From Pearce

Hello civilized world it’s Pearce. We arrived in Chilca for our homestays two days ago and tried to get settled in. Yesterday was our first day of work at the school. We are building a cafeteria for the students here and although we arent going to have enough time to finish it, everyone in the town is beyond happy to have us here working. After the ceremony they had for us which was very interesting to say the least, we started our service work day 1. First we had to move adobe bricks, rocks and dirt from the area were the cafeteria will be built. We also moved a truck load of rocks from the road down to the site, we made this easier by forming a massive assembly line. The food here is for the most part good, we have had soup in my house for almost every meal except for last night. I am rooming with Sam and we both thought it was the best meal of the week, that is until Sam got sick last night. We don’t know exactly what he has but it is some sort of minor stomach bug, probably from eating the tomatoes last night which I did not eat. The weather is very odd here, it can be hot or cold during the day, but if the sun is out you better make sure to put sunscreen on because it will burn you. We had a little bet that if Garrett, Bryce and Sam got buzzes, I had to go completely bald from the little hair I had to begin with. They got their buzzes and I got mine too.I have to re-apply sunscreen every 15 minutes while working so that the top of my head will not burn, but don’t worry Mom, it is already starting to grow back, just very slow. After our work yesterday we had lunch with our families and then played soccer with some of the local boys. It was very fun but it got very cold and we had to stop when the sun started going down over the mountains. It gets dark here very early because we are completely surrounded by mountains which some even have some snow on. We have our second day of service work today and then another one tomorrow before we go on an overnight hike in two days. We then come back to our host families after the hike for three more days of service work. Its been a very eye opening experience so far and I cant wait to see what the rest of the week holds in store for us. Adios until next time, Pearce.