Falta Poco

Okay, gotta say sorry for the lack of blogging lately, but life really has been super normal up until recently! We were so busy with the kids, hanging out with the teachers, and helping out as much outside school as we could that we didn't really even notice the end of our time at MCS creeping up on us until it was time to say goodbye. But come it did, so Renae and I spent last Friday going around to all the classrooms and saying goodbye to all the kids and teachers. We had SUCH an awesome experience at the school; the only way to leave it was to promise to make it back again someday. It's starting to seem like we have been making that promise a lot lately.....

And true to form, our 7 weeks spent at MCS taught us more than we ever could have imagined. As you know we have learned some pretty important lessons throughout the course of the trip so far, not just about cultures and the world we live in, but about openness, generosity, and trusting in God's grand scheme for us (just to name a few). And we've come to realize that God really did know what he was doing when he brought us here to Lima. He has poco por poco, little by little, let us discover His lessons for us all year long, just to have them cemented in here at the school. Living with someone as open and caring as Natalie, and having such great mentors everywhere we turn, has been the perfect environment to jump in even further, opening ourselves up to what might come next, and to how we really want to live out our lives. It's hard to explain it well enough for you to understand just how great and eye-opening it's been, even this far in. But my time here will always be precious to me, that's for sure.

On a different note, we ran a 10k in the city this morning! And won.... NOT! But I gotta say it was a little easier than the last time we did it, probably because we weren't at an altitude of 9000 feet this time, so we did manage to shave about 10 minutes off our time from October. We finished in a little over an hour, then headed over to cheer people on as they reached the final stretch of the half and full marathons. Before running in Quito last fall, I had only ever done one race, which was the half marathon in Fargo. There, people line every street, clapping and cheering for you the WHOLE time, which helps keep you going more than anything. I just assumed that's how it was everywhere. But the races in both Quito and Lima have been almost entirely silent, with nothing but the masses of runners on the streets. How there are WAY more people out supporting in a city of 100,000 than in one of 11 million I have no idea, but it's true. So when we saw some of those marathoner's faces by the end, and knew from experience how much a little moral support could help at that point, we took it on as our job to cheer for every single one of them. About two hours and a couple hundred funny looks later we had to leave before we lost our voices, but it was super fun to see everyone go by, and we hope we managed to pump up a few of them at least a little. We may have been a little of a spectacle with our braided, ribbon-ed up hair and painted legs on top of our height and gringo-ness (apparently no one goes all out for races around here), but by now we're not used to fitting in anywhere anyways so it's all good.

Other recent highlights include a Mexican potluck with the other teachers, a trip to see the water fountain park, which is WAY cooler than it sounds and even holds a Guinness world record for tallest fountain geyser, shopping at the Indian market, helping out at a church youth carnival event, and finishing off every night with a good old pirated movie and some popcorn. Life has definitely been treating us well.

But as comfortable as we've been, and as close to the end of the trip as it feels with only 30 days left, we have decided to bust out one last big adventure. So tomorrow night we will hop on a bus and start the trek over to the JUNGLE, complete with time on the ocean, in the mountains, and 2 days on a boat down the Amazon. All we have to do is pull out our scrubby trail clothes from the bottom of the pile, put some wraps in our hair, finally pick our beloved packs back up, and off we go. Can't say what shape we'll be in when we get back to the states after this, or if we will still be able to claim being lice-free, but I couldn't be more excited. Like I said to Renae, “I feel WAY too normal to go back to the U.S. right now”. I know at least some of you are expecting crazy, unshaven, bug-bitten, bracelet-wearing, jungle adventurers to hop off that plane, so I guess we better do our best to meet those expectations.

Turning my cardigans in for trail pants,

Jenna Flynn