Saludos

Thanks y'all for all your thoughts and kind words, they have been very helpful in my quest to get acclimated to the culture here. I want to give you a very broad view of what it is like here in Arequipa. The first thing you have to understand is that everything revolves around the family and friends. Jobs are obtained only to make the money necessary to subsist, then the rest of the time is spent ¨relajando¨or relaxing, sitting and talking about the past day. Even the eating schedule is set up as such. My abuelita here prepares breakfast in the morning which consists of cereal, eggs, pañitos (little bread), coffee, milk, and juices made from blended fruits and sugar. A lot more time is put into this, as well as into the lunch, which at my house is prepared by Elle our ayudante de casa, essentially a maid that comes to prep food, wash clothes, and clean the house. She is only here during the day though. I have of course, my abuelita or mamita, the grandma of the house, with the two parents Cecilia and José who are right now seeking jobs in Dallas, TX, I hope I did not scare them too much with my extremely pessimistic view of American culture, and their son and my hermanito Sebastián who is 7 years old and attends the local colegio from about 7:30 until 3pm everyday. I have yet to get to know them really well. José is an accountant, and Cecilia used to work in some sort of business, but neither of them are working this week as they plan to fly to the US this weekend as long as Cecilia can get a visa. Please pray for her, I think she is at the embassy today! If she does, then they will probably move to the US within a few years, which in some ways I think would be really cool for them, but from my somewhat skewed since I am still in my ¨honeymoon stage¨ but I truly believe they have it right down here with their focus on the family and the true values in life.

My schedule as it stands right now. I plan to start running at some point, starting at 5am and finishing in time to shower and make it to mass by 6:30, which in Spanish is really cool by the way! After that I catch a quick breakfast at home, walk to pick up my friend Connie from her house as her mom will not let her walk otherwise, and we go to La Católica for classes at 7:45. The first will start on time, the second starts whenever our professor decides to show up, it´s pretty much awesome for someone of my personality!!! After classes, we´ll usually come home for the big lunch, then the afternoon is ours for now, of course leaving time for the homework that will increase with time. In my first class today I met a student by the name of Mauricio, the same as Joe´s given name by his birthmother. There you go Joe. Also, on the topic, I was told that Timoteo is a name often given to the poor children of farmers, so I finally know what I am meant to do with my life!!! Kidding of course. But in reality I look forward to helping out with the poor at Alto Cayma, we went there a day or so ago and saw that there is indeed much to be done. There is a huge gap between the rich and poor here, so we are going to try to help bridge that. In the meantime though, we plan to hit some games of fútbol (soccer), some concerts, like the classical one last night that put me to sleep, and some discos. Again, elections and the world cup both happen this weekend on Sunday and Monday respectively, so it should all be very interesting.

I´ll let you know when I am able to do so, but I plan to get all my pics up on a Yahoo account, but for now check out those above!!! May God bless and keep you all always, I¨ll remember you often in my prayers!!!

TM