Hello,

Greetings from Cusco, Peru!

I can´t wait to update you on all of my news, but I think tomorrow will be much more comical as it is then that I start my volunteer position at the public health clinic. I´m cast to the wolves. Thrown off the dock.

On to the topic at hand....can you believe this is election day??!! I sit here in South America getting my information from both the internet, and a very static radio in a taxi this morning.. GO OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thought I´d pass the following along, because it´s heartwarming and honestly to me, very emotional. In the past three weeks of traveling I´ve had the opportunity to speak with people from all over the world. And, would you believe-every single one of them, without exception-from New Zealand, Germany, France, Peru, and on, ranging in age from 18 to 60, wished me luck for Obama to win. That´s a powerful thing to hear in general, and even more powerful as their thick accents prounounce his name, Barack Obama.

It´s not just our country that wins, it´s the world. There will be eyes glued to tv´s tonight everywhere from Wisconsin to Beijing. This evening I will sit in the upstairs bedroom of my Peruvian family, the eight of us gathered around their small television, crouched on their floor and most likely on their bed, and just watch. My host mother offered to buy champaign. That´s how real this is. How much bigger than we realize. A memory I won´t soon forget, I´m sure.

(Then of course we will proceed directly to a pub in the center of Cusco and hopefully CELEBRATE the most moving election in my lifetime.)

I wish so much that just for the next 24 hrs. i was back in the states. Know that I´m cheering just as loudly as you are, just from a point farther south.

Love to each of you,
Jess