Dear PMI,

Thank you so much for sponsoring our trip to cusco, peru. It was a life changing experience for both of us. When we first arrived in cusco, we were shocked to see the circumstances that people live in- it is very different from anything we experience here in the united states.  One day we worked on building a drain. The large, flat dirt area where the kids play soccer caused some major flooding the previous summer so we set to work digging a drain system around it… the kids helped us when they got home from school; they are such hard workers and loved working alongside us. 

Our chance to play with the children was at night. We brought craft supplies such as tissue paper, popsicle sticks, and pipe cleaners and they went to town… the girls enjoyed french braiding my hair and would sit by me and count the freckles on my arms…wyatt does great with children and since he was by far the largest person there the boys called him “the hulk”. One boy tried to pick him up with no success so he gathered the others and together they carried him.  They loved having visitors and were sad to see us go. I was so humbled when i was asked to cut some of the children’s hair because they needed to save on shampoo. The girls were not happy with me…i thought of how lucky we are to be able to use as much or as little shampoo as we want. After, the kids put on a program for us, some sang and others danced. It was a great day to experience the culture and see the happiness of the people despite being what we may call “poor”. 

We will have these memories in our hearts forever. Thank you so much for enabling us to see a part of the world where there is so much love and happiness. Even though the country is less developed, i left feeling that many of these people have much that we don’t. They are so focused on family and hard manual work that many of us in more developed countries have lost sight of. We truly feel that they have helped us. Thank you for your support, it is wonderful to work for a company that would support this great work. We are proud to be employees here at pmi. Thank you again and again,

Tara and Wyatt Higbee