Spending the day at the park practicing Spanish & brushing up on existential philosophy

I meet up with the student group, "Salir adalante," this morning. We traveled to a park in Arequipa and spent the day hanging out, playing some games & grilling out. One of the students, Joseph, is studying culinary arts & so most of us just stood around & watched the young chef. I got a big opportunity to practice my Spanish, which to say the least, was very rusty. It was good to have one of the students, Gabriel, to help translate when I got into a bind. I also had a chance to meet Elizabeth (who is being sponsored by the Dick & MaryLou Kuklentz) & her brother, Juan Carlos. We spent time talking about how the Kuklentz's are doing . . . Elizabeth asked a lot of questions about their family & of course, she wanted to know how the 5 Scotties are doing!

I also had a very cool conversation with a young man, Jonathan, who's studying both architecture & philosophy.  Some how we stumbled onto existentialism & Jonathan began asking me questions about influential existential philosophers.  I was in over my head & even if I was fluent Spanish it wouldn't have helped me!  Unfortunately my limited Spanish could not bear the weight of Kierkegaard, but I could definitely track when he was talking about Sartre & I was thankful that I had read enough of "No Exit" to chime in with a few head nods here & there. Who would've ever imagined me sitting in a park in Arequipa talking about existentialism in very broken Spanish!

The entire day was filled with great food, laughter & a really cool group of college kids! I have been very blessed indeed!