The Fantastic Four

Spent the past two days with Anna, Erin, and Ben... bound together by a Cornell summer research program in the Peruvian Amazon, we have since grown to seek each other's council/therapy on anything related to being abroad. Whether it be consoling each other from American culture shock or exchanging hilarious souvenirs, we seem to be on the same wavelength when it comes to anything international.

Ben, home for the holidays, is midway through his 2-year Peace Corps service in Niger (http://www.flintridgevineyard.citymax.com/page/page/885022.htm). Ben gave me the coolest watch ever... it features plastic wristbands with soccer-ball prints, a Beverly Hills 90210 face, and a flip-top cover endowed with Osama Bin Laden's portrait. Elements thrown so randomly together, the watch is a celebration of third-world ingenuity and resourcefulness... plus, it makes me laugh whenever I look at it.

At one point, the four of us wanted to start an international development NGO. However, we have since matured on the subject and have concluded that foreign-owned non-profits have no clout. So scrap that idea... instead, we want to start a consulting firm. Between the four of us we can cover all the bases: sustainable agriculture, fisheries management, environmental conservation, nutrition, public health, and city/urban planning... we're like a geeky, comic hero foursome... The Incredibles meets USAID...

We watched The Motorcycle Diaries... awesome movie about Che Guevara's eye-opening tour of South America and how it inspired him to spark a revolution. A good portion of the movie takes place in Peru. Two parts of the movies made us go "been there, done that": (1) laying wheezing and collapsed on the side of the Inca Trail on the way to Machu Picchu as a skinny native with twice as much baggage passes you by, effortlessly and (2) playing soccer on the grassy playing fields of an Amazonian village (except the movie skips the part where we're laying in bed for 3 nights in agony because of the chiggers lodged in our skin).