New Volunteers

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Yesterday was a sad day. 6 people left Inti Wara Yassi. Today, 3 more left and tomorrow there will be a few more. The community here is always shifting and changing as people leave and new people come. By today, the people that I had spent the most time with were were all gone and in their places were strange new faces. I will learn these new peoples´ names and when they leave I will probably mourn their departures as well.

The Halloween party was amazing. The children who live at our house helped us carve jack o lanterns out of watermelons and papaya. They were very excited to participate in a holiday that they had never celebrated. People were extremely creative with their costumes given the limited resources and experience (for many people it was their first halloween party).

I have a new partner with Gato, Daniella. Daniella is Swedish but has lived in London for the past several years. She is a very sweet girl and is highly amused by my knowledge of Swedish culture. The day´s here have adopted a constant rhythm of work and I feel as if I have been here a very long time. Time here is not controlled by a watch but by the whims of a puma. There are no weekends and the days of the week have morphed into egg day, straw day, beach day... I love it.

Even though the routine of every day is the same, there are so many dramas with the animals and people of Inti Wara Yassi that things never get dull. Today, for example, Daniella went flying off of the path as we tried to sprint as fast as Gato and both Gato and I submerged in the river trying to recross an arm that had risen substantially since we had crossed it a few hours before. It is always an adventure and even after hard and frusterating days I sit in the cafe and feel satisfied that I have done something to make the world a little bit better for something other than myself.