Changes (Dan)

(continued from Dan's last post)

Now for the big news!    ...   ...  I´m heading to Cajamarca!  Yes,
that´s right, as of tomorrow night, Sunday, I am moving up to
Cajamarca, (about 7-8 hours north) to help the kids up there.  A
pretty big shock to be sure, but it´ll be a great opportunity and
challenge.  I will be working with the kids at El Bichito, which is a
food center run by a woman named  Feliciana.  In talking with Chris, a
great guy I met who worked there with his wife this passed summer,
I´ll be helping the kids with their homework, and also with learning
activities.  I know I´m going to miss the Aldea immensely, but I know
that I can do some good in Cajamarca.  I also hope that being the only
volunteer up there, I´ll be able to improve my Spanish even more
rapidly.  I´ll let you know more next week about the changes and
everything.  I´m excited to serve the good people in that pretty city.

This past week, as I´ve been preparing to leave, I´ve been doing some
last minute activities with the kids and tias in the Aldea.  I´ve been
trying to make pizza or bread with each and every house in the Aldea
before I leave.  I´ve been teaching the tias how to do it, and the
kids have been having fun mixing and kneading the dough, and of course
eating the final product.  It´s fun to share what I know (thanks to
Preston and Kelsey for teaching me the cooking skills) and have a
great time with the kids.  Guadalupe in casa 1, who loves to dance,
and great fun grating the cheese and punching the dough until it was
ready for pizza.  We´ve also been doing a lot of drawing and coloring
in casa 6 (the craft house) and it´s been fun to do paper airplanes as
well.  I love seeing some of the more rambunctious kids like Jonathan
or Pedro, get really serious as they prepare their airplanes for
flight.

I don´t look forward to saying the last goodbyes to the kids.  This
really does feel like home, and I will miss their smiling faces and
laughter.  I´ll also miss those at the direction like Eduardo (our
stake president), Cesar, Blanca and Estelle in the direction, and so
many others too.  I will miss the tias especially, as they are so kind
and helpful with us and cook for us the great Peruvian food all the
time.  We just had papa de juan gallina, which is potatoes with this
creamy sauce poured all over it.  Hmmmmm, so so tasty!

Entonces, I´m sorry about the long email... I just need to write more
often, and keep them at a better length.  I´ll try to do that better
in Cajamarca.

Update from Aldea (Dan)

I know it´s been a while since my last email, sorry about that, life´s
been particularly busy and crazy here in Peru.  So we had a power
outage for about two days a few weeks back that was actually a lot of
fun.  We had a few candles and flashlights that helped during the
night, but it was actually great to have the lights off in the Aldea
so you could appreciate the stars.  It was cool how bright the milky
way was, and how much you miss them when the lights are always on.

We´ve had a great time playing futbol lately, and I´m proud to say
that I´ve been getting better.  We had some penalty kicks the other
day and I scored on Cesar (probably the best kid here) and then I
saved his penalty kick.  Yeah, I was proud of himself.  It´s great
when the all the kids come together and play.  Before, it seemed that
Cesar and some of the older boys would only play if there weren´t
younger ones playing as well, and maybe it´s just the lack of other
boys to play with, but everyone has been coming together to play.
Just yesterday in fact, we played a marathon game where Cesar´s team
beat us 22 to 21.  It was in the smaller field/court, but it was still
tons of fun.  Since I can be a little competitive, it was fun to have
a such a crazy game.

We´ve also played lots of volibol lately.  The tias have been getting
into it.  Tia Rosa from casa 5 (with the older boys) got some of the
older ones to play with the girls, who are really good.  Tio Nelson,
the handyman of the Aldea also comes and plays sometimes.  For the
older girls as well, like Ingrid and Antonia, it´s great to have some
fun physical activities.

Also, I went on a side trip up to the Cordillera Blancas with Asha, as
it was her last week.  We went on a magnificent 4 day trek called
¨Santa Cruz¨ that was absolutely spectacular.  We climbed up to 4750
meters, which is about 15600 feet.  At times it was challenging, and
the altitude does make you slower, but it was totally worth it.  At
nights it was freezing, especially since the wind chill was so big,
but during the day you had to wary of sun burn.  An amazing trip, and
a good send off for Asha, who will be sorely missed here at the Aldea.

Fundraising Banquet

Enrique in Porcon (Mike and Natalie)

Enrique came to La Granja Porcón for a few days to learn how to weave fabric out of wool.  One day while we were down at El Bichito, he told us he was interested in learning in the artesanía (craft) shop, and so we arranged it for him to come up.  He arrived on Tuesday, July 27^th, and worked and played in Porcón until the morning of Saturday, the 31^st of July. He weaved on the loom in the mornings and early afternoons, and then had the rest of the day to relax.  Elena, the woman in charge of the artesanía, said that he was a fast learner.  He picked it up very quickly, and had almost finished making an entire handbag by the time he left on Saturday.  He had the chance to go to the zoo, go to the trout farm, go on hikes, and participate in our English Club classes at the local school.  He became friends with the kids in our classes and had a great time with them. One of his favorite things to do (as with all 12-year-old boys) was stand by the river and try to skip rocks across it.  He had a great time, and didn’t want to leave on Saturday when the time came.  He said that he may want to work as an artisan some day, but he’s still not sure yet.  This was a good experience for Enrique.

Luis (Chris)

We had an wonderful time working with the children in Bichito! We finished the internship last Friday and we are in Chile now. I still wanted to send you some pictures of the Trujillo expedition with the Millers. Attached are some photos of the Miller and us painting the chairs for all the houses at the Aldea. I have a alot more kids I want to write about when we get home. One kid I wanted to write about was Luis Wilder. Here`s a blog entry:

 

We`ve had a great time with the children these past few weeks. We've established a Career Day program with the kids every week. We have a professional come and talk to the kids one day out of the week. So far we`ve had a Miner and Tour Guide come and talk to them. One boy that has really cought our attention by being very persistent in doing homework is Luis Wilder. He is about 12 years old and is Maria Alida`s younger brother. He is very bright and had done the second most homework out of all the kids. He is a star at soccer and helps take care of his other brothers. He has the same situation as Maria Alida, where his parents work far away to sustain the family. We learned recently that the reason why they go so far away is that they used live far in the country but the schools were really bad. Their parents moved the whole family closer to Puylucana so that the kids could study, but they still have to travel long distances for work. Luis is part of a special family that deserves so much more. Its been so great to work with him and his siblings.

Enrique (Nancy and Jared)

We have an intern in Por Con! His name is Enrique, he's 15ish, and he is there this week to learn artenesia trades...weaving, painting, etc. Yesterday Jared and I took him to Por Con and dropped him off to the Murrows. They'll bring him back on Saturday. We were getting frustrated because none of the kids were interested, but then we had a Parent's Day last week and the Murrows announced the Por Con Internship and Enrique told us after that he wanted to go. We all went to dinner together last night, and we had alpaca steaks! It was the best thing I've eaten in Peru so far.

Hopefully we will get Alida to the other doctor this friday and see how much an operation would cost.

We were all thinking that it would be cool to take some of the kids on a field trip to Por Con. The two ladies who work at El Bichito, Malchura and Feliciana, told us that it would be 280 soles to rent a bus for the day, and they would organize it.

A few weeks ago some students from the University came and donated crates-full of fruit, eggs, and potatoes. They have been coming over now and then to help us with the kids, and yesterday, we had movie day. They brought a DVD player, projector, big speakers, and we played a movie for the kids on the wall. I can't remember what it was called, but it had guinea pigs in it. Ivan is the one who has helped the most, but he always brings friends with him. It's great to have help.

Take care,

Nancy and Jared

Travels and back to the kids (Preston)

Hey everyone!

So, we are back from our travels.  After a few bumps in the road, we ended up seeing everything we wanted to see.  Macchu Picchu was amazing.  It’s kind of unfortunate that the pictures we took will never do it justice.  We went the back way via bike and foot which was a great way to do it.  The physical aspect of it really added to the experience.  The Rojas family was amazing.  They were incredibly hospitable.

Iquitos was also amazing. We stayed with some friends of the Rojas family, the Babilonia family.  They showed us around all the sights of Iquitos.  We saw the amazon, a few really cool zoos and got to visit a native tribe.  It was a lot of fun.

Even though we had so much fun traveling, it felt really good to come home to the aldea.  I was surprised how much I missed the kids while I was gone.  Kelsey, Lacey and Britney whipped things in to shape while we are gone.  They are doing a great job rounding all the kids up with specific activities.  The 50 dollar budget is also a big help because we can cook with the kids and a lot of other activities that we couldn’t really do before, so thanks to everyone who has helped make that possible.  

It was Ruben’s birthday two days ago.  He’s a great kid.  When he is a little older, I’m sure he will fill leadership positions here in the aldea.  The younger boys really look up to him.  He was just moved to casa 5 with the older boys while we were out on vacation.  He seems to be doing just fine there.  Hopefully he will be able to dodge a lot of the problems that are common with the teenagers here.

Thanks for all of your support.  I’m really glad I didn’t let this opportunity slip by.

Preston