Tying up loose ends, and leaving you with a cliffhanger

Hello friends,

Thank you for sticking with me through this adventure. Since I last posted, I have updates...

I drafted my two new additional letters for my export application and brought them to the INC in Lima for review on Monday morning. They were approved (I was shocked), and just one more letter that I'd never heard about before now needed to be added to the pile (!). So, I madly copied down the text in the sample letter I was shown, went to the internet place, typed up that one as well, and sent off the three new letters to Moquegua as e-mail attachments. One letter is to be signed by the director of the museum, the other two by the director of the INC in Moquegua.

This morning, I got a phone call at my hotel from my friend Yamilex in Moquegua. She has the letters, they've been approved by the folks who have to approve them there, and she will scan them and send them to me today so that I can hand carry them to the INC in Lima. According to my INC contact here, this isn't absolutely necessary - the letters could just be mailed. But, hand carrying them is a nice touch and will give me a good sense of closure (such as it is without my samples). At least I'll know that the papers arrived. That's the hope anyway. I'm talking about the future here, so one never knows...do one?

In the meantime, I also changed my flight home. My original plan was to board a plane on Friday night, to arrive just before noon on Saturday. But, there is a memorial service that I really should attend on Saturday morning, and since I'm done with what I can do here, coming home early seemed like a really good idea. Now I'm getting on a plane tonight (woo hoo!) and will be home tomorrow morning, just before noon. At least that's the plan if my planes are both on time and I whiz through customs in LA without any delays.

In any case, I expect to be back home tomorrow, drinking coffee made with coffee (not Nescafe), taking showers with hot water (both the temp and water pressure are notoriously unpredictable here), flushing my toilet paper (can't be done in Peru or Bolivia), eating salads (raw veggies are really risky when travelling), seeing friends (boy, I've missed you guys!), and hugging on my man (five and a half weeks is a very long time).

Here's the cliffhanger part...
WHAT will become of Karen's samples?
WILL the request to export be approved?
WILL she find someone to bring them to the USA?
WILL she be able to turn this whole mess into an master's thesis?
WILL she graduate and get a real job someday?
WILL she make it through customs with her water samples and moldy fish bones (yep, they're looking a bit scary)?
WILL she be sitting pretty drinking a latte by this time tomorrow?

Tune in next spring for the ongoing adventures of....Karen in Peru!

Thanks again for reading. I'll see you soon.

Karen