well, this has been an interesting week for sure..

first, i must sadly admit that paragliding fell through, for the time being. i think it was miscommunication among everyone going about who was organizing the whole deal. maybe next weekend... it WILL happen.

we finished singing for the kindergartens on tuesday..they saved the best for last too.. we went to a special needs school where there were the most precious kids ever. it made me sad though to think that they are so neglected in this society--only 2 teachers for more than 15 kids who ranged from ages 6 to 19, all with different ability levels. the volunteer who works there expressed her extreme frustration about that because it´s hard to teach them all anything that will improve each of them.

in other news, you may have seen on my facebook that i was going to be in a fashion show... i need to clarify that this wasn´t America´s Next Top Model (so you can stop being jealous :) ) but it was enough to allow for a fun day of shopping in a local cusco market. one of the volunteers Mia lives with a host family who was in charge of putting on a fair. they needed "white girls" to wear some of the traditional clothes so that it would give the market that they support some good business. wednesday, libby, mia and i went shopping with the woman in charge so we could pick out outfits for the show. i apparently i looked russian that day and tryed on tons of big white furry hats. maybe because i dyed my hair...? i almost had to wear the ugliest, most unflattering puke yellow matching skirt outfit. even though i´ll never see those people again it was mortifying. but i ended up picking out a lot of fun outfits, mixing in the most insanely cute hats with huge ponchos like the one that Pacha wears in The Emperor´s New Groove. the outfit was made complete with a J-Lo hat and some peruvian sandals. you can imagine my disappointment when libby and i arrived at the bus station the day of the show to find out that we weren´t going to be in the show because the market venders didn´t want their clothes to be bought off the runway. i could be wrong, but i thought that would have been great business.. which was kinda the point. sad day. and there won´t be others so i´m not even going to say something optimistic.

because the show got canceled, it freed up my friday. school was short because the kids made signs saying they had rights so that we could walk around pisac yelling "¡tenemos derechos!" while blowing on whistles and holding the signs. it was really fun to be on the local side of things. my eyes were opened to just how obnoxious a tourist can look trying to take a picture of a little peruvian kid. and i´m pretty sure that i made it into about 6 different home movies too. awesome. after school libby and i packed for cusco and got our halloween costumes ready to go for the social in Urubamba.

the social was fun, we ate pizza and had fun laughing at everyone´s costumes. i was a hippie because of course i waited until the last minute to get a costume. i had a long flowy tie dyed dress and drew a peace sign on my face. (funny story... apparently it´s been a while since i drew a peace sign. i couldn´t figure out why it looked so weird and then realized hours later that i had left off one of the smaller legs. i was supporting mercedes benz for about 3 hours). after we ate we handed candy out to little kids in the town. side note... those little children are con artists in the making. i watched so many kids take candy from one volunteer and then loop around and beg for another piece "for their little brother." once they´d used that excuse, they´d put on a mask and try again. i guess that if they want candy that bad that means that they don´t usually get treats like that so i guess we really should have given them more than we did.

cusco was next and we did the usual routine of taking the bus and going to our hostel, except this time we LITERALLY went off-roading in a tour-bus sized bus. oy. i didn´t think it was possible but the driver pulled it off. i can´t be positive that there was even a dirt path. all i saw was crop fields.

cusco on halloween is crazy. definitely the most people i´ve seen in the plaza yet. the next day is even bigger. i guess it´s tradition to eat pig because they are everywhere...raw...legs cut off...staring at you...yuck. today libby and i are going to chill out and shop a little. our parents come tomorrow!!!!! i´m beyond excited. we´re picking them up from the airport tomorrow. not sure what time--should probably figure that out...