Una semana!

My thoughts feel too disorganized to write a new post, but I have done and seen so many things I want to share. It is now a week since I left. I think it still hasn't quite set in that I am staying here for a year, since I am feeling rather calm about the whole deal. I also have been busy and around people, which are great ways to not be scared by reality.

This past weekend I went out with a couple of the other volunteers and a couple of their Peruvian friends to a neighborhood right on the Pacific Coast. It was incredible to see the ocean! We drank Pisco Sours on the balcony of a restaurant overlooking the cliffs that lead to the water. My only other experience in South America is in Bolivia. Thanks to Chile and Peru, Bolivia no longer has a coast line which made it more impressive to look out with dusty hills behind me and see water. We went to a peña which is a show in a restaurant setting that demonstrates folkloric dance from all parts of the country. It was really fun. Everyone danced between the performances. We left at 3:30 am, but the show supposedly goes on till 6 am. Lima is known for its nightlife that goes on all night.

Today one of the founders, took the other volunteers, a new communications design person, and I on a tour to the different parts of Lima where Socios operates. Everyone in the office said we were lucky to have Jaime show us around. The trip took about 4 hours, and we didn't see everything. The first stop was a warehouse where they store, organize, and distribute medications. It was well secured, and not like anything I had ever seen. It almost reminded me of something out of "X-Files" with people in white jackets counting little pill boxes and not looking up, with rows and rows of boxes behind them. In some of the data entry I have been doing, I have read about the psychological side effects of some of the MDR TB medications, so it was not shocking to see locked cabinets of psych. meds. Next we went up up up to the part of Carabayllo where Carlos (one of the volunteers) has been working with kids in an after school kind of program. We were lucky also today because it is the first clear sunny day, so we could see the hills and mountains quite clearly. The area kind of reminded me of where I worked in Bolivia, except that it was on a steep dry hill side.

Next stop was the Carabayllo office where the organization began. Our guide's optimism and humble confidence was inspiring to be around. Socios discovered that patients with MDR TB were not being treated correctly, began the treatment plan, but didn't stop there. Now all of the city of Lima and provinces surrounding it are under the Socios treatment plan, but it hasn't stopped there either. From the rooftop of the Carabayllo office, Jaime pointed to a building in a plot near the office that they owned. He wants to turn it into a cultural center for community activities and performances and thought we might have useful ideas for helping design it. I imagined that he meant in the next year or 2 they will start doing that. We walked down to it, the mayor was waiting for him, they had a handshake, and he showed us copies of the potential floor plan.

That's all for today. Soon I will take photos and post them as well. Thank you all for reading!