las hadas del aire

I feel like it has been ages since I have actually talked in depth on this blog about what is going on in our crazy study abroad lives. I'll tell you one thing- no two days are ever alike. One thing you learn, whether by will or by force, is the lesson of a little thing I like to call flexibility. Ah mi amor! Flexibility! It is something that I am very much accustomed to, having grown up with the Grizzwalls for a family. And how I loved every moment of it. But I get the feeling that on our travel break this week, my previous lessons in flexibility are going to have ample opportunity to be excersized

Team Hadas del Aire (Stefanie L, Jessalyn, and yours truely) will be making our way to the country of Peru for our 10 day free travel break. And yes, of course, we have a team name. Hadas del Aire. Fairies of the Air. Jealous? Should be.

If we so choose to change our team name at any point we have reserved the liberty to do so. But I feel the name is sufficient considering we plan to do quite a good bit of "following the wind" in Peru. Did you know that the Greek word for "wind" is the same word used for "spirit? Nooma. SO I guess if we wanted to have a trilingual name we could be "Las Hadas of the Nooma," but it just doesn't have the same ring to it.

We depart tomorrow morning at 4 a.m. for Lima, Peru where we'll stay for a few days before heading to Cusco. We have a few things planned but we decided to leave our days open so we can pick and choose what we want to do when we get there. We are changing hostels almost every two nights so I am sure we will get to meet a lot of interesting people in the hostels during our journey. Who knows? We may make friends and go white-water rafting with them. We also want to go bungee jumping or even try this human slingshot thing we saw videos for online. Cusco is our oyster and we plan to milk it for all it's worth. We will be ending the trip with a "tranquilo" trip to the ancient Inca ruins of Machu Picchu. If you haven't seen or heard of Machu Picchu, I suggest you go ahead and open a new tab right now and pull up a pic of this beauty. Or I guess you can just wait till we get back and Jessalyn posts thousands of AMAZING photographs. You know, on second thought you should just wait for her pictures because hers will contain something that the pics on the web will not contain...ME, of course!

There is another group here who is really following the wind. Carolyn, Benjamin, Dorothy, Zanessa, and Sarita Peters are going camping in Cordoba, Argentina and they planned to have an UNplanned trip. We are all excited to hear about the people they encounter and the things they end up doing. They want the focus of this trip to be learning how to trust God to lead them where they need to go and to the people he wants them to encounter. Don't worry- they have their tickets and the campsite organized, but they have left from for some direction along the way. Flexibility, my friends.

Everyone else is going to Peru as well, but we are all going different ways once we get there. A large group is going to LAS AMAZONAS! They are going on a four day boat trip through the Amazon river basin on the border of Peru and and Brazil. They are also going to Machu Picchu and I think they are going to Machu Picchu the same day as us! woot woot! The other group going to Peru had everything organized by a travel agent here in Montevideo that has worked with ACU students for years. Maybe we will get to hang out with them in Cusco a little bit. Who knows in which direction the wind will blow these fairies.

On a completely unrelated note, the past few weeks have been more than a little hectic, yet I have thoroughly enjoyed myself. I think we mentioned something about having a Ministry in Latin America class last week. Our professor, Bio Nascimento, flew in from Brazil on a Sunday night and left this past Sunday. We had 40 hours of class last week. 40 hours of Ministry class. Some of the other classes were canceled for the week, but I still had Spanish and my composition class. It sounds like a brutal schedule, and had it been any other class it might have been just that. Last week, however, was far from brutal or boring. This class was so stimulating for all of us. I have some video footage from the class to show you a piece of our discussion and I am going to put up a video after our travel break. Having Bio in the house was like a breath of fresh air. He brought thought provoking concepts to the table and showed a genuine interest in all of us- even those who were not in the class. I am confident I speak for the whole class when I say I was sad to see him go. I will take you folks deeper into the class when I return from Peru.

Remember friends, we will be blogless for 11 days. I know you'll miss us (well, me at least). Fear ye not, I will take video footage with you in mind. Voy a extrañarles. I am going to miss you all! Please keep us in your prayers. We want to be salt and light!

Con mucho amor y mucho alegria,

Kara AKA Face