September 12th

I have decided to extend my stay until September 12th.

It may be hard to understand unless you are here, but let me tell about the projects I'm working on.

The new program created by Daniel, another volunteer at Belempampa, has really taken off. Basically it's a way for outside organizations to donate to the hospital and also for us to make sure that Belempampa has more of the nescessary supplies it needs. I've had the privilage to be a part of several meetings with the Ministry of Health here in Cusco to update health standards in Belempampa and sourounding hospitals. Yeah, within the last week it's turned from an idea to help the hospital into a reality involving more organizations than we imagined. You can check out Daniel's preliminary website at www.friendsofbelempampa.org.

For the last few days, I've been studying pharmacology with a doctor here so that she can update her notes from 10 years ago. They do not have any access to medical information when questions arise, and books are really scarce. I'm trying to work with my school, the medical school, and college of nursing to establish a rotation for students here. So far, my school will be sending books and it looks like they're really interested establishing a connection with Maximo Nivel and Belempampa. The meeting with the deans to discuss the new rotation is August 17th-ish...so keep your fingers crossed.

My spanish teacher, Jorge, and his family try to feed and clothe all of the street children in their area every Chirstmas. Ninos de la calle, or street children, are a big problem in Cusco because families cannot afford to keep their children and most orphanages are over-crowed and have a time limit of a few months and then the childeren must be turnned back into the street and cannot go back to any orphanage. Ever. I'm helping Jorge start a bi-lingual website to bring awareness and try to network for donations such as clothing, shoes, food etc. Right now his family helps about 60 children ages 6 to 13 every Christmas, but it's a stuggle to help out on an average Peruvian salary. Eventually, the website will be www.navidadencusco.org, aka Christmas in Cusco.

If you or anyone you know would like to help with any project in anyway, shoot me an email. It can be anything from just giving me the contact email of an interested church, to mailing some toothbrushes or even a pack of pens.

It seems unreal the impact that just four or five of us volunteers have made at Belempampa and beyond in just under three short weeks once we came together.

Ask around.

:)