Urubamba

Hello Everyone!

I'm late for dinner, so I'll make this short. I origionally thought that I would be in Cuzco, a large city in the South of Peru, working with battered women. Instead I am in Urubamba, a tiny city an hour away from Cuzco, working with a womens' collective. Such is flexibility and life in Latin America.

I arrived, after 17 hours of travel and a bad 3 hours of sleep on a bench in the Lima airprot, in Cuzco on July 6th. I had a quick orientation there with about 15 other ProPeru volunteers and then 12 of us took the beautiful and windy drive to Urubamba.

Urubamba (which means something-valley in Quiche) is a city/town of about 3000 (talk about culture shock) built in a grid arround a central plaza and, of course, the local Catholic church. It's surrounded on all sides by beautiful mountians, some that we can see in the distance, are snow capped. Two mountians on eather side of town have large crosses atop them and, on all sides, various organizations have somehow written messages in the mountian grass. The most prominant is a huge "711" which is not a fast food store but a local high school. Needless to say, it is beautiful.

The weather is also a shock. Teribly cold in the morning and as soon as the sun disappears behind the mountains, it is extremely hot during the day. Still, it's not as cold (nor as elevated) as Cuzco, so that's a blessing.

More later...

Julia