hanging above them were bamboo sticks that were used to cyphon out wine and pisco to taste. Sun came in dusty shafts throught the ceiling and it smelled musty and winey. The wine was total crap, of course, but the atmosphere made up for it. For those of you who know it reminded me very much of Mukwa Leaf Gardens, but for wine. The second vineyard was more modern, cleaner, with a guide and tiled walkway and several restaurants. There were also bright green vines mixed with pecan and mango trees. It was really beautiful.

After this we continued to Huacachina, an oasis outside of Ica. This area boasts the largest sand dune in South America, and when I say an oasis, I mean it looked exactly like an oasis should look; a big pool surrounded by palm and other trees surrounded by sand dunes. It was a bit touristy, but really beautiful. If the morning was very ´Cask of Amontiago´(or however you spell it), the afternoon was ´Lawrence of Arabia´. Except that I dont think Lawrence partook in a rollercoaster-like sand buggy ride and sand boarding... So amazingly fun, like snowboarding down dunes. The buggy ride was a wild, flying-over-ridges experience that I loved, but the amount of sand was just staggering. Ok, I was thinking, a mound of sand. I didnt expect enormous mountains of sand stretching as far as the eye can see. Where did it all come from, and why was it here? At the end of sand boarding we all had sand everywhere. Sand in the ears and the eyes and the nose. Sand making weird patters on our necks and faces and looking like a bizarre skin condition, sand darkening my hairline and making it look like my roots were growing out. There was only one solution to this. We went into Ica and found a restaurant that served both ice cream and beer.

We drove that night to Nazca, and the next morning took a half-hour plane ride to see the Nazca lines. They were really amazing - so strange to me that they dont just disappear! These lines were made by the Nazcas about 2,000 years ago and still remain in weird patters of shapes and animals. The pilot tilted the plane at crazy angles to point at the faint shapes with the wing. After this we went to a really nice meuseum with an ancient aqueduct in the back garden to learn about the Nazcas, and then visited traditional pottery places and a place where they told us about mining gold the traditional way. We were able to try panning it, which consisted of standing on a plank on a rock and rocking back and forth, sloshing a pool of muddy gold and mercury. That afternoon we drove to Pisco, on the coast, and then to Paracas, where we took a boat bright and early to Las Islas Ballestas. These islands are famous for thier cathedral rock formations, sea lions, penguins, pelicans, and as many comorants as there was sand at Huacachina. It was cloudy and windy and really beautiful.

We got home around six last night, and I´ve spent much of today planning my trip to Cuzco. So excited! I´ll outline my plans more thoughoughly later, but I´m taking the night bus to Lima on Thursday night, exploring Cuzco, the Sacred Valley of the Incas, and of course Macchu Piccu (coloquially referred to as Mapi), and returning to Lima Tuesday morning. The girl I´m going with, Jessica, is then taking the night bus back to Ayacucho while I´m flying home! So I´ll be back on Wednesday the nineteeth.

Everybody write me, miss you all, the usual. More later this week!

3:10pm: El semáforo and all it´s intricacies
Sorry I haven´t updated in a while, I´ve been waiting until I had more concrete news.

Yesterday at the clinic is definately worth mentioning. I was useful! It was a very busy day with lots of patients, but I felt like I was not only learning what they did or even doing it myself, but doing it with some benefit to those around me. And it only took me three weeks! I mean, I obviously still ask a lot of questions and have people hovering over me to make sure I do things right, but I loved that they felt they could give me orders and the stuff would get done. Of course, this meant that every few minutes it was Lucia, take blood, Lucia, test these urine samples and don´t mix them up, Lucia, you know how to do an RPR test, right? Why yes I do. There were two nursing students there who spent a lot of time laughing in a friendly way at my Spanish (I ask you - I mean, could you translate Hotel California into English? Didn´t think so), but it was also extraordinary that THEY were hovering over ME and I was supposed to teach them. At the end of the day I heard them planning thier schedule, and considering when I would or wouldn´t be there as a factor to consider. I love being at the clinic because I learn an extraordinary amount every day, but it was the first tine that I felt really and truly useful all morning.

I´ve started working at the clinic on Mondays and Wednesdays, so today I went for the first time to a kindergarden. This was a lot of fun. The kids are really sweet - obviously some are extremely chaotic, but on the whole I really enjoyed being around them. They hang out and play until about 10, and then have classes. During play time, the first part of the morning, I sat with some slightly dejected looking kids who showed me the pictures they had drawn of thier families while thier classmates paraded around the room blowing into recorders and hitting xylophones and drums. I also helped them do puzzles, asked the questions about what they did, and tried (eventually successfully) to get them to call me Lucia instead of Gringa or Gringita. They don´t mean it badly, but I associate it with being yelled at on the street. In lessons today we were studying the traffic light. I was relieved that the teacher felt confident asking me to do things, as sometimes it can be awkward and one will end up sitting in a corner doing nothing all morning simply because one doesn´t really know what´s going on, but at her request I traced about thirty pictures of said traffic light and wrote instructions on what to do with this picture below it in Spanish. Of course, as I was doing this one of the little boys (who is especially wild) piled around me with a crowd of friends who put thier heads about three inches from mine and inquired,¨"Gringa, ¿Qué haces?" ("Gringa, what are you doing?") I know I shouldn´t play favorites but I especially liked a constantly smiling, well behaved little girl with long black hair named Sara, who knew the answers to all traffic light related questions. But all the kids are really cute. I think it´s a really good age.

The newest development is that I´m going on a spontaneous trip to the coast this weekend. There were four people planning to go but one girl sprained her ankle, so I just kind of jumped in in her place. We leave tonight at 10 (I decided I was going around 1:30 today), then drive several hours to Paracas. From there we visit the Ballestas Islands to (as it says on my sheet) "appriciate wild sea animals" and also some cathedral rock formations. The next day we visit Ica City and wineries, and then go to Huacachina where we can, I believe, ride down sand dunes on boards. On the last day we visit Nazca city and various aqueducts, ruins, meuseums and the like. It sounds really great. Then - this is awesome - next weekend I´m going to Cuzco and Macchu Picchu! This is also rather spur of the moment, but there´s another girl who wants to go so we´re making a four-night trip and I´m heading straight home after that. So excited! I have to say that aside from friends and family, the only things I really miss about home are good wine, cheese, decent restaurants, and not being almost run over every time I try to cross the street. This sounds extremely decadant I know (except for the being run over part), but it is sadly true. The wine and cheese here are crap, though I have discovered that my Spanish is good enough to have an extremely in-depth conversation about wine, including how I feel about oaky white wines, dry vs. sweet, and the amount of tanins in red. Outside of the lab, actually, my Spanish is excellent, and literally no one speaks English so I´m very glad of this.

That´s enough waffling for now...
Love to all!

1:38pm: "You are celebrating your birthday at 13,000 feet."
This is what our guide on our llama trek said to me at breakfast yesterday. Brace yourselves. This is going to be a long one.

The llama trek this weekend was amazing. We drove in a van about two hours through winding roads to a little over 13,000 feet, then were met by llamas and hiked to a bit over 14,000 feet. I know the llamas are the main point of intrest, so I´ll try to do them justice. Our group consisted of seven of us (volunteers), a man named Pancho who leads all these trips, two cooks, two drivers, and a popular musician who I think just wanted to come along. When we arrived at our destination we waited a bit until someone said the llamas were on thier way. Coming around a curve in the road was a herd (flock?) of about twenty llamas, brown, black and white, decorated with bright yarn through thier ears. Several (including the ´chief llama´, a large and elaborately decorated black and white animal) were wearing what seemed to me to be brightly embroidered bibs and halters. They came around the corner in all thier glory and the sound of the cow bells around thier necks mixed with the wind and the sound of our musician playing El Condor Pasa on his pipe - it was very haunting and had a very Andean mystery about it.

Llamas are used as pack animals, not ridden. We (white man) loaded several llamas with our packs, so I was only carrying the essentials: food, water, camera, sunscreen, leatherman. When we started walking the llamas followed us, and when they needed to be hearded two men would use a large rope, stretch it across the span of the herd, and run at them. This is very amusing when a llama refuses to move and ends up with the rope against its neck as it stands stubbornly. There were llamas everywhere on the hike - llamas and alpacas, that is. Yesterday we also got to watch an alpaca shearing - they´re valued for their meat and wool, and for some reason remind me of guinea pigs. Incidentally, I tried guinea pig the other day. Didn´t really like it, but I dont think it was very well cooked.

Anyway. The hike was stunning. I wasn´t really affected by the altitude - I had a slight headache that evening, but nothing else, except that walking uphill became very, very difficult. The view was worth it, thought, and we were often above or at the same level as snow (though we didnt actually come in contact with it). We ate lunch looking over a large, beautiful lake, and, after reaching one of the peaks, descended to a town made up of eleven families and a one-room schoolhouse. We were staying in the schoolhouse, on mattresses with sleeping bags. After a brief nap we were shown around the town.

I say town, but really we visited only one house, a kitchen house. We visited this particular one as half the roof had recently burned off, and it was not as full of smoke as the others would be (no chimneys). The people in the mountains, Pancho told us, have barley soup for breakfast and dinner, and perhaps something more substantial for lunch. Predictably, malnutrition is common. We met two small boys who lived there, as well. One who looked ten to me was actually thirteen, and had to ride his bike twenty kilometers to go to school five days a week, as the school in the village wasnt a high school. In this school, one teacher taught all the children, and had not been paid since May.

At this point we were all wearing several layers - at one point I found myself wearing a t-shirt, two thermal shirts, a rubgy, a wool sweater, three pairs of pants, three pairs of socks, and wool hat and gloves. With all this, it was actually very comfortable, especially when Pancho pulled out a flask of rum for us to add to our high-altitude remedy coca tea. We made a bonfire, roasted marshmallows, and listened to guitar playing and told stories and bad jokes. A very enjoyable evening.

Several of us got up at six to watch the sunrise the next morning, and we finished the day with alpaca shearing, horseback riding through the mountains (while the musician played guitar and walked along side), and a trip to a hot spring that was actually in a rather mouldy stone house near a roadside restaurant. Although it felt great to shower and sleep and wear only one layer, I discovered yet again how much I love being somewhere where you cant help being dirty, and where it is open and silent. It was a wonderful trip.

Yesterday was my birthday. As such, I was seranaded at breakfast with traditional Ayacuchan saints day songs, and had cake and champagne with dinner. The champagne was not nearly as bad as I expected, especially as the most expensive I could find cost approximately $7 a bottle. Rather impressive, I think. Also I had an enormous cake with "Feliz Cumpleaños Lucia" written on it. Rather unique. I thought it was rather unique to start the year with sunrise over the Andes...

Also, today at the clinic 20 young officers of the Peruvian army came in to have thier blood tested. They were meant to be numbered to decrease possible confusion, but it seems that many individuals of the Peruvian army are either incapable of remembering thier number or of responding when thier assigned number is called. Chaos ensues. I tested for blood type among young men in camoflage (yeah I dont know how to spell that) and sang Destiny´s Child very quietly. I think I´m going to try to work at a kindergarden two days a week starting soon, which should be really good. Write me emails!!! Toodles.

1:31pm: top ten things I didn´t expect to discuss on a Peruvian combi
Weekend was great. Discoteca lots of good fun, and on Saturday a group of eight of us went on a hike by a river. This river winds through a bright green valley surrounded by small hacienta-type farms, a sharp contrast to the grey-brown mountains covered in cacti and rocks that are all around it. We hiked for about two hours along a narrow path, occasionally having to cross the river, and encountering cows grazing and occasional farmers. At one point we met a guy who lead us to a soccer field (I am beginning to measure whether something counts as a village by whether or not it has a soccer field) where we flopped and ate, and then headed back the way we came. At one point five of us decided to follow a cow path (it turned out to be a drainage ditch, but hey, we can walk in a drainage ditch!) up one of the mountains. It got a bit nerve-wracking at one point when we were walking on loose rocks and sand that gave way fairly easily to a sheer drop, but the view was well worth it. From the top, which was a mass of cacti and rocks that we scrambled over, you could see the river stretching away, surrounded by green and dotted with the occasional cow (or the abandoned bus, sans wheels or windows, that we all climbed into for a picture). We climbed down the other side and through what appeared to be someone´s backyard to reach the path again, bought an enormous bottle of Fanta at one of the sort of settlement areas along the river, and wandered back to our starting point covered with dirt and drinking from plastic cups.

A few words about the people here. The Quechua society is well in existance, and wherever you go you can see people wearing the characteristic hats and traditional dress - many don´t speak Spanish, and I haven´t met really anyone aside from the people who work for CCS who speaks any English. Quechua indicates poverty, unfortunately, but many people speak both languages, and some aspects of the society, like carrying a baby in a colorful sling on one´s back (I simply do not understand how these babies don´t just fall out) are adapted by everyone. Obviously any white people stand out, and as this isn´t really a tourist town you get stared at pretty much everywhere. This gets very irritating after a while, especially when accompanied by whistling or kissing noises, but I still love wandering around town - the other day I did several errands and then got some postcards (though they´re really expensive to send, so I won´t be sending many) in what is known as the Gringo Plaza, which is the only place with a slightly touristy flavor but which also has the best coffee I´ve ever had. The roads often have people selling cheap but beautiful silver jewelry, and the food from the bakeries is fantastic. There is a lovely kind of independence here - during the day, at least, I can go really wherever I want, or find anything I need within walking distance. Also, pretty much everyone you meet is really friendly and helpful. We get asked where we´re from pretty much everywhere, especially walking by the river; you have to stop and greet every farmer (especially the women), who inevitably says some variation of "¿De donde eran? ¡Que gringas bonitas!" Or some such. On the bus ride home ended up in a ridiculously crowded combi with a man determined to speak in English (he was pretty terrible) and kept asking whether we had heard of "yoleno" (John Lennon), breaking into "Let It Be" (which he sang terribly), and inquiring whether any of us were from Alabama? Texas? Tennesee? Fortunately we were blocked from his view as we drove away, which prevented his continuing the conversation he began with, "¿Conocen Frank Sinatra?" When we arrived in Ayacucho city, which is often referred to as Huamanga to distinguish it from the Ayacucho region, he was asking if we knew "Good Morning Vietnam" and yelling "GOOOOOD AFTERNOON HUAMANGA!" Um... right.

Work aslo going well - Martha successfully guided me throught the process of taking blood, which made me very proud. Yesterday we were unable to go as there was a public transportation strike and cars on the road tended to be stoned (our director explained this in a very nonchalant way - it seemed reasonable to me that we would not be travelling) but things are back to normal now.

The biggest news I have is that I´ve decided to extend my stay here a further two weeks. There is simply so much to do here, and I really want an opportunity to visit the jungle some weekend, so I won´t be returning until October 18. I´ve been here nearly two weeks and I still feel like I´ve just arrived, and I want an opportunity to feel like I really have gotten to know the area. Plus the people here are really great, and I´m simply having a wonderful time. And what is a gap year for, if not spontaneity? (don´t know how to spell.) So... this is all true. Write me!!!

1:35pm: Emersion
is a good word for the language here. No one speaks English. Ever. I like the word emersion as it gives a very accurate mental picture - I am struggling to keep my head above water.

The first week is over and I have more to say than I will ever be able to write. Working at the clinic is really interesting. I´m working in the lab, where we analyze blood and urine samples. The two biologists who work there are called Martha and Ever, and there is a 20-year-old girl who is also learning. I work with Ever mostly - he is precise, neat, and always moving, though I think he has realized he has to talk a bit more slowly with me. Martha is a formidable woman with a no-nonsense attitude and agressive eyeliner. Today she decided that I should learn to draw blood. Yes, I did want to learn, but... Why was I afraid? I was worried abuot making a mistake. That´s how you learn! She held my hands as I guided a small needle that is open at the end - you are meant to hold a test tube under it to catch the sample, but as I was trying to do many things at once I sort of missed. Fortunately I was wearing gloves, but I had to spend the rest of the morning watching everyone struggle to do tests with my sad little sample. The hardest thing about the lab is the Spanish. I´m in pretty good shape everywhere else, in fact of the volunteers I definatly am one of the best, but medical or laboratory Spanish is very difficult. Today I was able to stay afloat at least until we started talking about mitosis. It´s very mentally exhausting.

We also had a great time watching the running of the bulls (really only a sort of village ´bullfight´ - men dressed up as women waving blankets or jackets at confused animals and jumping over the fence when they charged). It was warm at first, but most of our group left when it began to pour and blow. Four of us remained, two of my friends huddled under a jacket loaned by a rather infatuated bullfighter. We eventually climbed under the stands through mud to run through a downpour for a taxi, as people lining the street under protective awnings yelled "ay, gringita!" (for those of you who understand, this is the moral equivilant of "ehhe, maa!") and whistled.

Today I have salsa lessons and then we´re going to a discoteca. I would love to hear from everyone! Please write me and tell me what youre doing. I will continue updating! Bien fin de semana!

8:31pm: First Impressions
I´m writing from a tiny internet cafe up the street from our house, with very dramatic Spanish music in the background. First days have been great! Obviously I´m still a bit homesick, but there are tons of people my age and all are really nice - I´ve already made lots of friends. That sounded cheesy, but I´m pretty tired... and battling with thinking in Spanglish! My appriciation of the Shipley Spanish program is huge, as I´m able to get by very well. Though today my pronunciation was used as a model for how not to say words to a bunch of seven- and eight-year-olds... (No, that´s not how you say it. She can´t really speak Spanish.)

We have toured the city several times and visited some amazing places. Ayacucho is stunning; it reminds me a bit of Sienna, Italy because of the narrow streets, reckless driving, and many elaborate churches, but on the outskirts and any residential area it is much more like Maun - many other people in the program keep exclaiming at the dust, bumpy roads, crazed driving and general standard of living - is it a good thing that I am steeled to much of this, and not at all suprised? The city is surrounded by spectacular brown mountains, and as all the houses are built on slopes, they are all made of several haphazard and varying levels and all have rooftops that almost always contain drying laundry, dogs, and chickens.

Today I started my volunteer program with the Carmen Alto Health Clinic. Like many other people´s organizations, it was no more than ok, but I have faith. We visited a school and showed a video to seven- and eight-year-olds on sexual harassment and it´s leading to AIDS (a lot of stuff about not taking candy or money from strangers - the video focused especially on street kids and thier increased risk), and a bit of general sexual health information. Some seemed a little graphic for such young kids to me, but it was all valuable information and better that they´re told about it. Afterward the doctors and nurses we arrived with examined all the kids, and those who weren´t being examined formed a perminant circle around me and the other woman who was there and talked and asked questions constantly. My hair was constantly stroked by tiny hands and I was asked the price of my rings, where I was from and how old I was many times, and why I lacked children, husband, or a boyfriend. The kids here are, if exhausting, fantastic; we´ve had many interactions with them, and they are fearless and bubbly. All my nametags and information say ´Lucia´ instead of Lucy, and they love that they can recognize my name. In many cases they literally refuse to let us leave, hanging off our arms or necks. This afternoon five of us played soccer (gringos - not an insult, but something we are called all the time - contra de los niños) at the boys´ ophanage near our house - totally exhausting and we were pretty much killed, but lots and lots of fun.

The weekend after next (the weekend of my birthday!) I am going with some friends for a llama trek in the mountains. It sounds abslolutly fantasic - camping, watching the llamas get sheared, horseback riding and a visit to hot springs. Very excited! Also wondering where I can find some decent champagne...

I have so much to say but this is getting very long so I will end, and try to write at some point some of the political and historical apsects of the city, which are fascinating. Lots of love to all and I miss you all and can´t wait to hear from all of you! Caio for now!