A day in the life of...me.

So I want to take some time to really explain all that I'm doing here in Peru. A lot of the photos I've posted on here and Facebook are of my adventures during free time on the weekends, but there is a whole lot more that I do than just have fun. Being a volunteer is super exhausting, but so rewarding at the same time. A typical timeline of my day looks like this:

7:00 - Wake up and go running (lets be real, I've only been running like twice)
8:00 - Breakfast
8:30/9:00 - Work
2:00 - Lunch
3:00 - Work
6:00 - Dinner
7:00 - Work (Tuesday/Thursday)

Typically we have one project in the morning, and a different one in the evening. On Tuesday/Thursday we teach English, Piano, and Zumba in the evenings from 7-9. Those are the hardest days because they are the longest.

Here is a list of all that we have done up to this point:

• Piano / English / Zumba Classes

• We have roughly 25 students in both our English and Piano classes and around 50 for Zumba. I personally teach Piano and it has been one of my favorite projects. I'm not even close to being an awesome teacher, and I am not even the most amazing pianist either, but the people are so appreciative and it makes me feel like I have legitimately made a difference in their lives when I teach them. Most of the students had no experience in music, and now, after just 6 classes, we are already able to play simple songs on the piano. They are picking it up so quickly, and will be such a good skill to have to be able to play in church and maybe become a famous musician one day. 
• Health Clinic



Our mosquitos and larva.

• I love working at the Health Clinic. It is not something I would really ever be able to do in the US because 1. Im studying Business. 2. It's not as easy to just walk into a Health Clinic, say you're a volunteer and start taking blood pressure and weight. It doesn't work that way in the US. We also went mosquito and larva hunting last week. Yes. Let me explain. So we had a glass tube with a rubber tube connected to it. We went to some houses hear the Clinic and in order to catch the mosquitos, we had to breathe in with the rubber tube to capture the mosquito in the class tube and then stick the tube in a container/cup, breathe out, and the mosquito launches into the container. Its pretty cool, not gonna lie. The purpose of catching them is to examine them to see if they carry Malaria or Dengue fever. This is also the reason for searching for larva. We walked around a cemetery searching bottles of water for larva. We have done some interesting things. Today at the clinic was a little crazy. It put the medical world into perspective for me, and I now have even more respect for the people that work in this field. First I saw a man trying to heal from an accident where he lost a toe, then a woman comes in screaming because her baby wasn't breathing, then another man comes in because he was outside walking and stopped breathing. It seemed like it was one thing after another. SHOUT OUT TO MY BROTHER WHO IS IN MEDICAL SCHOOL. Love you bro, you're going to be an amazing doctor, and I look up to you so much! You're a brave dude.
• Marketing Class
• A couple of us have been teaching a Marketing class at the University down the road. I think it is so neat that we are able to do such a wide variety of things. I love that we are trusted enough to teach a college class! Students are learning a lot and are very interested in the class. They always show up with enthusiasm.
• ICPNA
• ICPNA is an English institute here where we have gone a few times to have conversations with the students to help them learn English! Something I've realized with my Spanish is that the best way to learn is talking one on one with a native. 
• Aldea San Miguel
• Aldea is one of the orphanages here. I honestly love being able to volunteer here because I know that I am helping. The children are so adorable and is so sad to know that they have no families. After hearing some of their stories, it makes me want to go back more and more so they feel loved. On of the little boys was found in the trash when he was 2 days old, and another family of four kids watched their dad kill their mom while holding them. Most of the time when we go there, we go to help with their PE classes because they only have it 2 times a week and half the time the teacher doesn't show up. I wish I had photos to show from Aldea, but I will get some soon!
• Park

• In Peru, there are literally parks on every corner. Or at least it feels that way. These parks never get used and so we teamed up with a professor from Spain to see if we could try to encourage people to use them. Last week we had an event at El Parque Ecológico de la Urba. The purpose of the park is to provide an area physical exercise as well as inform people about the plants and animals they have their. We held an event to show people the park and introduce it to them so they would use it! We had a craft for the little kids (making birdhouses...thank you pinterest) and the others learned about the rest of the park. It was a fun event and we even made the Peruvian newspaper!
• Soccer
• We are putting together a girls soccer team for teenagers ages 14-16. Sports are not offered to girls here so we want them to have that same opportunity. There are going to be 8 schools involved. We are going to hold practices, games, and tournaments, with uniforms, trophies and everything! Im really excited for this project to get going. I think Im going to get super involved with it.

These are just a few of the projects we've done. I've already mentioned some, like volunteering in Noe where we played with kids and also painted their school, the Liahona Foundation, and the Red Cross.

I think one of my favorite parts about being here and volunteering is that even though the things we are doing are simple, the little things we do to help these people could turn their lives around. These people could be future big time musicians or professional athletes. Cheesy, I know, but there is so much potential in everyone we meet. Sometimes people just need to see that and get a push in the right direction.