It Has Been Too Long

The end of September and all of October… in one blog. Forgive my lameness for letting two months go by without a blog…
The kids had a week off of school the last week of September. Lindsey and I decided to do something special for them. We did a game day on Thursday. Three legged race, wheelbarrow races, tug-o-war… We had a prize (cookies) for the winners. It was close all the way, but in the end the boys won. The girls wouldn’t speak to us for about 2 hours because we didn’t give them cookies too. It was still fun.
Friday night we had a fiesta for all the girls. We played cranium, ate snacks, sang songs, did facials, and laughed… a lot.
Saturday morning Lindsey and I got up at 5 in the morning and made about 65 pancakes for the boys (and the madres, workers, and ourselves). Even though it was an early wakeup call, it was a blast. The boys really enjoyed the special treat.
Sarita and Hugo have been the parents of one of the casitas for about six years. Sarita left the orphanage this month. Lindsey and I took some “family portraits” for them before they left.
They had a going away party before they left, and they invited us to come. Lindsey and I both had a TON of fun wrestling with the kids, singing songs in spanish, eating yummy food and cake, playing games, and watching Iron Man.
That Sunday Lindsey, Laura and I took Maria out to celebrate her birthday. We let her pick a friend to bring, Yamelit. We went to church, the mall, ate lunch, played in “Happy Land”, saw a movie, then walked around town.
The albergue (orphanage) started a new behavior program. The kids work all month to earn points, and then at the end of the month they get a big reward. For the first reward we all went to the zoo. It was a tiny little zoo but the kids loved seeing all the animals.
That Sunday Lindsey and I took Josué, Abraham, Samir out with us for the day. We went to church, and then ran into Laura and Angela at Wong (the fancy grocery store here). They were out with two of the other boys. Samir decided he would go with them to the park. Lindsey, Josué, Abraham and I ended up walking around town for hours. We ran into one of the soccer player from the national Peru team, but Josué was too scared to ask for his picture. We went to the mall and played hide and go seek. Then we watched the longest parade ever. Ok. Maybe not, but it was really long. It was the International Spring Parade, which is supposed to be a really big deal. I decided I am not a parade person, but the boys were glued to it. They loved it. Lindsey and I had a good time being silly and posing for pictures. (One of the high school boys in one of the bands marching in the parade decided he wanted a picture of the two Americans watching the parade. We smiled nicely as he marched by with his camera phone. ) After the parade, we took the boys to grab some dinner and head home. All in all we were out with them for 12 hours, but it was a fantastic day. I love spending time with both of them.
The Wednesday the 8th of October was a holiday here in Peru. (It celebrated some famous sailor who died in battle with Colombia in the 1600’s or something like that.) The whole albergue – kids, volunteers, workers and their families, everyone – went on a paseo (field trip) to Simbal. I got to drive a 2 seater truck with all the maintenance man’s family… and all the food in the back. It was thrilling. We drove like an hour through the foothills of the Andes. It was so beautiful! The albergue is located in a big pile of sand. There aren’t many trees. It is all just brown. Brown everywhere. It was so refreshing to see the green trees, blue sky, and mountain skyline.
We played a bunch of games and hung out having a good time. It was so enjoyable to see all the workers here in a different environment and with their families. (I saw a scorpion, got about 34 bug bitses, and Angela got bitten by an unidentified insect that cause her foot to swell up to the size of a football for a week. It was definitely an adventure.)
Then we all went swimming! This place was not very clean. The bathrooms were… well let’s just say most the people chose to change clothes in the woods because it was more appealing than the bathroom. The water was unchlorinated. And brown. Yeah. But it was unbelievably fun. Everyone was sufficiently exhausted when we made it home. It was a great holiday, whatever it was celebrating.
There are currently five long term volunteers here right now. We have had a lot of fun times here. We spent a day in Huanchaco hanging out for Page's going away “party”. We also play a lot of games of spoons in our favorite chicken restaurant in Salaverry. Sometimes we all end up in the kitchen making whatever food we are missing the most that week (pancakes in the pictures).
We started a new program for Saturday mornings. The volunteers are taking the kids who do not get visits from their family on Saturday mornings out for a fun time. We took them to the beach (aka crossed the road). They chased crabs and let the water chase them as the waves came crashing in. It was fun until they ran out into the road on the way home. The next week we took them to a park. They had good time swinging, sliding, jump roping, drawing with sidewalk chalk, and throwing the football.
At the end of the month we took the kids from the school on campus and the kinder class to the beach. I am not sure how educational it was, but it was a blast. I took my first swim in the Pacific Ocean… in winter… in all my clothes.
Halloween came and went without too much excitement, but one of the volunteers did find a pumpkin at the mall. She brought it home and we (the kids who were up late in the kitchen) carved it. It was fun because that isn’t a time we normally get to hangout with the kids. I have found I love the unexpected moments of having fun with the kids more than when I try to plan a special time with them.
That was my October. It was full of fun and laughter, trips with kids and chill times with my teammates. It was perfect.

Without Love, I am Nothing.

If tried to write a blog every time something that melted my hear t or made it feel overwhelmed by joy happened I think I would spend a ridiculous time writing blogs. To say that I love it here is an understatement. I find myself feeling, experiencing, giving, and watching more love than I ever even knew was possible.
The Peruvian workers… and strangers on the street… are so warm, open, and welcoming. I have only been here 3 weeks and already I have been invited to two homes for dinner and one for breakfast, out on the town for a birthday celebration, and to four different churches. I am not the only one. All of the volunteers here have been invited out by many of the people with whom we come in contact. They meet you, and then they invite you to share time with them. It is that simple here.
Along with that, my role here at the orphanage involves a lot of responsibility and interaction with the Spanish only speaking staff here. They have been overwhelmingly gracious with my grammatically wretched Spanish. Their faces while they try to find the meaning to my poorly pronounced garble shows how much work it is for them, but they never seem to get frustrated. They are always willing to repeat things that I just don’t follow and use other words or ways to communicate with me. They have also always been willing to answer my thousand questions. I don’t think I could count all the times I have walked into a room and started a conversation saying “OK. I have a question” (in Spanish of course). They are all so patient. Even now, as I was writing this, the handy man walked by the door to my office, took a step back, stuck his head in, smiled at me, and then went on his way. It is great.
The children. I have not yet written about the children in any of my blogs or updates because I find myself overwhelmed with things I want to share. I want to tell you all the stories of the funny things they do, the adorable things they do, the terrible things they do, and the things they do that show who they really are, but instead – for this blog at least – I will only share a few of the moments when their love has overwhelmed me.

Samir is 9 or 10 I think. He is one of those kids that can be ‘too cool for school’. He was here the last time I was here, and he was too cool then too. He, generally speaking, is not very affectionate, not very clingy. He has recently started holding my hand as I walk him to and from school every day. Lots of the kids like to hold the volunteers’ hands, but he has never been one of them. I have to get up like 40 minutes early to walk the kids to school in the morning, but when he holds my hand as we walk it makes it totally worth it. (He hates to have his picture taken, so this is the only one I have of him)

Yen is 4 years old. He is adorable. He is literally adorableness in human form. Sometimes when we are walking towards each other he will throw his arms out to the side (I will then do the same), then he runs toward me and throws himself into my arms. It is the best moment – every time.

Jhonathon is a total punk. He is a really tough kid. (He has a really rough background.) He can be pretty mean and disrespectful. He is usually pretty mean and disrespectful. But sometimes when I hug him and hold him in my arms I feel his guard come down. I feel him change into the sweet, broken little boy he is underneath his shell, and I wish I could just hold him forever. Of course, sometimes he won’t let me hug him at all, cause he is a punk. Ok. I could go on about this for forever, but I won’t.

An update on things I have gotten to do lately –
Eating in the street. So I went to the bead store with one of the workers here (cause there is a special one I go to get a discount, and I can’t find it on my own yet). After we had gotten all the beads we walked down the street and ate soup at a table – set up in the street. Not a street that was closed – there were taxis flying down the street less than a foot behind me.

Covering houses. I spent one 24 hour period as the mother of nine little boys. It was exhausting. Most of the day was fine because I had smaller groups of them, as the others were in school, but the evening was a little hectic. I also spent 48 hours in a house of girls. That was much easier - much calmer. It was still exhausting though. Both times were good because I got to form deeper relationships with the kids. I let them do things like play hide and seek inside and play twister. Things their madres would probably not be happy with me for… don’t tell them.

Hide and Seek with the Boys!

Twister with the girls! (and Danny)

Lunch with Macgyver. The handy man here is the Peruvian version of Macgyver. Seriously, he can fix anything and is the most resourceful man in the world. He invited all of the volunteers (all 6 of us) to his house for lunch with his family last Sunday (or maybe the Sunday before). Then we all piled in the van and headed to the beach. It was a really fun time.

Banquet on the roof. Many of the girls (and two of the boys) got all dressed up and went to a banquet at a youth group here in town. We decided that, with all the girls who couldn’t go, we would have our own banquet. Lindsey and I set tables up on the roof, got some soda and cookies, cut up some fruit, and brought all the girls up for a candle lit banquet. Of course, it was really windy so the candles wouldn’t light and the girls were all cold and wore our sweatshirts, but we all had a blast hanging out together.

This coming week the kids have vacation (well most of the kids do). We have lots of activities and fun things planned for this week (Game Day, Pajama Party, and Movie Times). We also have three new volunteers coming for a couple days. It should be a pretty fun filled exciting week!

Good Times!

Two weeks later I am finally blogging. The internet has been a bit inconsistent, and that is going to be my excuse.
So here are a few fun stories from the last two weeks…
1. The Bonfire. I totally got to sleep on the beach by the Pacific Ocean my first week here. It was really fun… and cold, but definitely something I will never forget.
2. Being Robbed. So I wasn’t actually robbed and it wasn’t a fun experience, but still warrants a story on the blog. We were sitting at dinner. I had just been given a Very Yummy looking pizza. I was looking down at it in much anticipation of eating it. All of the sudden, everybody started yelling. For some reason, in my mind, I thought that my teammate had dropped her salad on the floor and that was what they were yelling about. I looked up and saw the salad sitting perfectly safe on the table and got very confused. Then I realized everyone was looking out the window as a guy was jumping in a taxi. Then I saw my teammate faces and realized what had just happened (that all took about 5 seconds.) We think they had been following us since my teammates had exchanged their money about 15 minutes before (but we’re not sure about that). The purse was sitting on the table and one guy hailed a taxi while the other stepped in the restaurant and grabbed the purse. I missed it all starring at my pizza.
3. The Art Show. I got to meet one of my teammate’s friends, Cristian. He is an awesome artist, and we went to his art show. I really enjoyed it.
4. The Grocery Store. First of all, it is awesome. It is pretty much like a mini target, and we all know how much I love target. Second, it has always been my theory that a place isn’t home until you run in to people you know in the grocery store. Tonight I ran into Cristian in the grocery store. Trujillo is now officially home.
5। Dead Chickens। I can now cut apart and gut a chicken। I took a whole chicken and cut it into usable pieces। It was awesome… and kind of disgusting, but I did it. (and I am very proud of it.)

6. The Dunes. So the kids didn’t have school this Tuesday because of a transportation strike (kind of like a snow day… only instead of the presence of snow there was an absence of taxis and megros). It was a super fun day. We (4 of the volunteers) decided it would be a fun idea to take the kids up the sand dunes. We all rolled down the hills. We all had a blast. We were all covered from head to toe in sand. Then the sun came out, and in a very short amount of time the sand went from soothingly warm to blisteringly hot. We had all left our shoes inside the wall so we didn’t lose them in the dunes. Yeah. Bad decision. I carried one of the little ones and ran from piece of trash to piece of trash hoping I wasn’t going to have blisters (I don’t). I have never been so grateful for litter. 7. The Dog. Tracy is our guard dog. She is awesome. She walks with me in the morning when I take the kids to school. She takes her job very seriously. Sometimes she tries to scare away the little ladies carrying bundles of sticks up the dunes. Sometime she barks all night because the birds are trying to fly in the air around the buildings of the orphanage. She is still awesome.
8. The Megro. I love taking the megro (the buses that run to and from town). People stare at you like you are an alien. It is fantastic. Sometimes people bring dogs on the megro and they throw up on my teammates. People always watch as we talk to each other in English like we are doing something completely amazing. One time we heard “I Will Survive” on the radio on the way into town, and all four of us started singing and dancing. The Peruvians really enjoyed that.
9. The Town. I love walking around and getting lost in downtown Trujillo. Saturday I spent a couple hours just enjoying the sites. I saw the sunset over the Plaza de Armas, a man covered in gold paint robot dancing to a soundtrack of war sounds, a group of girls doing a traditional style dance in beautiful costumes in the courtyard of a beautiful Catholic church, and one other American – walking barefoot down the street in a Bob Marley shirt sporting a large blond afro / poof.

10. The Movies। On Friday night we have movie night। Robyn and Joel started it, and the kids love it। They get so excited about it. They start asking if we are going to watch a movie Friday on Monday. I also watched a movie with all the girls over 12. I really enjoyed the time with them. I am hoping to watch movies with smaller groups of kids who are closer in age.

11. The Garden. Today I harvested 4 cucumbers, 1 head of lettuce and like 25 radishes. It was awesome. Next week we'll get to plant some more stuff.
12। The Word Tia। This is my FAVORITE thing in the world, so far. All the kids call all the adults Tia – aunt (or Tio – uncle). When they say it because they are excited to see me and run to give me a hug, my heart practically explodes with love and joy and excitement and contentment. It is wonderful. When they say it a 1000 times in a row while I am talking to someone else because they want my attention, I love it. When they say it long and drawn out, dripping with whiny tones, because they think if they just pout a little they will get what they want, I love it. When they say short and with and angry face because their whining didn’t work and I still said no, I love it. When they say it, I love it.