goodbye from mike

this week has been totally awesome! its been a great experience to see another culture and how it works. i´m really disappointed that i have to leave and also for the guys and gals who didnt get to make this trip. i truly think my life has changed in a way that i cant really explain but definitely in a positive way.

the greatest part about this trip and i think that everyone will agree with me is the fact that we got to touch these boy´s lives. i may never know what kind of difference i made to them but i will for the rest of my life have the satisfaction that i tried and gave it my all. but since i said im being positive im going to go home knowing that i did. jesús and lizer (lizer was a kid i met at the kusi center and his pic is on the blogging site) were two wonderful and very intelligent kids whose lives crossed mine. i will never forget the time i spent with them and i will always remember the love they showed to me and to everyone else in the center.

think about this and i know you´ve probably read a lot about this on the website, but think about when you were just a small child of about 4-10 years old. now think about getting kicked out of your own home by you´re alcoholic father and a mother who can´t take care of you. or imagine going to the mall with your mother and then the next minute you are all alone in a city of more than 8 million people. these kids have done things to escape the pain that i could never imagine someone their age doing. then imagine someone coming up to you and offering you a place to sleep every night, food three times a day, and an education. many of these kids jumped on that opportunity and they were turned into loving and caring human beings like you and me. many of them go on to vocational school somewhere and become successful businessmen. while others go back out and return to the streets of lima.

but on a lighter note, we visited a glacier lake at huascaran national park. it was a blast! me and some of the other guys decided to take a dip in the 40 degree water, but it was very refreshing. we then hike up part of the base of the mountain and took some nasty pictures of just about everything we saw. some of the other classmates decided to take a boat ride out on the lake instead. we then went back to the kusi center to have the most amazing lunch of the week.

after that we hiked down where the old town of yungay used to stand before it was buried by a mudslide in the early 70´s. that was pretty neat to see because you could still see where buildings were buried and overturned by the mud that was traveling at over 300 mph. they also had a bus that was still twisted and mangled in the ground. we came back to the hostel oasis and witnessed a graduating parade of what seemed to be elementary kids. so that was my day in a nutshell but now i just have to prepare for a 7-9 hour bus ride back to lima and another 8 hour flight or more to home sweet home charlotte.