Leo and Emily, Signing Off (sort of)

In addition to being engineers who lack borders, Leo and I happen to be super important pre-orientation leaders, and as such, we sadly had to leave the rest of the group to return to Princeton early. We waved goodbye to the members EWB-Peru, our beautiful little house, and Brad Pitt (the german shepherd) from the back of a combi whose windows were stuck open so we had the priviledge of breathing in a lot of dust on the ride to Trujillo, but otherwise had a very pleasant ride to the city.

As we were riding out of Samne I thought back to over a week ago when we first drove up that road and how unfamiliar everything was, and now just 9 days later how much like home it felt. We have been incredibly lucky in our choice of site, having Alan (probably the awesomest mayor ever to take office) to introduce us to all the town organizations and teach us how to make Pisco sours, being accepted by the Samne volleyball-playing community as hopeless but well-meaning teammates who are good for a laugh, and earning our place as "regulars" at the Restaurant Malu (which is good for some complimentary fresh-squeezed pineapple juice, fried bananas, mazamorra morada, and control over the radio to minimize Wino music). I look forward very much to returning again some time next year - EWB Peru and Samne are destined for great things I can tell!

Our Linea bus from Trujillo to Lima got inexplicably upgraded from "VIP" to "Super VIP", which was quite fantastic (although Barbara, I would say not worth the extra S./ 20 - I'll be damned if those seats actually reclined 180 degrees). However upon arrival in Lima, we learned that courtesy of Hurricane Irene, the entire eastern seaboard was shut down and our flights were cancelled. We spent many hours today arguing with airline agents (a full hour and a half was spent on call waiting as a recorded voice told us over and over and over "Your call is very important to us"). We finally now have our travel plans, but are missing Samne and the rest of the group already.

On behalf of everyone still in Samne, I also have an update on the past few days of our trip. We all had internet access on Thursday morning, but the proceeded to meet with the Marianistas of Otuzco. From our meeting with Jose Luis, it sounds like the Marianistas will be able to serve as our contact on the ground for our Samne project, which was very exciting to hear. They seem like a pretty amazing organization with interests very much in line with ours, and Jose Luis was incredibly nice and friendly. When I last spoke with Barbara, the team was in full work mode, taking community surveys and doing trash profiling with the garbage-collection women (so sorry I had to leave before that part, tech team! at least I was around for sewage testing?). And of course, preparing themselves for the fiesta patronal this weekend.
Good luck guys! See you back in Princeton!