I have left Los Angeles in the early morning of September 11, 7 years after the big 9-11 incident to my mission trip in Peru. It is now three days past that time, and I am currently in an internet cafe, my first access to the outside world in three days. I am at the downtown of Iquitos, en la Plaza de Armas. It was kind of hard to say goodbye to my friends and family, (by the way thanks to all those that came out for dinner), but I was also excited for the upcoming adventures in the Amazonian jungles.
After almost a whole day of traveling, taking few stops at San Salvador and Costa Rica, then Lima, we finally arrived in Iquitos. We had dinner, chicken and rice at a Chifa (that's what they call Chinese restaurants here) which was really tasty and already knew i would be gaining weight this trip =). However, we went to our rooms and the direcftor Paul showed us the living head quarters. It wasn´t what we expected. This whole time I thought i would be living in a nice little cabana in the jungle.
But the next day started off great with our cook cooking breakfast, which was nice to know and started realizing that the food here wouldn´t be as bad as the food i had in spain. We went to the Belen market, which is the hugest farmers market i´ve ever been to, only it had stuff that doesn´t grow on farms. Just to name a few, they had alligator babies sold as pets, alligators sold as food, they had the cutest little jaguar (called an oncelot) that you could buy for only $50 and they were selling monkeys, turtles, almost anything you can imagine. It was really awesome. Then we took a tour in the poorest areas of Iquitos, which is hard to imagine because the whole city looks pretty darn poor. The houses were like wooden shacks that were built on stilts, because every spring the rivers flood. I wasn´t able to bust out my camera either because some of the locals told us not to because there were a lot of thieves and robbers that would just snatch it from my neck or hand. Anyways, we had lunch with the other volunteers that are here to offer their services as missionaries. They´re names are Casey and Lisa, Kelly and Aaron, and i list them like that because they´re all married and pretty young. We had lunch at a little restaurant and surprisingly the restaurants here cater to vegetarians quite well.
i´ll stop blabbering and start talking about my favorite part here. At night we finally went to the crisis center-orphanage where little girls have been abused or abandoned, and also some boys..there was like about 15 of them all around a dining table and they were all sooo happy. Right when i entered they all gave me hugs and kisses, and it was my first time meeting them. Just imagine this, think of that scene on the Hook where all those boys are eating around the dining table having a blast, but make them 10000 times cuter. That´s when I felt sure of God´s plans for me to be here. I hope to following a few doctors here at the local hospital and Lisa is a nurse so i´ll be able to see a lot of things soon that I´ll write about.
Anyways, there´s so much that has happened in the past couple days but i´ll keep you guys from being more bored than you guys are already, but i figured this was a good way of letting everyone know how i was doing and what i´m doing instead of e'mailing a bunch ofpeople. If you want me to email you ugys personally leave a comment and i´ll do my best. Oh, I also we also have a pet monkey here at the place where we live. His name is Romeo, that monkey butt doesn´t like me though and is all over Brinja. Anyways, i wish i can post pictures up but my time here is done. I will post pictures up asap, may be on facebook or here. we shall see. In the mean time, God bless everyone and please pray for me as´i will be praying for all of you guys.
Strength and courage,
Eden Yoon
