How things change in 12 hours. I'm no longer heading to the chaco, as planned. It seems all the nuns and priests headed home for christmas. Instead, the plan has been finalized to go to peru! Me encata peru. What a fascinating place.

So here's the deal. I have to go through the AFS beurocratic meatgrinder for the next few days for leaving the country, but after that, it's omnibus to Lima (with a stop in Buenos Aires or La Paz (If it's BA, I'll do everything I can to take a spin over to Rosario to see Kayte)). Ah Peru. Cash is going to be short though. Anyone who wants to donate a dollar, algunos centavos, um real, un sol, po sa guaranies, un peso, a euro, anything, please do.

Things have changed for me. My first month here was something else. I took to the change by overhauling my whole worldview and my take on politics and social welfare. Then I settled in for a while. I saw the poverty, it moved me, but then it became part of the landscape. This I, we, cannot let happen. I took another trip last week to an indigeonous colony called Akaraymi, about an hour away. Here I worked with some priests setting up a co op with the indigeonous people. The most humbling experience for me, was when I went out one evening in the pickup truck with one of the missionaries to a little hut in the middle of nowhere where a man lived with his family of seven or eight. How so many people fit into his casita, I don't know, but we came, drank terere, talked, then started building a new hut near the other. Really, what a humbling experience to help build a man's house, using nails, and pieces of a tree you cut down that morning. The poetic beauty astounds me and I was moved.

I came back home and had to think for a while. After that, I had an excellent conversation with my host mother about the work that needs to be done in the world. My work. We sipped yerba mate until three in the morning.

I began penning the next email to kayte, expressing my thoughts. What we need to do; how we need to organize the people so when things get rough, there will be something ready to step up and show the world the way things really are. Kayte and I are going to make a splash if we do that together, and I hope we do. She's a pretty cool person, albeit xhundred miles away in Rosario.

I hope Peru will open my eyes more. It's a different culture, with more poverty and more injustice. I look at the changing of the times in Bolivia, where it looks like the new president will be something of a socialist, looking to nationalize the gas reserves and drive america out. I look at the ready to fight attitude of venezuela, working with Cuba to fight for the people. I look at Cuba, a lone beacon of something we've fought to supress in the tropics. I look at an aging Castro, the charismatic leader who won't last too much longer. I look at the US, ready to claim his throne a day after he is no more. I look at Venezuela, ready to defend their friend it that troubling circumstance. I drop to a knee and offer Cuba my sword. I will not permit imperialism in my adopted home. The people here are ready to fight, but they need a strong voice. It is how it is and how it has been. Che was that voice, but american warriors, fighting for freedom, killed the man, securing the fate of the working man.

I will not be the next Che. I don't want to be. I want to start something new, to construct what needs to be. This is my work, and there is no world superpower who will stop the downtrodden of this continent from saying what they need to say. I just need a bit more time.

I will keep, with luck, a concise journal of my experience in Peru. That I might never forget what I see.

Good night, and off to Peru I go.