Thanks a lot OREGON! You couldn’t beat Auburn when I counted on you. You couldn’t beat Ohio State when I counted on you. You blew it. Ya blew it. At least the Magic won tonight. I guess that’s nice. Who cares?! They just were on a 6 game losing streak. I don’t care. Ya blew it, Oregon! Why? You’re the Peyton Manning’s of college football. Brilliant regular season but you just can’t pull it together when it counts. Onto next year college football. A third string QB wins a national champion. Wow. Well, there’s a reason it’s the best sport. I’m back to blogging strictly about Latin American activity because all I seem to do is jinx anything I root for when I write about it. So it goes.

Or Roll Ducks Tide? Go Oregon even? Quack Quack? All that matters is that Ohio State loses tonight. After Alabama laid an egg (get it? Oregon humor!!!) against them, all I’ve cared about is their defeat. I did not like Urban Meyer before and I do not like him now. Oregon, you let me down before when you couldn’t take down Auburn but I believe in you this time. I believed in you last time. It’s your due time. Ohio State? Let them worry about Michigan. They don’t need no stinkin’ national championship. I realize this has nothing at all to do with Peru but sometimes thing extend past state lines, hell, past country lines, continent lines even. College football is one of them. Oregon. Make me proud tonight. So it goes.

to the people of the house. That has never been my intention. Obviously it would be so I could write horrible things behind people’s back and they’d never know. Okay, that wasn’t the case. I just didn’t make it known because it’s me probably being a completely different tone than the persona they see every day. It’s not because I’m a different person in this blog, I’m just more of myself and I don’t typically show my true colors to strangers that I’m meeting for the first time. At the very least I can be glad that I showed much more color to these folks that are leaving tonight and tomorrow than my original crew. This isn’t a goodbye to them, that may come later. This is just a snippet of how I write. This is to say this is what you’ve heard about and this is what it truly is. A guy rambling on about things that may or may not be important to anyone other than himself. He hopes they are but who knows for sure. Honestly, it was extremely hard to not write exclusively about me singing karaoke tonight. Did I excel at it? Of course I did. I have the voice of a mermaid. A mermaid who sings Maroon 5 and High School Musical. Did I wish this bar gave us rankings after each song? Of course I do. I wanted that 100. Next time. I’ll get there. I’m just saying, a duet of High School Musical? You can’t find that just anywhere. Glad to know the new recruits (who have been here almost a week now) are a good find also. So far, so good. Onto another week. Another weekend. So it goes.

Growing up, I always told myself that I had a magical voice. Whether it was singing the Backstreet Boys or singing another Backstreet Boys song (because they were really churning out the hits in the late 90’s/early 00’s) I could hear the songbirds sing with me. I was like Snow White. If that happened in Snow White or else I’m confusing myself with another classic disney heroine. The point is? I was great. Great is subjective. There is a reason I am not asking for anyone’s opinion other than my own during the writing of this post. But hey, I did star in musicals! Sure, they may have been local affairs but I was the darn tootin’ star. I was a prince. I was a sherriff. I was, well, that was it but those are pretty cool. In the later years post childhood onto the road of adolescence I seemed to lose my pipes. My voice got deeper, my ability waned until I was but a shell of my former self. Vocally that is. Can I still bust out an amazing rendition of Africa by Toto? You bet your ass I can. But that’s not the point. It’s just a fun fact. The point is that my family, my friends, myself, they told me I didn’t have IT. They told me that my voice was grating. They told me that my dreams of Broadway would never flourish. That I had to get it through my head that I wasn’t that boy belting out tunes as Sheriff Billy Bold. Some of what I’m saying may be exaggerated right now. Most of it is. Minus the youthful history of selling out sold out church summer theatre program shows. I did that. What is the point you ask? The point is that there must be something in the Peruvian water. Twice, maybe even thrice today I was told that I have a great voice. A soothing voice. The voice of a mermaid. That I should join an acapella group. I do not know what these people are hearing but I shall not stop them. If they think that I somehow have something that isn’t soul crushing then that’ll be a first. Have my parents been lying to me this whole time telling me that I can’t sing only in order to inspire me to try harder? I imagine not. Regardless! In South America, I can relive the highs of my past. I can sing Taylor Swift and be regarded positively for it. Or well, these people are just lying right to my face because they don’t want to be mean and make me cry. Either way…I’ll take it!

Though I’d be remiss to not speak of the beautiful work being done at our volunteer placements. In particular, my placement. Which I do think is mainly due to the fact that there are nine of us there and if you can’t accomplish big things with nine bodies then that’s just pretty sad. With things being out of order due to the start of the new year which really does mean new year to them (as in every classroom has now aged one year and/or been simply abolished in some cases). The school is a mess. And by mess I mean at one fifth capacity of what we’ve become accustomed to. Or at least what I’ve become accustomed to. That plus an influx of new people=chaos. Or it at least has the potential to. Not with these people though. The gist of it is that we’re painting a wall. More so a brick structure that surrounds something in a square shaped fashion. Like you know, a wall. Maybe an enclosed area with a brick fence? The exact word doesn’t matter. It went from a dusty, drab brick something or other, to a rainbow colored shining beacon of awesomeness. You’re right. I didn’t do all that much work on it myself. But I did a little. I’m not writing this to brag about my conquests though, I’m writing this to congratulate the other volunteers on coming up with this and making something awesome when this was definitely a more off week than we had intended. So far we’ve gotten two sides of the wall painted, today we had older children working on it, there are tiny murals being done, it’s pretty amazing. There are ideas for kids to put their handprints on it, there are already flags of the Americas on it, it’s definitely brightening up the area. Especially since the majority of the volunteers that are leaving are leaving from my site, I’m super stoked that they/we were able to get so much done during their limited time here even when it got hectic. It’s awesome. They’re awesome. Peru isn’t half bad either. So it goes.

Welp! I had a nice blog all written out. Or at least a few hundred words. Then I accidentally hit one button and I deleted it all. Then I started to rewrite it just to have the page automatically refresh and delete that too. So enjoy this post. This post complaining about how I don’t want want to write another 500 words only for it to inevitably delete itself before I hit Publish. Dammit. This was not intended. Just know that today is the one month anniversary of my time here in Peru. A little less than six to go. It’s been a thrill, a real treat. I said a lot more words earlier, and I tried to express some thoughts. Don’t worry, you’re not missing out on too much. I’m still chasing the epiphany of life that may never occur. I’m still hoping for a profound change to occur in my heart, brain, and soul and turn me into a new man. Maybe that’s not how reality works but I figure heading in that direction can’t hurt. At least if that’s my goal, maybe I’ll do something subconsciously to strive for it. Or even consciously. I feel my desire for change is going to exert a little change into myself. I went into more detail in the Lost Letters of Hank. Shame you aren’t able to read it. Don’t worry. Here’s hoping for month two. Maybe by then I’ll write this entire post in Spanish. So it goes.

I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t had the most exciting of weekends in Peru. Others had had their adventures and a big reason why they scheduled them so quickly after arriving is that they were only here for a very limited time frame. With me, I always told myself, you’re here for 9 weeks, no need to rush into any side trips to get some extra fun. Which is probably true. Except when everyone at your house goes off and does them and leaves you alone to think about all the fun they’re potentially having. That changed though! Today. Okay. Yesterday. Technically, yesterday. Now definitely yesterday. Who would have guessed that 12 hours have passed since I first starting writing this post. Not you, constant reader. But time is a flat circle.

Moving on from True Detective and back to the subject at hand, Kyle and I awoke at 3:54 in the morning to begin embarking on our adventure of the day. Did both of us shower? No. But I did. Because I value cleanliness and giving a positive scent experience to the strangers that are driving us to faraway places. Me being the social butterfly that I am obviously spent the entire morning talking up a storm to both the driver and the tour guide that was in charge of us for the day. That’s not actually true. I slept for about four hours straight. In my defense, it was dark outside. That defense will not apply later in the day though the sleeping continued. Upon arrival, we commenced to eat locally as us “locals” are apt to do. Or that we’re just gastronomically open enough to indulge ourselves in cuisine that’s off the beaten path. Actually, it’s not even off the beaten path. It just blends in so well with that path that you wouldn’t even know that it was somewhere a gringo could go to eat. Having to wait a few extra minutes just so they can get fresh fish from the fisherman in order to produce a nice breakfast sandwich. If I keep at this specificity level in regards to details, I’ll end up writing ten thousands words just to express twelve hours worth of activity. Okay, time to ramp it up. After the eating, we went to the port that had literally opened that day. We went on a two hour (allegedly) boat tour that entailed seeing tons of birds, tons of sea lions, and a few penguins. South American Penguins!!! PENGUINS! It doesn’t matter where they’re from. What matters is that they’re penguins. The other things were cool too, the sea lions were on point, the birds produced lots of poop but the penguins were penguins. Upon arrival back to the landlocked world of opportunity, we moved onto the desert. The real desert. Lima is a desert city but it’s not what you think of when you hear the term desert. This was the stereotypical desert. Giant sand dunes. Oases. [Insert other desert things here.] What makes anything better though? Off road adventures. Monster truck rallies. Dune buggies. The answer is all three. Especially with Peruvian drivers that don’t seem to understand what Slow down, or Oh stop sir, we may flip over, or Well it was nice living for this short time seem to mean. Actually it was awesome. It was like a rollercoaster without all the safety precautions. Which led to sand boarding. When people think of me, obviously the first thing they think about is a snowboarder. Or a surfer. Or someone who’s coordinated. Balanced. Graceful. If we had been required to stand on these boards, I might be singing a different tune. That we rode them like a skinnier boogie board, I managed to do much better just becoming one with the sand by the end of the hills. A tip for those who have any interest in doing it: Do not apply sunscreen directly beforehand. It’s basically a modern day tar and feathering. If I was to get into the logistics of that, that could be easily disproven but who has time for that? People are already saying these blogs are too long. From there we went to eat food. Ceviche. Cebiche. Depending on your spelling. Out of a martini glass. Nana Hank would be proud. Not really sure why I just started writing Ernest Hemingway length of sentences. More local food. More local experiences. More tasty food. More tasty experiences. Granted, all good things must come to an end. Our excursion ended. Five hours and we were back from our adventure back into our own little home. Does this ending feel rushed? It could. Dinner is going to be ready soon and I feel that I already dilly dallied enough in writing this so I’m trying to wrap it up. I forgot to mention the “baby making” (i.e. rape wine) and other experiences from the day. Damn. Well, I have to have conversation pieces. Ask me about these things, dear readers. Be involved. Or for all I know I’ll just randomly insert it into another blog piece. So it goes.

Alabama lost. That is all.

Uh……Go Ducks? I guess.

Hello there. Hank here. Reporting in. Does my tone shift dramatically from blog post to blog post? You better your tushie it does. Do I have a rhyme or reason to what I do? Probably not. I just try to make it entertaining. Like a newspaper but actually exciting. Informatative and exhilirating. The Hank promise. Does this blog sometimes have a different tone after I’ve had a pisco sour or two? Maybe it does. I gotta throw some variety in there, I gotta keep you on the edge of your toes.

The big news. The big news of the day. I was “promoted” in my volunteer placement. Not entirely sure if I was “promoted” or not because I did not receive a bump in salary and I find my new pupils actually harder to communicate with. Though, worry not dear readers, I am not abandoning my “Say Si to everything” philosophy. Did I understand most of what the new teachers said to me today? I sure didn’t but I agreed to everything wholeheartedly. At least so far, no one thinks I’m a father. Or so I can gather. Just when you go from one person to seven people at a volunteer site you’re due for some changes. Like finally getting comfortable with knowing a group of three years old and being happy to have them actually understand your name and then moving onto five years olds. I know one of their names. A total of one. I’m not worried, I’ll figure it out eventually and it actually made me feel like I’m a new volunteer for the first time again. I would like to add that one of the children’s name is Brush. Brush. Let that sink in. Brush. I can only hope he becomes my best friend and/or adopted family. If I return home with a child named Brush, well it’s not everyday that you meet someone named Brush. I think it’s closer to Bruce than paintbrush but I can’t get over that his name is Brush. I AM NAMING MY FIRST BORN CHILD BRUSH REGARDLESS OF THEIR SEX. So it goes.

Today marks a new beginning. Or the beginning of the end. Or the end of that first beginning and now we’re onto this new beginning, or one of many new beginnings. See, I confuse myself. Today does mark the final day of the original crew. I don’t believe we ever referred to ourselves as a crew but close enough. The majority of them left last week and tonight marked the departure of the lone survivor. Or now I’m the lone survivor? It doesn’t matter. I’m alone now. Tomorrow, 5 or 6 more arrive. Ten people should be arriving this weekend and half of them being a family, we’ll see how that goes. It’s been a good time with the original folks though. I’ll admit, in this past week I probably spoke twice as much in the first two weeks combined. One kind of has to when they might be the only source of conversation the other person has. It’s just a little bittersweet to say goodbye to the first people. I’ll never have the connection of leaving home and being completely alone in a new country like I felt with them. It was special. Let’s hope these next people are special in their own way too.

I don’t think I can completely encourage the “Say Si to Everything” philosophy yet to any new volunteers. Is there a possibility that some of the children I work think I am a father? Yes. That is a definite possibility. I at least understand when kids are now repeatedly asking me if I’m a dad, and I say no, but then they just laugh and say “Tu padre, tu padre!” Also, when a girl just appeared in our classroom today, I was told that a boy was now referring to her as my girlfriend. Dear Patti/y and I may have never met one another before, but at the very least we are an item. I was more impressed that the students seem to actually know my name. Just gonna see how next week goes. The main teacher is on vacation, a week with the one that doesn’t seem to speak much English, and we’ll see how all the new volunteers integrate into the system. Change is a coming on the home front and on the volunteer front and on the front front. Don’t ask me what the front front is. When I wake up tomorow, there should be new people. That’s a strange feeling. I hope I remember to shave. So it goes.

Or Merry Christmas as you United Staters call it. Happy Christmas, Merry Christmas, who cares? It’s Christmas! I hope all my dear and faithful readers, there are tens of you, have had and are having a wonderful holiday and if you don’t celebrate Christmas then I hope you’re just having a good day in general. I didn’t expect to have a barrage of fireworks that lasted a few hours to welcome in this blessed day but I did. That’s just how the Peruvians do it. They must have seen our 4th of July and figured they had to trump it with their own celebrations. There’s not all too much to report on because I haven’t been doing much volunteering since everything around me has been closed for hearty celebrations and I’m actually not sure what I’m even doing tomorrow. Volunteering of some sort is going on but I imagine until I step out of a van tomorrow, I won’t know entirely where I’ll be located. Still. Excited to get back into the game and even more excited to welcome the 10 new people that will be arriving this weekend. Rabbis, children, and roommates galore. It’ll be interesting and I’ll finally get the experience of watching someone climb up one of those tiny ladders to the top bunk. Will they fall off in their sleep? We’ll find out. Until next time faithful readers where I hope to have some more exciting information and exciting stories and just exciting musings of the day. Enjoy the holidays, enjoy Boxing Day which is still one of the holidays, and enjoy the rest of the year while you still can. So it goes.