Last Week in Peru

Hello everyone. Yes, I know that I have been a slacker and haven’t updated in about 2 weeks. But, better late than never, right? So, as many of you may already know, I am back home. YAY!!! But even though I am home, I still haven’t finished my blog yet. I haven’t written about my last week in Peru. So, here we go….

Xiamara coloring her fish

My last week was full of fun and exciting times. On Monday, we did an art project with some of the younger kids. We took paper plates and made fish out of them for the kids to decorate and color. They had fun cutting and decorating the fish and we had fun watching them be creative because each kids decorated their fish differently, showing their personality. There were a couple of kids though that would see how us volunteers were decorating our fish and would copy us almost directly, but what can you do? haha After each kid finished their fish, we took them back to our house and put them up on the windows so the kids could see them.

Alfredo's finished fish

This week, there were a lot of last, which was kind of sad. Last time doing laundry, last time doing the school run, last time of being woken up by someone banging on our front door...but having been back to the States for a week, I can tell you that I definitely miss it. It's the little things that at the time you find annoying but once their not there anymore, you realize you actually miss them.

Andrea doing her homework

Also during this week, I got to spend some time with a little girl named Andrea.I helped her out with her homework as well as play around with her outside in one of the trees located in the middle of the Aldea. Andrea is only 4 years old and goes to pre-school but here in Peru even the little kids get homework. My job was to help her get it all done so her Tia could help some of the other kids with their homework. Her homework was to color things in in a specific color, do some cutting and tracing, and put things back together. So all in all, it wasn't that hard but her attention span wasn't that long, like most kids are so I had to try and keep her on task which was a job in itself. After we did get all of her homework done, we went outside to play around and ended up climbing around in one of the trees. This tree is very interesting however because it's branches have grown more outward instead of upward so it's fairly easy to climb, even for us gringa's. haha

Andrea and I hanging out in a tree

Jayde pushing the kids around on the trolley

On Thursday, we decided that we wanted to do a bonfire for some of the older kids. This did however take a lot more preparation that we initially thought. We had to get a bunch of sweets and treats for the kids to eat, as well as marshmallows and cookies so we could teach them how to make s'mores. We also had to collect all of the wood from one side of the Aldea and cart it to the other side which ended up taking a fair amount of time. It was fun though because some of the younger kids came and helped us out (as well as beg us to let them come to the bonfire). Later that night when it had gotten dark, we made a fire, and taught the kids how to roast marshmallows and make s'mores. I think it ended up being a success, because the kids practically tore through all of the treats and I'm pretty sure the Tia's didn't appreciate us getting them all hyped up on sugar before bedtime. It was a fun way to spend my last night at the Aldea.

Us trying to figure out how to make the trolley move

Lucho and Alfredo during the party

Friday was a very emotional day for me, but it didn't start out that way. They ended up having a birthday party for all of the kids who had birthday's in the month of April, so we had to help decorate for that. Then Jayde and I finished packing all of our stuff into our suitcases so we could leave after the party. The party was really fun, and a good way to spend our last day at the Aldea since all of the kids were there. After the party, we went to each house so we could say good-bye each all of the kids. I had been fine up to that point, but when we walked into the first house so say good-bye, I lost it. It had finally hit me that I was leaving and would probably never see these kids again. I had originally thought that going to Peru would be the hardest thing I had ever had to do, but leaving all of those kids who I have come to love so much, trumps that a hundred times over.

I will never forget the past 4 months that I got to spend here in Peru. It was amazing and wouldn't trade it for the the world. I will be forever grateful all of the kids who accepted me with open arms and loved me. This was an experience of a lifetime and has definitely change me for the better.

My last picture :(

Update #2

Sergio

This past week has probably one of the most low-key ones since I’ve been here. I may have said that before, but this time it’s totally true. We came back from our trip early Monday morning to find out that both Jayde and I had to go to the hospital with some of the kids. So, we were barely home for 15 minutes before we had to leave again. The little boy that I went with, his name is Sergio and he needed to go to the eye doctor. Hospital’s here are very different from the one’s at home, because they include every single kind of doctor you could possibly imagine there so it’s always busy and crowded.  It’s very different from the hospitals back home in the states.

Fabricio

On Wednesday I also went to the hospital but with another little boy named Fabricio. Fabricio is about 2 years old and has to go to physical therapy as well as speech therapy on Monday and Wednesday. I have been told that since he has started therapy he is much more active and alert so it’s good to know that it is helping. He is a very sweet child, but the only problem is that since he is 2, he is getting bigger and we have to carry him everywhere. It starts to get tiring after a little while. On the way back home from the hospital, they ended up shoving 4 adult women in the back of the truck. I don’t think they realized how squished it would be because when I sat down, they seemed surprise there wasn’t really enough room to fit us all. Haha ya, that was a great self-esteem boost.

Stephenie and her paper mache balloon

This week, we decided to make paper mache octopuses with some of the younger kids. Since it takes time for it to dry, we just did the first part this week and plan on finishing them next week. So the kids blew up their balloons and then dove right in to putting the glued newspaper on the balloons. By the time we finished we were all covered in glue and I mean that it was everywhere. I got so much on my arms from holding the kids balloons for them that I looked like all of my skins was peeling off. In the end though, they seemed to have fun and keep asking when we are going to finish them up.

Maribel and her writing

There are two girls at the Aldea, Maribel and Guadalupe, who are kind of special and don't go to school. This week I decided to have them practice their writing. I sat down and wrote down their names, the alphabet, numbers, and some words. I wrote them in dashes then left space for them to actually copy them down to practice. It took some time to do them for each of the girls, but it was worth it. Maribel did so well; she really hates to write and can’t read so I had to tell her what she was writing. Guadalupe has had some schooling so she could already write her name and knew her alphabet and numbers, so it wasn’t quite as beneficial for her. I know that Maribel doesn’t like to write because she knows she can’t but I think that if I make her practice, she will improve over time.

Me, Blanca, Elvira, and Edwardo

Lastly, we got two new kids here at the Aldea who are brother and sister named Edwardo and Elvira. They are super sweet but kind of quiet. They were playing with a couple of the other kids when I showed them I had brought my camera with me. All four of them got really excited and one little girl named Stephenie quickly took control of my camera and then we spent the next 20 minutes taking pictures and having Stephenie tell us where to go. It was way fun, the kids I learned really like to do bunny ears. haha they are such sweethearts. I can't believe that this next week is my last one. I am going to miss them so much!!!

Vacation

Hitting the road

 
Last week was probably one of the best weeks of my life!! During my internships here in Peru, all interns get the opportunity to travel and do some sightseeing for a week. So Jayde and I decided to do it last week so we could travel with Alessandra and Dale, our friends that we met here from USU. The places we decided to go were Iquitos (the jungle), Cusco, and Machu Pichu. They were each so different but so much fun. The first leg of our trip was to take an 8 hour bus ride to Lima then fly into Iquitos. The reason we had to fly to Iquitos is that it is only accessible by plane or boat because of the water. We arrived in Iquitos Sunday night and stayed there until Wednesday evening when we flew back into Lima.

So much rain....

Lupita the sloth

I loved Iquitos, but I think I would have enjoyed it and seen a lot more if it hadn’t been rainy season. The river had risen so much that a lot of Iquitos is under water, which means that some of the things that we wanted to do were not longer possible. The first night though I got to stay in my very first hostel. It was so cool too because it was built on the water and all the houses are floating. The only way to get from house to house was to walk over wood planks that connected each place to each other. The next day though we decided to go 5 hours into the jungle and stay in a type of resort where we had a guide who showed us around the jungle and Amazon. We didn’t just drive there though, we had to take a boat to get there and on the way, we passed a lot of houses that were almost completely submerged under water. It was actually quite sad and when I asked where they live when this happens our guide said they often times move in towards the jungle.

The Amazon River

During the time that we spent in the jungle, we took morning and night boat rides, saw tons of birds, plenty of sloths and even got to hold one, went on a walk through the jungle, and went fishing for piranhas. It was pretty awesome, I’m not going to lie. Also, the place that we stayed was a village so there were always people and kids running around. It was way old school too because there was not electricity of any kind so at night we only had flashlights or lanterns. On the plus side though was that we had a working toilet, and I’m pretty sure we were the only house that did.

The Sacred Valley

After Iquitos we flew back to Lima, then flew to Cusco. Cusco is where the Inca Empire was and is where most people think that Machu Picchu is. It is actually in a smaller city called Auges Calientes that is about 4 hours away. In order to get to Auges Calientes, we took a tour that took us to a place called Ooytatamba then took a train from there. The tour we took showed us a lot of the ruins around what is called the Sacred Valley. The Sacred Valley is where the Inca’s started before they traveled all the way up the northern coast. So we stopped at a couple of places along the way to see some stone ruins the Inca’s had built. They were pretty cool, it’s amazing to see what amazing architects they were and that was thousands of years ago before machines.

Machu Picchu

Well, on the day we were going to go to Machu Picchu, we woke up at about 6:00 because we had the great idea to save about S/40 and hike up to Machu Picchu instead of take the bus. The people at our hostel we talked to said they did it in about 50 minutes so we figured it would be no problem whatsoever. Ya, biggest mistake of my entire life!!!! Since it’s on top of a mountain, we had to climb stairs that were basically straight up and it took a lot longer than 50 minutes I will tell you that. I have never been so tired in my life and when we got there, I didn’t realize that Machu Picchu is so big and that we would have to hike around there too. So, by the end of the day I was beat.

Beautiful

Machu Picchu was huge!

When we finally got up the mountain and I caught sight of the wonder that is Machu Picchu, I decided that hiking all the way up was in fact worth it. Since it was still early morning, the clouds hadn’t risen yet since we were so high up, so it was hard to see all of it but when the clouds finally cleared….no number of pictures I took will ever compare to what I saw while there. It was huge and vast and I can’t fathom how the Inca’s were able to build it without the type of machinery that we have today. It seems impossible. We ended up spending pretty much the entire day there and when we decided to head back to the hostel, we ended up forking out the money to take the bus back down the mountain. Ya, there was no way in heck I was going to do that again, even if it was downhill.

I finally found my llama!

original peruvian clothing

Before heading back to Trujillo, we got to spend one full day in Cusco. Out of all the cities I have been to, I have decided that Cusco is my favorite. I would absolutely love to spend more time there, it is so cool and has so much history located there. We went on some tours that use to be old Inca temples until the Spanish came and converted them into monasteries. I also went shopping at several of the markets there, and all of the people were just so friendly and I was able to walk around freely and not worry at all. It is also much more touristy than Trujillo, so I think that makes a difference as well, people there spoke some English. I can’t wait to be able to speak the same language as everyone else when I get home. Although being able to speak in a completely different language than everyone else is pretty neat since they can’t understand a work I’m saying. So, I can basically say anything I want, it’s going to be hard to filter stuff when I get back. Haha

Cusco

Since Cusco was our last stop, on Sunday we took our early morning flight to Lima, then caught our bus back into Trujillo. It was nice to finally be done traveling and stay in the same place for more than one night. Even though my bed at the Aldea isn’t the best, I realized that it was heaven compared to sleeping in a different place each night for a week. On the plus side though, in about a week, I will be sleeping on my memory foam mattress…YES!!!!

Short Week

Since this Sunday is Easter, here in South America is having what is called Holy Week. I'm not going to lie, I don't really know much about it, but we do get Thursday and Friday off so that's good enough for me. This means that I was only at the Aldea for 3 days this week, but it felt like a lot longer. It is probably because we are taking next week off to travel so I'm really excited and want time to go faster. As always though, before I start talking about last weekend....

Nothing super exciting happened this past weekend. The only thing that we really did was go to the market to buy some stuff. Yes, the same market where I got my wallet stolen only a couple of weeks ago, but I felt like I needed to show this place who's boss!!! haha Ya, so instead of chickening out, I went and had a good time. I found some awesome sandals that are totally Peruvian that I absolutely love. And to think that I may have never had gotten them if I wouldn't have gotten my wallet stolen. Yes, I know it's a long stretch but I'm trying to stay positive. Then on Sunday I watched General Conference. I did miss being at home with the family, sitting in our pajamas and eating my Dad's cinnamon rolls that he always makes. But, it was an interesting experience to be able to watch it in a completely different country and know that millions of people are watching the exact same thing as me. That's what's so amazing about the Church, how no matter where you go or where you are, it's still going to be the same in Peru as it is in Utah.

Now, onward into this week....

If you remember from last week, we made a fort with some of the kids. Well, apparently it made an impression on them because a bunch of kids came to me again and asked if we could make a "casita", aka little house, again. I said sure so they came in and we set up the parachute, boxes, and chairs again. One little girl in particular named Stephenie ended up taking charge. It soon became a game of house where she was the mother and would tell the other kids where their rooms where located and when they should "go to bed" or "take a bath". It was super cute, but soon so kids were in our casita there was no air to breath as well as it was starting to get out of hand, so we had to end the fun.

Sarali is a total monkey

Cool climbing tree

This week we also taught some of the younger kids how to play toilet tag. We showed them to sit on the person's knee and push the person's hand down to untag them. They did catch on quickly and it soon became quite fun. Jayde and I did have to be careful when we "sat down" on the kids knees to flush them. haha it was crazy, but unfortunately they lost interest. After that, we all played around in the tree that is located in the middle of the aldea. The way that is has grown is so cool that it's super easy to climb it clear up to the top. I'm not quite so as willing as the kids to climb all the way up to the top, but they are basically monkeys are can climb a straight pole if they wanted too.

Lastly, the aldea is starting to make an effort to clean up the trash. So they had bins made with different signs on them to indicate what type of trash is suppose to go in there. They want to get the kids involved with it as well, so they had a type of assembly where they talked to the kids about how important it was to recycle and keep the aldea clean. Naturally, I didn't understand a whole lot of it, but the kids got really into it and couldn't hold still when they wanted to answer the questions they got asked. So hopefully it sticks and we start to do more recycling around here.

Bins for recycling

Q & A session

Well, since this week was short, I got to come back into Trujillo and spend a couple of days there. On both Thursday and Friday I went to two different beaches, Huanchaco and Chicama. They are both fun, but so different. On Thursday it was rainy and on Friday it was windy, but it was still warm so I'm not going to complain. Especially when I know that it showed in Utah. haha Well, I probably won't get next week updated because I am taking my week off for traveling. Saturday night I head to Lima then from there to Iquitos for a couple of days then we head back to Lima and continue onward down to Cuzco to visit Machu Pichu. We don't get back until next Sunday evening and will have to go straight back to the aldea. So everyone have a great next 2 weeks, and I will try and update as soon as I can. I'm so excited!!!!!

1 month left....

Wow, I can't believe that I only have a month left before I leave to go back to the States. Where has the time gone? It feels like just yesterday I was arriving in Peru, all nervous and scared of what was going to happen. Now I can call a taxi in Spanish and eat ceviche without gagging. haha it's just so crazy!!!

Amazing lemonade

Monkey!!!!

Last weekend was so much fun! I had my second lesson in surfing and lets just way that I definitely agree with the phrase "Beginners Luck." My first lesson went so much better than my second lesson because I was able to stand up may more the first time that I was able to this past weekend. It was very frustrating!!! After several hours of big waves continually knocking me off my board I decided to head back to the beach. Since surfing is hard work, we went and ate but it wasn't the food that was memorable. It was the lemonade! I swear, I have never had such good lemonade before in my life, I will never forget how amazing it tasted. I am now ruined forever because of this lemonade because nothing will ever come close to it. haha After eating we walked around on the beach for a little bit, hitting some of the shops ever so often. And then suddenly, I saw it...my very first monkey here in Peru!!!! Granted, it was on a leash and a child was sitting next to it feeding it chips, but it was still cool. I even got to pet it. :D

Well, this week has been so crazy and just full of fun. I feel like I say this alot, but this week definitely went by very fast. I'm afraid that now that I've hit my one month mark, everything will just fly by. I'm not saying that is bad because I am ready to go home in some ways, but I know I'm going to have a hard time not only leaving Peru, but leaving these amazing kids that I have come to love so so much!!! Well then, here's what happened during my week...

What our rice crispies ended up looking like

On Wednesday, Jayde and I decided to try and make rice crispy treats with one of the houses. Tried being the main word here. haha We couldn't find any rice crispy cereal so we had to improvise and bought another type of cereal and some marshmallows. Side note: one thing that I won't miss about Peru is their portion sizes. When you buy something like cereal or chips or marshmallows, their is basically nothing in it and therefore you have to buy to just to even make it semi-normal. It's very annoying! Anyway, after dinner, we headed over to Casa 1 to make these rice crispy treats. They didn't quite turn out the way they were suppose to. The marshmallows didn't melt like they were suppose to and then when we added the cereal, we realized that we needed more cereal and when we tried to make them set, they ended up being hard. But, none of this mattered to the kids, they absolutely loved making them and thought that they tasted fantastic. So, in the end it didn't really matter what they looked like, they just wanted to have fun and make something with sugar in it that they hadn't ever had before. :D

Girls just wanna have fun!

Our fort..

On Tuesday, we decided to make a fort outside made of chairs, boxes and then put our parachute over top. we set it up for the toddlers, but we ended up having several older kids join us as well. It was so much fun, even though there wasn't really a lot of room for everyone. We read stories, blew bubbles, and the kids went crazy for our camera. They absolutely love it when we pull our camera's out and constantly try to steal them so they can take pictures too. The funny thing is though they are often times the best pictures that I have, the just aren't always so gentle and careful with my camera. I've had my camera dropped several times and once the lens wouldn't retract and I was nervous that I would have to buy a new camera over here. That would definitely not be good.

So many kids

This week, it was my turn to do afternoon school runs which means that I ride in the back of a pick-up truck to pick the kids up after school. My job is to make sure they stay sitting down while we are driving. We usually end up having to make 3 trips, one trip in one direction to one school and two trips in the other direction to a different school. Well, one in particular we had already pick up the kids at one school and were headed to the other school. When we got there, I didn't hop out of the cab fast enough to get into the back because by the time I was out of the car, the entire back part of the truck was completely filled up. There was no way I was going to be able to fit in there with the amount of kids in the back. So, I had to stay with the 4 other kids and wait til the driver came back to pick us up. Ya, all the kids but 4 were able to fit in that trip. haha it was totally crazy!!!!

Girl's pinata

Last, but certainly not least, on Friday we had our monthly birthday party for all the kids who have their birthday in March. This one was much bigger than the others because we had about 10 kids to celebrate. This party was also different because a church group came and ended up doing the whole thing. It was fun to see the kids interact with this group that included both young kids and older adults. They brought tons of treats and cakes for the kids to eat as well as pinata's which everyone went totally and completely nuts over. There were 3, one for girls, one for little kids, and one for boys. When those pinata's came down those, it was pretty brutal and I was afraid that someone would end up getting hurt because of how the kids just flew to the ground and pushed each other out of the way. They also taught them some new balloon games which was fun to watch the kids get into. And as always, there was dancing. American's need to take notes from Peru in regards to throwing a party. Their parties are much more fun and there is tons of dancing, but the best part is that everyone dances. Not just the kids, but the adults too. Parties will never be the same now that I have experienced a Peruvian party.

6 weeks and counting....

Some guards at El Brujo

Wow, this has gone by much faster than last week, which is definitely good. I love the weekends, but I definitely love the weekdays to because of the kids. Well, before I start rambling off about how awesome this week was, I must first discuss something ever so tragic. Last Saturday, I went shopping with Jayde (intern) and Candy (Peruvian sister) at a big massive market place that had stalls after stalls of shoes. I have never seen so many shoes in one specific area in my entire life. It was there however, that I got my wallet stolen out of my purse. It was there one minute, and then when I went to check again, it was gone!! I totally freaked out and didn’t know what to do, so Candy had to calm me down and take me back home. There I had to break the news to my parents, which they were actually much calmer than I was. So I had no money, no driver’s license, no credit cards, and no student ID cards….NOTHING!!! It was quite traumatic, but after a couple of hours, I was much better.

Huaca Cao Viejo

Dinner then karaoke

The story does have a much happier ending though, I ended up going to this really cool place called El Brujo which is clear out in the middle of nowhere, about an 1 ½ hour away from Trujillo. Jayde and I went with an American we met over here on an internship through USU. She also went with us to the Huacas the week before. At El Brujo, we went to Huaca Cao Viejo, which is very similar to the place that we had gone last week, but the cool thing was that they had recently (within the past 10 years) discovered a woman governor, which meant that they were all men. And they had her at the museum on-site, so we got to see a real life mummy person. It was pretty tight. We ended the night going out to a place called Roky’s which had a karaoke section, so the 3 of us sang karaoke which is definitely a first for me.

Jocelyn

Making bracelets

Well, this week has been quite busy. On Tuesday, we taught some of the older kids how to make friendship bracelets. They are absolutely crazy about them and constantly want to make them now that they know how. I worked with a girl named Jocelyn, but the problem is that she kind of reminds me of my cousin Kade. She tends to make fun of me tease me a lot, but I think that means she likes me in the long run. However, this time wasn’t that fun because she decided to cut off a little bit of my hair when I wasn’t paying attention. But I caught her trying to cut more off and made her stop. I was lucky that she only did a little bit. Overall though, the bracelet making was a success and the kids absolutely loved it!

The finished product

Later on in the week, we did art with a little girl named Perla. I don’t know if I have talked about her before, but she is quite special. In the past, we found out that she really likes to color, so we decided to get a big piece of paper, trace her, and then let her color the whole thing in. It was way fun, and reminded me of preschool because I’m pretty sure I did that too when I was little. She was way good too, she held still while we traced her and let us help color her back in. When we finished, we put it up on the wall and she was so excited to see it all finished. It didn’t matter to her that she had purple hair or her arms were two different colors, she just had fun.

Tracing Perla

Lastly, we decided to teach the kids another game. The game we decided upon was the one where you tie balloons around each person’s leg, then they have to stomp on each other’s without getting theirs stomped on and the last person who has their balloon is the winner. I have no idea what it’s called but we called it Balloon Stomp. As soon as we walked outside with the balloons, the kids went completely nuts! You would think they had never seen a balloon before in life. We tried to calm them down and tell them how to play, but they didn’t wait for us to say go, as soon as the balloons were on their ankles, they took off. Some kids got theirs stomped on right off, so they just had to have another so they could actually play the game (hint of sarcasm). One little girl in particular named Sofia was very smart, she climbed up the soccer goals onto the basket ball hoop and sat there with her balloon and waited till everyone was done. Haha kids here tend to climb like little monkeys. I am proud to say that we only made 2 kids cry because it definitely could have been a whole lot worse.

Overall, this week feels like it has been so much busier than some of the other weeks that I have had. The busy the week however, the fast it ends up going. I truly just can’t believe that in over a month, I will be leaving Peru…..let’s not think about it!!!

Lovin' Peru

This week has been fairly eventful, but as always, let us start with last weekend. Last weekend, Jayde and I met up with Dale and Alessandra (the American's we met during the week) and headed out to some ruins called Huacas del Sol y Luna. It's kind of like Chan Chan, but it is more or an actual temple where only sacrifices and such were done, no one actually lived there. Also, unlike Chan Chan, it is completely authentic (meaning that it hasn't been reconstructed or rebuilt) so everything is how is was when it was discovered. It was way cool, even though the guide that we had only spoke Spanish so Dale and Alessandra had to try and interpret what he was saying for me. Unfortunately, only the Luna Temple is open, so we couldn't go and see the Sol Temple. There are parts in the temple that are still painted too. One story that the guy told us was two warriors would fight with really big staffs and the loser was the one who got knocked out. Then all the losers would then be killed and sacrificed to the gods. Crazy, huh?

Since school is back as I said last week, during the day we tend to spend time with the babies and little kids. There is one baby in particular who I have fallen in love with. Her name is Fatima and she is less than 1 year old. She is so cute and sweet and if I could, I would totally take her home with me when I leave Peru. She is always just so happy and I love making her smile :)

This week, I got the opportunity to wake up at 6:45 every morning and ride with kids in the back of the truck to school. YAY!!! It actually wasn't that bad looking back on it, but I didn't like being up so early every day. My job was to sit in the back of the truck and to make sure all the kids are sitting down the whole time. But it is definitely not just some quite drive in the morning, here in Peru people drive really really fast, so we tend to fly down the road in the mornings. I do enjoy seeing them in the mornings because they all have to wear uniforms to school and they all look so cute in them. haha

Each week, we rotate to difference casa's so we end up eating with all the kids after several weeks. This week I ate in casa 8 which is where a lot of the older girls live. There are a few girls there however who are little or who are quite special. So, when I go over for lunch and dinner, we tend to play around until it is time to eat. There are 3 in particular who tend to fight over my attention. haha I have never felt so loved until 3 girls are sitting there fighting over who gets to play with my hair or sit on my lap. It does make me wish that I could accommodate all of them, but unfortunately I can not.

 I can't believe how fast time has seemed to fly down here in Peru. I almost have about 1 1/2 months left and I just look back and wonder where the time has gone. I truly can't even begin to imagine having to leave this place and saying goodbye to the kids...