Back in Arequipa

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We're back in Arequipa, and have been here for about a week since the Lima mission (see the pictures in the previous post). Not much has happened in the last week, we've just been working at the orphanage (4 days last week) and the MMI office. The kids at the orphanage have accepted us now, which isn't necessarily a good thing. They're little hellions sometimes, and have decided that I'm their personal pack mule and that I'm required to have one child on my shoulders every minute I'm standing up (or sitting down sometimes too).

This week is a little more exciting since it's Semana Santa (Holy Week). It's also Danitza's birthday (the 15-year old that lives in Catherine's house and just started Med School--Tania and Helen's cousin) on Thursday, but since Thursday is a day of reflection, we're probably going to do something Wednesday. Semana Santa also means a 3-day work week for us this week.

It also means a special menu for the week--no red meats allowed (not sure about chicken) but we're going to have a lot of fish and seafood this week... YUMMY!

We have to leave the country this month for Visa purposes, so we're thinking about going to northern Chile around the 16th for the better part of week, and come back in time for the Colca mission. We have to leave the country again in July, so we're thinking about a nice trip to Bolivia and lake Titicaca and Copacabana. That'll be our longer trip, this short jump across the border to Chile isn't going to be anything big--we can't make it down to Santiago as we would like, just Arica.

We've started working on our Practicum requirements, but there's a lot left ahead of us. The biggest thing we need to keep in mind is to not get too distracted by work and get everything done now so we can polish and perfect later on when we get back to the US. It's hard to start the day at 8, get done with everything at 8 and then try to get more work done, but it has to be done. Luckily there's a 4-day weekend without possibilities to go out, so we should get a lot done this weekend.