BEAUTY APOTHECARY AND FULL SERVICE SALON FOR MEN AND WOMEN ty Hair Care Skin Care Nail Care Cosmetics Fragrances Bath & Body Home Accessories Shoe Shine Service `.# Above: Women sell fresh produce at a street market outside of Cuzco. Below: An Andean woman walks her llama through the streets of Cuzco. R Schwarzkopf 248.538.3000 Gift Certificates Available *lst - time clients only Fri &Sat . appointments • r SUMMER SUMME SPECIAL t Enjoy the Des.. man i and PO I in town! $50 c5 '- ri Quit Complaining!...and DO SOMETHING about your aches, pains, and other health problems! Bring your problems to us. HealthQuest is dedicated to improving the quality of your life. CALL TODAY 1-800-LIONSDOC HealthQuest of Southfield (finally, an opportunity to exercise my seemingly useless Hebrew-to-Spanish translation skills). But the name of the hotel where the services were to be held, Magdali, had been translated into Hebrew from the Spanish. When I transliterated it back into Spanish from Hebrew (as Carly watched in awe), I couldn't be sure of the exact pronuncia- tion of the word — or how to ask for directions to it. It was erev Yom Kippur, and we still didn't know where services were. That morning we headed to the airport. Our friend Lauren Gruber, formerly of Southfield and now a high-school English teacher in Chicago, was going to join Carly and me for a week. The three of us decided our best hope of finding Hotel Magdali was to walk the neighborhood where we suspected it was located, looking for clues. The streets were quiet as we searched for a sign. Then we stopped. Right in the middle of that desolate street in Peru we had come face-to-face with a billboard-sized photo of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher rebbe. We had found it. We walked into the hotel, and I told the concierge we were looking for a group of people. He replied in Spanish, "Are you looking for the Jews?" A stair- way led us to a spectacular sight: Filled with chatting Israelis dressed in white llama garb and waiting to pray, a par- tially covered room gave way to a fully open portion that looked out into the forest beyond. About a hundred fold- ing chairs were arranged on either side of a divider; we took our seats on the women's side and waited. I was watching the room fill when I noticed an older couple step in. The man took a kippah, looked at the "Jabad Cuzco Peru" inscription on it and com- mented in an American accent, "This is going to be totally wild." His wife, wearing white llama socks, asked if she could sit down next to me. They were from Los Angeles, she explained, visiting Peru with a tour group (she also mentioned that she had a son in California, who was "single but look- ing"). When the woman pulled out her Gates of Prayer book, just like the one I use at home, I felt an immediate con- nection to her. Sitting through the service beside my two friends — with whom I had grown up attending services at Temple Emanu-El in Oak Park — I thought about how surreal it was to be in Peru, praying in Hebrew in a crowded hotel room. Even here, thousands of miles away from Detroit and in a seemingly different world, I felt at home. As I looked out into the forest beyond us, absorbing the sounds of prayer around me, I reflected on the journey we had taken to reach this place. It seemed one very fitting for the High Holidays. ❑ TitalMOF Free initial consultation* HealthQuest In your search for health, your quest ends here... Dr. Gary Blackburn Chiropractor CCSP Certified Chiropractic Sports Physician *Restrictions apply. Not applicable for federally funded programs. OFFICIAL CHIROPRACTORS OF THE DETROIT LIONS! 32 • SEPTEMBER 2006 • JNPLATINUM