Journal-John Claypool

Today we were able to see the children for the first time. They paraded by us 2 x 2, blowing whistles, holding signs, and smiling widely. Their faces were so sweet. I'm not sure what I enjoyed more, watching the little children or watching the young adults in our group watch the little children.
Shortly after seeing the parade, we visited the children at the playground. They were very excited to see us, and just about every child grabbed our hands and asked or motioned us to hold them, push them on the swing or place them in a tree.
Mili suggested at our 1st meeting that we were here, in part, "to wage peace and promote justice". Although that seems a bit weighty, that is in effect what we are doing-unwittingly or otherwise. Every time one of us volunteers has contact with a Peruvian, we are hopefully implicitly sending a strong message-We Americans do care about the rest of the world.

Thought of the day-John Claypool
[Bearing in mind that it is Memorial Day in U.S.A]
Imagine if our government spent the same amount of money on volunteer programs like Global Volunteers that it spends on the military---perhaps eventually it would never have to spend any money on the latter.