Travels and back to the kids (Preston)

Hey everyone!

So, we are back from our travels.  After a few bumps in the road, we ended up seeing everything we wanted to see.  Macchu Picchu was amazing.  It’s kind of unfortunate that the pictures we took will never do it justice.  We went the back way via bike and foot which was a great way to do it.  The physical aspect of it really added to the experience.  The Rojas family was amazing.  They were incredibly hospitable.

Iquitos was also amazing. We stayed with some friends of the Rojas family, the Babilonia family.  They showed us around all the sights of Iquitos.  We saw the amazon, a few really cool zoos and got to visit a native tribe.  It was a lot of fun.

Even though we had so much fun traveling, it felt really good to come home to the aldea.  I was surprised how much I missed the kids while I was gone.  Kelsey, Lacey and Britney whipped things in to shape while we are gone.  They are doing a great job rounding all the kids up with specific activities.  The 50 dollar budget is also a big help because we can cook with the kids and a lot of other activities that we couldn’t really do before, so thanks to everyone who has helped make that possible.  

It was Ruben’s birthday two days ago.  He’s a great kid.  When he is a little older, I’m sure he will fill leadership positions here in the aldea.  The younger boys really look up to him.  He was just moved to casa 5 with the older boys while we were out on vacation.  He seems to be doing just fine there.  Hopefully he will be able to dodge a lot of the problems that are common with the teenagers here.

Thanks for all of your support.  I’m really glad I didn’t let this opportunity slip by.

Preston