Jen in Peru

Well I haven't posted since my trip to Huaraz almost a month ago, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to get some new pictures up and let you all know about some of the things going on here at Hogar de Esperanza since I got back. So, here it goes...

-Two of our kids, Enrique (10) and Maricielo (3), left the albergue to go home and live with their parents and their two sisters. After months of waiting, they were pretty excited to finally go home, and we were happy for them, but it sure was hard to tell them good-bye. For me, the change was pretty huge since Maricielo leaving meant me losing 1/3 of my kinder class and my brightest student. Maricielo is incredibly intelligent for her age and always seemed to learn almost more quickly than I could teach, so it's really sad to think that all that potential may go to waste, since she will no longer get to go to school. (Peru has such high rates of poverty and illiteracy that a decent education is quite expensive and hard to come by here, and unlike in the U.S., there doesn't seem to be any law that really forces parents to send their children to school.) I pray that both she and Enrique are happy, healthy, and adjusting well to their new life at home.

Maricielo and me on one of her last days in kinder. We read her
favorite book, Big Dog, Little Dog, about two best friends who
are opposites, and afterward I asked the kids if any of them had a best
friend here at the albergue. Maricielo shouted excitedly,"I do!" and
when I asked who, she said "Tia Jennifer." I almost cried. Now she may
or may not have fully understood the question, and she could have
just been sucking up to me, but I still found it adorable.

Maricielo and Jhon during the little going-away party we had for her on her last day

-We went very quickly from being a very small group of volunteers (3) to a very large group, at one point totaling 14 people and including two families, and now we're back down to 5.

The Kruse family, who came and volunteered for two weeks

-We got to celebrate the 4th of July with a full American cook out (thanks to Joel Bench, who was generous enough to buy us a barbeque grill) and fireworks (thanks to Doug Kruse), which we set off from our rooftop for all the kids to watch.

...And we got a little creative with sparklers

-We spiced up the monthly Concurso Biblico by letting some of the kids participate and put on a little production for the rest of the albergue. I was on the coordinating team for the month of June, along with staff members Reyna, Milagros, Araceli, and Manuel. The book of the month was the first half of Genesis, so we had all of the kids from the Luces and Tesoros houses dress up and do a Noah's Ark skit, which was really cute.

Waiting for the program to start

The star of the show: 12-year-old Abraham
with Milagros, his madre tutora (house mom)

-A few weekends ago Miss Ali, my supervisor and the head teacher of the Miller School, took me to Chimbote, one of Peru's major port cities, located a couple hours south of Trujillo. We saw the new port and a whole lot of boats, and then spent the afternoon at a really nice park. We had a little picnic there, saw some monkeys and penguins, and rowed, rowed, rowed a boat gently across the pond.

-The casitas (the four houses where the kids live) are being painted. Most of the work has been done by staff members Elias and Marcos and the families who visited, but a lot of the kids--even little Abel and Edwin--were very eager to help out, and several of them actually put in a lot of work.

The "before shot" of the Amigos and Luces

"Work in progress" shot of the Tesoros and Chispas

-I had my first Peruvian movie theater experience! Elizabeth, the Bench family, and I took Marita and Cristina to see Toy Story 3 for Marita's 9th birthday. The movie was pretty funny, even in Spanish, but I think my favorite part of the outing was answering all of Marita's questions during the film--like when she asked me to switch her seats. She was absolutely convinced that her chair was broken, simply because it moved when she sat in it. She'd apparently never sat in a reclining chair before and had a very hard time believing me that all of the seats were like that. It was both of the girls' first time ever going to a big mall and also their first time watching a movie on anything bigger than a 19" or 20" TV. Needless to say, they were amazed by just about everything they saw, especially the immensity of the screen, the automatic hand dryers in the women's restroom, and their favorite part of the whole trip: riding the escalator.

-A huge group of students from one of the universities in Trujillo came to the albergue to spend a Saturday afternoon playing with the kids. They brought tons of food, toys, games, hula hoops, and a gift for each child. They even brought along special guests Barney, Mickey Mouse, and a clown. The kids loved it!

Yamelit (15) and Jose Luis (2)

The kids with the PAU group

-July is a big month for birthdays at the albergue. Little Camila turned 7, and Whitney and I took her and her brother Eduardo (8) out to celebrate. We went to Real Plaza, where we ate cake in the food court and watched a little show put on by a Peruvian comedian, a clown, and some cheerleaders. Then we went to "Happyland" for some good old-fashioned arcade games and the kids' first bumper cars experience.

Eduardo and Camila

-We went to visit Kevin (a boy who used to live at Hogar de Esperanza) at his new orpahanage, and he was hillarious as usual. He made fun of Elizabeth for being forgetful and he told me I needed to look for a new brain for her...and take one from "whatever animal I could find." He also told me that he knew karate, and I told him I did too (which I don't), and we showed each other our moves. It was all fun and games until he (literally) tried to poke my eyes out Three Stooges style. Luckily, I managed to block him in time and escaped with only a bruised forehead instead.

Elizabeth and Kevin

Kevin attacking me while Hannah Bench watches and laughs

-The kids are getting ready for their winter vacation to start, and we are all preparing to celebrate the 28 de Julio (Peru's independence day), which is a way bigger deal than any other independence celebration I've experienced. The children, staff, and volunteers are all working to put together a special Fiestas Patrias program for next week, which will be complete with traditional food, costumes, and a whole lot of singing, acting, and dancing.

Well that's all the updates I have for now, but I'm sure there'll be a lot more pictures and news to share after next week's festivities.

Aldair dressed as one of Noah's sons

Yuriko, Estefany, and Lariza

ready to board the Ark

Italo and Jose Luis, as a baby chick

Pablo attacking Barney from behind.

He wouldn't leave the poor guy alone.

The kids saying good-bye to Lee on his last day

Marayi, one of the substitute madre tutoras

(house moms), showing off her hula skills

Well, I can now check "visiting a glacier" off my bucket list. This past weekend, I got to spend three days taking in some incredible Andean scenery in Peru's Cordillera Blanca with two of my fellow volunteers, Elizabeth and Lee.
After an exhausting nine hour bus journey from Trujillo, we spent our first morning in Huaraz just exploring the city and figuring out our plans for the next couple of days. We decided to spend the afternoon and evening in Yungay, a small mountain town which had to be entirely rebuilt after being destroyed by a giant earthquake that hit the town in June of 1970. Apparently, when the earthquake hit, the ground pretty much opened up and instantly swallowed virtually all of the town's 26,000 inhabitants. The tragedy's only survivors were some children who happened to be at a circus in the outskirts of town when the rest of the population disappeared. We visited the "Campo Santo" memorial where old Yungay used to stand and enjoyed some ice cream and a military parade in new Yungay, about 2km away.

The remains of a bus sticking out of the ground where

the town of Yungay was buried.

A Jesus statue with outstretched arms over

the many victims of the 1970 earthquake

Elizabeth and me in the Plaza de Armas

in new Yungay

We spent our second day at the Llanganuco lakes, three beautiful lakes in a canyon surrounded by the Cordillera Blanca mountain range. We did some light hiking, played with some donkeys and cattle, and enjoyed a picnic at the waterfront. Llanganuco is supposed to be a great spot from which to view the peak of Huascaran, the tallest mountain in Peru, but unfortunately the clouds were hanging pretty low the day we were there, so we couldn't really differentiate between the white clouds and the white snow cap. But, at least we knew we were close.

On our last day of the trip, we went on a 10 hour tour with the Pastoruri glacier as our ultimate destination. The "short" hike to the base of the glacier ended up being much longer and more difficult than we imagined, mostly due to the high altitude (17,000 ft.), which caused our heads and lungs to suffer a bit, despite having taken altitude sickness pills and dranken plenty of coca tea. The view from the top of the mountain/base of the glacier was (literally) breathtaking, and definitely made the hike up worth it, especially since the glacier is currently melting at a very fast rate, and will supposedly be entirely gone within four years due to the "calentamiento mundial" (global warming). Our bus stopped to visit several sites on the way to Pastoruri, including the Peruvian fountain of youth, "the lagoon of seven colors," a rock with some cave paintings dating back to 10,000 B.C., and a stop to see some puya plants, a special tree that only grows in Peruvian soil and only between 3,400 and 4,200 meters above sea level.
It was so nice to get out of flat, polluted Trujillo for a few days of fresh mountain air, but I think my body is glad to be back at sea level, not to mention, it always feels good to come home to the albergue.