It’s strange to think that a week from today, I will be back in the United States. I’m already feeling a little bittersweet about the entire experience, since it will definitely be hard to leave my host family. I feel I have really formed a lasting relationship with them, something that will be hard to leave. Nevertheless, I will be glad to see my family for the first time in eight weeks, and my siblings for the first time in almost four months.
Today was our turn to show the Urubamba volunteers what we have been working on during the past seven weeks. However, first we had to share our presentation with the community. Overall, it went really well, and I definitely feel that we have learned a lot about how to make effective presentations. Today, we engaged the community members quite a bit, and I definitely feel that this helped them to feel included and to understand the information. I was really excited about being able to show them how to use sunscreen, and from the feedback, it seemed like they found this to be quite funny. I’m not sure if that was the actual intent, but I’m fine with whatever helps them to learn.
Afterwards, we took the Urubamba volunteers around the community and showed them the different projects. For the first time in a while, I felt a great sense of pride knowing that we accomplished so much to help this community in the past seven weeks. I really feel that we have worked on projects that will have a lasting impact, and hopefully it makes their lives easier and healthier.
In the afternoon, we had Spanish class before having a final reunion with our teachers to say goodbye. They have been really helpful in teaching us the language and helping us to immerse ourselves in the culture, something that I will truly miss. They were also really kind to give us each a personalized card and picture. I will never forget either of the teachers, and hopefully we will be able to keep in touch via email.
In the evening, we had our final salsa lesson of the trip. Since I missed the last one, I was a bit behind and rusty, but I was able to catch up relatively quickly. We learned a couple new moves today, all of which were pretty difficult. It was kind of tough overall, but I really feel that I learned a lot throughout the course. Hopefully I will be able to keep up my knowledge of salsa through practice and teaching other people.
When we got home, we were all tired, so we just went to sleep. Tomorrow, we will be working on building the school in Occoruro with the Urubaba volunteers. This will be our last day of work with them as well as our last full week in Cuzco, so I really want to make sure everything ends cleanly and on a good note. It will be tough to leave Occoruro, but at least I feel good about having helped them over my time in Cuzco.
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