Casa 2 (Lacey)

So I think I will give you a little experience about the first night I ate in casa two. This is mainly from my journal: Alright casa 2 is awesome. Jhon and Reuben are so nice. (They are both about 10 years old). Jhon is so helpful with helping me understand what is going on. He’ll say, “escuchame” and then slowly repeat what he said. I had a really good conversation with him. He asked me what I would be doing when I was 25. I told him I would be married and hopefully have a baby. So I turned the question around on him. He said he wanted to go to cooking school and become a chef. I told him he had good goals but it was also important to be good to his wife and kids. He seemed to like this idea. He was saying something about his mom. I wish I would have understood. He wanted to show me with school work. We flipped through one of his notebooks and he showed off his cursive. He also helped me learn some new Spanish words. I think I am going to like this house!

Being at the Aldea has so far (and will continue) to be an interesting experience. The interns are really amazing! We get along really well. They have been super helpful to me and Kelsey as we have settled in and got into the routine at the Aldea. There are so many things I wish I could do for these kids. There are several (like Daniel, from Brasil) who could really benefit from a real speech therapist. But this is Peru. But I have been overall impressed with how things run here. The tias work hard and the kids have the basic things that they need. I actually don’t like bringing the kids gifts. They get a lot of things like that from local church groups and university groups that come to visit and come to expect gifts from us.  I just hope that they can get a grasp on the idea of the possibility of a positive future. And many have that already.