casa dulce casa...

Yeah...so I am home now! Yay! Home is really fun especially since right now I am in Hawaii with my family on vacation.
I got a few complaints that I stopped blogging at the end of my trip. Sorry to my faithful followers! And even my not-as-faithful followers. So I decided I would do at least one more blog post to sum up the rest of my trip.
The last couple weeks in yantalo were great. I fell in love with all my students and it was really hard to say bye to them. We finished our nutrition/physiology program with the physical education teacher and I taught about vitamins and fitness nutrition.
I did finally organize the nutrition curriculum with the vaso de leche program which was three classes. I didn't however ever have anyone come to my classes which is embarrassing to admit, but I am trying to share the failures along with the success stories. The first class I didn't advertise at all, I just gave a few invitations to the lady in charge and she said she would distribute them. When no one came, I did more advertising before my next class and spent a couple hours delivering invitations...still no one came. Then I even had them announce it over the loudspeaker in town, but no one came. I was pretty bummed at first, but then I realized it was still a good experience. I met a lot of people and had good conversations when I was delivering invitations. I also learned a lot from preparing the lessons so the only real bummer was that I didn't get to share the information with the people I loved so much.
We also finished our english lessons, but we were trying to get another volunteer to continue the lessons because we all now you never really finish learning a language and our students don't have a lot of places to practice.
Speaking of them practicing, after I left yantalo but while I was still in peru a couple of our students called my cell phone on average six or seven times a day. It was nice to know that I was missed, but I had hoped to be more replaceable so all the programs and classes would be sustainable.
After leaving yantalo, I went with Caleb and Starla to Lima, Huancayo, Satipo, and Huanuco. Each was an area that Caleb had served in on his mission so we met a ton of people that were so hospitable. It was really fun to sit around and chat and I was glad we did it at the end of our trip when I had more spanish practice.
After all that traveling, we went back to Lima and I met up with my dad and John and Liz (brother and sister). Then we went to Cuzco and Machu Picchu and did a lot of touring and souvenir shopping. Caleb and Starla were with us on and off and overall it was a very fun last week. Maybe I'll make another post sometime just so I can add pictures.
So yeah, that's the end of my trip in a nutshell. I had such a good time and I am grateful for the experiences I had, the people I met, and all the things I learned. If anyone is thinking of visiting Peru I would recommend it. It is a beautiful country and the people are so kind.
Thanks everyone for your support and interest in my travels. I'm home safely and I am enjoying adjusting to life in the states again. We really are so blessed. Love you all! Chow!