Peru, here I come!

Now I finally have time to write my very first blog post! This blog is for all of you who wish to follow with me through my eight and a half months in Peru. I hope to satisfy your curiosity and look forward to reading your comments! :)

Let me first offer a brief introduction to what I'm going to do in Peru. I have been chosen to participate in the Finnish Volunteer Programme - ETVO (www.etvo.fi), and I will do volunteer work for the NGO (Non Governmental Organization) Warmayllu - Comunidad de Niños. Warmayllu seeks to integrate art education and respect for local indigenous cultures within the Peruvian official school curriculum. They work with teachers, students and parents in different parts of Peru. I will join the team in Cajamarca, an Andean city about 850 km northeast of Lima. Please see Warmayllu's web site for more information about the NGO: http://www.warmayllu.org/warmayllu_eng.htm. According to preliminary plans, I will teach English at a secondary school, help with arts workshops, and write some articles for a book for global educators that will be published in Finland next fall.

The countdown has changed from days to hours - I'm 31 hours away from taking off at Helsinki-Vantaa airport. 24 hours and some very long flights later I will land in Lima. Curiously enough, I'm not in the least bit nervous. I guess I haven't quite grasped that I really am leaving! It'll all probably strike me sometime during the flights, or latest when in Lima. However, the fact that it all still seems very surreal doesn't keep me from feeling very, very excited. Volunteering in Latin America has been my dream for years, and now it's finally becoming reality! I'm certain that this will be my most difficult year ever, but I also believe it will be the best. Having spent a year in Spain I know I can adapt myself to a new environment and feel as much at home abroad as in Finland. There will be ups and downs, everyday life, once-in-a-lifetime experiences and hardships. I hope the good days will overbalance the tough ones!