Lima Debrief

...Sam...

First off, if I repeat anything previously posted on this blog, I apologize but Im really enjoying not using computers or being connected at all. Today will be our first full day in Lima, where we will debrief for a long time before exploring the city. As far as the city itself, I find it really interesting, but overwhelmingly polluted. Its a stark contrast to the largely unspoiled rainforest we enjoyed up until yesterday.

Since weºll be spending much, if not all, of our debriefing time today reflecting on our experiance in the jungle, I thought Iºd share with you a few things that Im sure I will bring up in our discussions today. First, I think we did a great job this year. I think the major accomplishments we made in the physical task of building the park last year freed us to spend more time concentrating on relationships with our friends in the town this year. We worked hard and made some serious progress on the park, but there wasnt the same pressure to carve a park out of nothing, as there was last year. In place of the physical activity that took much of my time last year, I was able to spend even more time interacting with people. It was a unique experience to be invited into many homes and to form friendships not only with the kids, but with their moms as well. I cant even count the number of times when a mom would be looking at our activities somewhat apprehensively, but when we interacted with her and asked her about her life, she suddenly became a new friend, interested and involved in our efforts.

Im being told to wrap it up because we need to start our team debrief, but I wanted to share one last thing. This should be special for Matteo Braund if heºs reading this. One of our favorite boys in the town, Klieson, is now 12 and growing up fast. He really impressed me this year because he is taking a huge leadership role among the boys. Klieson was a great help in organizing his peers for activities, and in the closing ceremony he gave an impressive speech to a big crowd. Its hard to explain how proud this made me, seeing him go from a semi quiet kid hanging out with us last year, to being a obvious example of a future leader. I hope that our time together has encouraged him to take these steps, and I also hope that our friendship and the example of our team will help him to grow in a positive direction.

Well I hope these scattered thoughts make sense. Gotta go, hope everyone is doing well.

PS Molly and I say hi to her family! And also... Hi mom!

...Sam Ziegler...