30 hours of travel is a fair amount, especially with the added silliness of sleeping in an airport chapel next to a Mariachi band. But after arriving in Cusco yesterday, and staying up for about 36 hours just to try to stave off jetlag, I'm actually feeling pretty good! Cusco is at about 11,000 feet, and I was somewhat worried that the altitude would be a factor. So far, though, so good. Not even a headache. 

It probably helps that the lobby at the hostel, at which I'm paying a cool $10/night (breakfast included), has unlimited Coca tea. Yes, coca. The plant that cocaine comes from. The plant itself is incredibly good for you, and has a ton of benefits, one of which is helping with altitude sickness. Contrary to a common misconception, chewing the leaf or drinking the tea doesn't effect the body at all like cocaine. The coca leaf has to go through a long process of changes to be turned into cocaine. So, with the leaf, it's nothing but good things. Too bad it's not allowed in America. 

A day of relaxation and reading today, and getting my bearings around Cusco. I wandered past the town square. Looking forward to being here for the next month plus!

There aren't adequate words in the English language, or I'm not a good enough writer, to express how truly, inexpressibly grateful I am to those of you who supported, and continue to support, The Volunteer Adventure. Chances are, if you're reading this, you're one. I simply will never be able to thank you enough. But, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. For everything. For making this possible. For making the world possible. For being you. This adventure is something I'll never, ever forget.

It's been quite a journey, and now I'm back home in the US. As I write this, I'm sitting in sweats, sipping coffee with Irish cream, and watching the clouds slowly roll over the Cascade Mountains. I'm trying to write a brief recap, an elevator pitch or highlight reel, of the journey. It's proving to be difficult. Having been blessed to have met so many incredible children, caretakers, and strangers, to learning so many of their stories - some that would break your heart, some that would fill you with sunshine, some that would do both - to seeing things with my eyes that defied description and made time seem to cease, it's hard to know where to begin. So I'll do simply that.

You helped me volunteer for 10 full months in 7 different countries. The original plan was slightly larger in scope, but not by much. As finances started to wane, even as I continued to live just as the children and caretakers did, I decided it was best to focus my resources on spending more time in countries where I already was or would soon be. So, rather than see 10 different countries for 1 month each, I volunteered in Kenya and Peru for 2 months each, and South Africa and Romania for a bit longer than a month. This proved to deepen the connections and relationships, as more time in a handful of fewer places meant more volunteering, more conversation, more being human. I'm happy it worked out that way, and feel I fit in more than a year's worth of volunteering in those 10 months. (I often put in 12+ hour days. It's the least I could do for you helping me to get there).

So, here's the cursory highlight reel. Please forgive me in advance for any grammar and spelling boo-boos.: The journey started in Vietnam, where for the first two weeks I volunteered as a teacher's assistant in the morning at a school for kids with Downs Syndrome and severe Autism and as a caretaker for severely handicapped kids in a ward of a local hospital in the afternoon. I then switched to working as a caretaker for even more severely handicapped children at an orphanage nestled in a Buddhist monastery for the last 3 weeks. From there, I skipped across to Cambodia where my three weeks were split between an orphanage affiliated with the sisters of Mother Teresa, and a daycare/orphanage in downtown Phnom Penh. One month at an incredible orphanage named Namaste in Pokhara, Nepal, was next. There, 40+ orphaned children are taken care of by an incredible staff of 15. My days were usually spent getting the kids ready for school, cleaning, helping with food prep, picking them up from school, and relearning, from their instruction, how to play and be a kid again. After Asia, it was onto Africa.

Kenya was where I spent the first two months of my time here. Joined by my wonderful girlfriend, Megan, we volunteered at the two orphanages that help spawn this journey: Ebenezer and Faraja. Your donations helped us to implement a working 100+ foot trench around the perimeter of the property at Faraja, eliminating malaria carrying mosquitoes from the compound, to provide much needed supplies and a goat pen, and, at Ebenezer, to plow a couple of acres for crops which will (hopefully) feed them for a long, long time. It was a joy to be back, but also bittersweet. I learned some details about Faraja that really caused me to question my time spent there, but the children were, in both places, beautiful as always inside and out.

Five weeks in South Africa at an absolutely incredible place named Nkosi's Haven, home to over 140 women with HIV/AIDS, children with the same, and children orphaned as a result of AIDS. My time in the morning here was largely spent as the resident handyman: hammering this thing into that, painting many rooms, moving boxes and furntiure...and in the afternoon and evening helping tutor a gem of a child named Petros, playing with the kids, talking with the moms, and helping Gracie cook her amazing meals in the kitchen.

One month in Romania was truly not enough. Though I wasn't able to get into the textbook definition of an orphanage, I lived and worked with 20 boys (themselves products of the Romanian orphanage system) at a halfway home of sorts, named UPSV. It's run by a truly remarkable man named Florin. Most of my days here were spent roofing, renovating, remodeling, learning Romanian, teaching English, volunteering with the guys at a foodbank, playing rummy with the guys, and being immersed in the culture.

Finally, Peru. For just under two months, I lived and worked at an orphanage named Azul Wasi an hour outside of Cusco. Home to 14 amazing kids - some orphans, others effectually so - I spent the first half of the days hauling sand, bricks, cement, etc. and helping the kids with their homework at night. My dad and stepmom came down to donate their time for a week, I traveled with them for another week, including visiting Machu Picchu, and it was an unforgettable experience.

And now, I'm home.

I'm thinking about all of the faces. All of the smiles. All of the tears. All of the hugs. All of the hellos. All of the goodbyes. All of the memories.

I saw and worked at a dilapidated orphanage shrouded in a gaudy Buddhist monastery. Kids with hydrocephalus lying on the ground in agony every day of their life until they die. I saw smiles on the faces of bedridden blind boys because they felt a human hand. I held a 7 foot python on the Mekong Delta and lived to tell the tale. I watched the sun set on a smog-filled city of 11 million people and 4 million motorcycles, and rise over the spires of Angkor Wat.

I learned what it felt like to look evil in the face and not be able to do a thing about it when I witnessed a 4 year-old boy be sex trafficked in Cambodia. I worked in an exploitative (discovered after the fact) orphanage, the very thing I was trying to avoid. I lost 15 pounds in two months while sweating night after night under a mosquito net with limited electricity, and having another seizure. I had VIP seats to a Cambodian boxing/dancing match.

I gazed in awe as the stars gave way to the sun over the Himalayas, amidst the backdrop of the incredible city of Pokhara, Nepal, canoed down a river on the outskirts of Kathmandu, and saw a Nepali music video being filmed.

I held rap classes for 30 kids in 5 different countries, and recorded verses by 4 of them.

I peered out over the beautiful horizon of the Great Rift Valley with my girlfriend in Kenya, the same day as staring in the frightened eyes of a homeless boy in Kenya suffering from drug addiction, who we did everything in our power to help. I learned children I love were getting beaten by people I trusted. Baby orphaned elephants bound along carelessly, and carefully navigated my way through a slum of Nairobi, on foot, at night. I tasted the best Italian food of my life in Kenya.

I sat in the middle of a herd of Elephants, tranquilly grazing in Kruger Park as the sun went down, watched the sun reflect off the ocean at the (almost) southern most point of Africa in absolute solitude, hiked Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa, in just over an hour and got passed by a 70 year-old woman as I huffed and puffed near the top, stumbled upon a rehearsal for the Soweto Gospel Choir, and had the opportunity and fortune to attend a choir competition where Nkosi's was singing. I learned the true definition of courage from Nkosi Johnson.

I got into, and lost, a real-life sword fight, completely winged a speech on the floor of Senate at Parliament in Romania at a symposium about legalizing international adoption in Romania, visited Dracula's home, went in castles, learned how to lose gracefully at rummy, and how to build a new roof. I learned that 1980's music is still massive in other parts of the world, and that it's not the size of the TV that matters, or the quality of the coffee, it's the people with whom you surround yourself and how much you are present.

I took a mini (10 day) vacation, again joined by my lady, and shared a smooch under the Eiffel Tower, towers of beer in Munich beer gardens, and a Dominoes pizza in the hotel in Madrid.

I viewed jaw-dropping feats of Incan architecture and natural Peruvian beauty, had culinary masterpieces, experienced my parents being kids again, and saw mountain ranges and river valleys that defied description. I felt what hauling buckets of sand at 11,200 (and farming at 16,000) feet feels like, that being present as the representative for an orphaned boy's 6th grade graduation party can light up his face, and that $2 can get you a delicious 4 course meal. I ate a guinea pig. Twice.

I had subtle and not-so-subtle food poisoning for 10 months. I saw 3 wonders of the world: Angkor Wat, Macchu Pichu, and Table Mountain, and still think all of them were elaborate Hollywood sets. I learned how to speak a handful of words in Zulu, Vietnamese, and Khmer, a bit more in Nepali and Romanian, and got somewhat OK at Swahili and Spanish. I was almost denied access to a country 3 times. I "slept" a total of 50 hours in airports. I went to church services in Kenya and South Africa. Shoveled, sawed, painted, hammered, and subsequently swore for hundreds of hours.

Your donations helped to provide hundreds and hundreds of hours of hands-on volunteer time from a (somewhat) competent guy, hundreds of hours of handyman work from a (less than somewhat) strong worker, a goat pen, a plowed field, a 100 foot trench, food for weeks for many kids, sanitary supplies, and holiday presents.

And, for what it's worth, your support helped give this kid memories, stories, experiences, and smiles that will last a lifetime.

The journey is over (for now), and now, the work on the documentary, photos, and book begins. As soon as I finish this coffee. And take a (hot!!!) shower.

After 34 hours of straight travel (Cape Town -> Johannesburg -> Doha -> Bucharest) on limited sleep, I was ready to take at least a brief 20 minute DaVinci-esque ciesta. But I also had a bus from the airport in Bucharest to catch, in order to catch the train, in order to sit on said train for three hours up to Brasov where I'll be for the next month. And, I was hungry and thirsty. And if you've been following the journey as I go, or know me well in person, you'll know that filling my stomach is priority over most everything else, especially sleep which sits at about #84 just below "clean the lint trap in the drier." So, onward. 

First stop, the bus. After hearing about digital theft being a pretty big business in Romania, I was leery to try my card in the ATM, but needed cash at least to get to where I needed. So I tried one ATM. Denied. I tried another. No luck. By the time I got to the fifth, certain I'd already had four duplicates made of my card, success. And as soon as there was money in my hand, there were "taxi" drivers offering to take me up to Brasov for the low-low price of triple what it would cost everywhere else. They're really persistent with their insistence that you go with them, which isn't particularly my favorite sales tactic. But I digress.

The bus ride itself was easy to navigate and the people on it were super friendly but didn't speak a lick of English. So, here I am in a European country, surrounded by Caucasian people for the first time in half a year, with not-a-one speaking (unfortunately) the only language I know. And let's be honest - English makes absolutely no sense, even to you who are reading this - so I can't fault the people on said bus for not knowing it. Someone understood "train" though and told me where to disembark.

Continuing my streak of prime seats on my flights, I sat next to two empty seats on my Rwandair flight to Kigali, and I also got free wine and coffee. And a meal. For an hour flight. Fantastic. Foreign airlines > American airlines, by a wide margin.

As the plane descended into Rwanda, the sun was doing the same. It was gorgeous to see, and interesting to note how different the landscape is from Kenya given the fact they're pretty close together geographically.

The plane was about an hour late to land. With my layover scheduled only as an hour and a half, the possibility for a lot of trouble seemed pretty high. Luckily, the Kigali airport is about the size of an elementary school, and getting from the arrival to transfer terminal was about 50 steps. But I had to go through security again, and after downing about a half bottle of wine on the hour flight, with little water during the day, I was feeling pretty warm in my head. 

Over the last couple days, a lot of the kids have come up to Megan and me and asked if we could spend the night at Faraja. We told them we eventually would, but hesitated because it would most likely necessitate a 5am or earlier wake-up (yes, I'm lazy). Well, tonight is the night we decided on for our sleepover. 

We also decided we would make them food. But what to make for 40 kids and adults in Kenya? After much deliberation, we decided upon spaghetti, because everybody loves it. With spaghetti sauce here pushing $5 per little jar, we decided to just buy 12 pounds of pasta, 10 pounds of crushed tomatoes, lots of spices, and make the lot of it from scratch. I'm glad we did, because it turned out deliciously. One sticking point was the actual cooking of the noodles and sauce, though. You see, here they cook using extremely high heat charcoals, so when the "stove" is on, there's no setting between 1-10. It's all just 11. After getting used to that, though, we were golden.

After dinner, we all watched a movie together in the dining room on a little 12 inch TV. It was at this point I realized that all the 80 inch flatscreen, 3D, 1080p, LED, 7.1 surround sound in the world can't hold a candle to watching Kung Fu Panda 2 with a roomful of kids all huddled around and engaged with every frame. 

     After four hours of negotiation and some seedlings for future ulcers, I convinced the Kenya Airways workers that it was OK to let me board the plane and get my visa upon arrival, 20 minutes before the plane was set to depart. Boarding the plane, I was in a long line in one aisle, my seat about halfway back. An elderly woman was struggling to get her luggage into the overhead, so I gave her a hand. This caused the guy behind me to grumble and basically push me into this woman's lap as he skirted by while I was stowing her bag. His friends started to follow suit, and I stood up and gave them the coldest stare I'm capable of (which, let's be honest, is probably room temp at best). This got them to stop being insufferable, which was cool.

There was a silver lining, too: I had the gumption to ask for an aisle seat 5 minutes before boarding, and they had one available. And it happened to be in an exit row. On a large Boeing, which meant I had about 15 feet of leg room. Beautiful.

          So I'm in Nepal (I'm writing this brief intro after being here for a bit), which I've heard - and just verified - is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. I just happened by a coffee shop, which is where, if you need to, you'll find a gaggle of white folk in any foreign country. This got me thinking: You know what I’ve noticed (some) white people are real good at doing? Looking bored in gorgeous places, being self-proclaimed experts on another country’s culture after being there for 48 hours, not making eye contact with other white people in foreign countries, having absolutely no idea where they’re going and trying to mask that by walking three times the speed of a normal person, wearing 473 bracelets they’ve picked up on their travels, and one-upping you with tales of how they’ve already been to every country you’re going to visit, ever. Here’s a sample conversation with a “backpacker” in, say, a coffee shop. You walk up to them as they’re drinking a coffee, updating their Facebook status*:

          *Disclaimer – Not all backpackers are pretentious and patronizing. This is an amalgam of several conversations I’ve had with folks in a couple countries so far, and isn’t representative of the whole by any means. Most have been completely great. Them that are condescending just really, really, reallllly bother me.

          It's pretty tough to show up at Angkor Wat and not have the feeling of being on some elaborately detailed Hollywood movie set. Much the same way the Grand Canyon looks like something that's too unreal to be...well, real, Angkor Wat and all of the surrounding temples are epic on a scale that pretty much defies description and belief, attaining a level of almost absolute absurdity in its ability to induce constant awe. Maybe the best way to describe it would be to simply call it surreal, because the entire time I was there I couldn't help but think, "Oh, this is real life? I'm actually standing on the steps of the largest religious monument in existence, one of the wonders of the world, almost 1,000 years old? Welp...ok then." The good news is that it's easy to be slapped back to reality when an 8-year-old Cambodian boy walks up to you and introduces himself as Justin Bieber and asks if you'd like him to be your guide on the history of the temple. I was able to see sunset from the vantage of one of the highest monuments in the entire collection of temples in Siem Reap and, though it was cloudy, it was still a pretty magnificent sight and experience. 

The beginning of the third week of volunteering in Vietnam started with my last day at Gia Dinh School - bittersweet, but beautiful.  It was a special, Easter school day full of egg painting, treats for the kids, arts and crafts, games, and maybe the most smiles and laughs I’ve had compressed into only a few hours. It was tough saying goodbye to the kids, but it’s reassuring to know that they are in the hands of such thoughtful, caring, and compassionate teachers and guides. After class, we shared a delicious meal with all of the teachers and workers, and word got out that I’m a rapper by profession. I didn’t expect this news to be greeted with so much excitement! I was inundated by requests from the principal and teachers to write a hip hop song for the kids to learn and sing, and so it looks like I’ve got a little bit of homework to do over the next couple weeks. How awesome would it be to see and hear 50 kids at Gia Dinh having fun rapping and dancing to a song I’ll write in Vietnamese, using it as a tool for learning? Answer: very. In the afternoon, I started at Ky Quang Orphanage. Here are some pictures of the last day at Gia Dinh.

I’m writing this from the top floor of a six story building in District 7 of Ho Chi Minh City. This is where I’m living during my five weeks in Vietnam. Here’s a picture of what my view right now looks like:

It’s pretty strange to think I’ve only been here for two weeks – feels longer, and not in a bad way. Working with the kids at Gia Dinh School for Children with Special Needs and LTK Hospital Daycare already ranks up there with some of the best experiences of my life. My days usually consist of the following: At Gia Dinh, helping the children with their homework, assisting the teacher in the lessons, and dancing with the kids. At LTK, most of the children have cerebral palsy. I help them to dress themselves, feed and clean them, and help them continue to learn how to walk. Next week, I start at an orphanage run by Buddhist monks in a pagoda called Ky Quang, and I’m going to miss the kids at Gia Dinh and LTK a lot. The locals in Vietnam are incredibly polite, helpful, and caring. Really, really good food and drinks is about $3 for an entire meal. And there are some of the most incredibly awesome t-shirts I’ve ever seen in my life. (For example: Iphone 5 – Why So Much Beer? Or Waiting on a Supernova. Come on Apocalypse! 1965.)

So without further ado, here are my reflections and ramblings over the last two weeks, broken down into days with some of my favorite pictures. I love and miss every one of you, and I’m so, so very grateful for your support in helping make this adventure a reality.