Priceless

Here is a priceless video from the annual birthday party for the girls at the Puericultorio Perez Aranibar...



This is one of my favorite 1st graders. She is 6 years old, and has learned some dance moves that she probably should not have learned!


The internet connection is slow, so more videos will come one by one...

here are some photos from my 21st birthday!

Updates

It is has been a long time since I have written anything here! Sorry about that, I have just been busy wrapping up my time in Peru, I go home next week :( It is always hard to get me out of Peru!  Here are some Photos of what I have been up to the last month or so!!

A Trip with some PPA kids

A Shantytown-- Ventanilla

Birthday Party at the PPA

The Amazon Jungle

Fiestas Patrias: Dance, baby, Dance!

On Friday we celebrated independence day at the PPA.  July 28th, Peruvian independence day, is the biggest national holiday in Peru.  Most people, besides me and Global Volunteers, have a long weekend until Wednesday to celebrate.  Lima is empty because most people have left to go away and travel.  Friday was a big celebration at PPA before most of the children leave for their 2 weeks of winter vacation.  The kids who stay are the orphans, and those who belong to the state because of various reasons such as abuse, jail, and violence in the home.  Friday, being a bittersweet day for some at the PPA, was even more special and we spent the whole morning celebrating with dances and songs by the kids at the PPA, with a special performance by the Global Volunteers, who sang the US national anthem and danced the electric slide, the macarena and cotton eyed joe for the kids.  

But the best part of the day was watching the children perform dances that they have spent so long practicing.  The kindergarteners were adorable, dancing dances from the jungle, the highland, and afroperuvian dances.  The older children were imperssive with their dancing skills and the way they move their bodies that I am convinces only Latin Americans know how to do.  Lima even celebrated the holiday, and the sun came out all day!  



It was a lot of fun and inspiring to see how proud Peruvians are of their country.  

there are photos of the day and dancing babies here:  

Fiestas Patrias at the PPA

Huaraz

Last week in my free time I took a trip to the sierra of Peru to a town called Huaraz.  Its a small town in the mountains, and it was so great to get out of the smog and fog of Lima!  The weather was beautiful, although the town is at 3,000 meters (more or less 10,000 feet) so it was cold despite the sunny skies!  I suffered from the altitude, but overall I had a really fun time with my friends.  The countryside of Peru is so beautiful, and most people never experience anything besides MacchuPichu and the other spots along the tourist trail.  Because there has been so much immigration to Lima, the towns in the mountains actually have postings for jobs, apartments, and a lot of opportunities that are scarce to non-existent in Lima.  The salaries are low, but so is the cos of living.  It was bizarre to see a board with signs reading "URGENT looking for waiter/worker/etc".  In Lima jobs are so scarce that the average travel time to a job is 2 hours.  People will take whatever they find, no matter what or where it is.  

You can see more photos of my trip to Huaraz here:

Huaraz, Peru

Peru Service Program

Part of my job here is to type the team journals of the volunteers about their work projects and the experience of volunteering in Lima.  You can read the blog if you are more interested in the volunteer experience that I oversee at http://peruteamjournal.blogspot.com

besos!

A Trip to Chile

I just got back from a vacation in Chile visiting my friends Meredith and Millie from WashU who are both studying abroad in Santiago.  The trip was a lot of fun.  I got to catch up with many friends (there were about 30 WashU kids in Chile the week I was there).  I spent alot of time with Meredith and Millie and their Chilean host-family's house, where we cuddled with 5 3-week-old puppies and the momma dog, Canita.  

Santiago was a really interesting city, especially compared to Lima.  The infrastructure is much more developed.  They have a metro system, public bus system, and taxicabs with meters!!! haha.  It was surprising for me to find this sort of transportation in South America, where usually I have found only a comglomerate of informal modes of transportation, taxis where you negotiate with the driver through the window before getting in, and no buses to be seen, let alone an underground metro system!

The climate was beautiful when I was there.  Even though they are in the middle of winter, the sun peeked out for a couple of days and feeling the sunshine was really refreshing after the greyness of Lima winter.  

Overall I had a really fun time, did a lot of sightseeing and catching up with friends!  

Now I am back hard at work in Lima with a new team of volunteers.  I promise to update soon about what has been going on back here in Lima.

For more photos of Santiago and the puppies, click here:

Santiago, Chile

Pisco and San Miguel

I have been busy busy even on my days off!!! since I last wrote, I took a trip down south to a town called Pisco, a four hour bus ride.  Pisco was the epicenter of the earthquake in August of 2007, and the town is still destroyed.  The poverty and devastation is a alot, but in the more rural parts of the country, it is a whole different sphere and meaning of poverty that what you see in Lima.  Practically all of the city was flattened in the earthquake, and reconstruction has proved to be a long, corrupt, and unattainable prospect for most people in the city.  

The trip was a saddening reality for me about Peru as a whole, not just Lima which I know the best.  The government was giving each family 6,000 soles (2,142 dollars) to rebuild their houses, however the conditions were that the family had a property title and had paid off all loans and outstanding bills.  This excluded most of the people who were squatting, and the poor.  Even if a family was eligible for this government rebuilding stipend, 2,000 soles had to be paid to the government contractors for materials.  This left each family with 4,000 soles (1,428 dollars) to build themselves a new home.  Some have constructed temporary houses, however they make the FEMA trailers in New Orleans look like a palace

The real reason for the trip to Pisco was to visit a boy named Michael Zela.  He is 17 years old and last year graduated from the PPA.  Global Volunteers is now sponsoring his studies at an automotive mechanic school in Pisco where he now lives with his mother, 2 younger brothers, and 2 baby sisters.  The institute where he studies is called SENATI and is known for being one of the best in the country for his profession.  However, his family cannot afford any part of it.  Global pays his tuition as well as uniform and transportation fees.  This boy is the only hope for this family.  They live in a house that was half destroyed in the earthquake and the family was not able to rebuild.  He and his siblings sleep on the cement floor of the garage at night, which also serves as a kitchen, dining room, living room, and garage for a mototaxi.  

Although the family is devastatingly poor, they are in high spirits.  This was not what affected me on this trip.  Michael also has an older sister who is my age, she just turned 21.  She lives alone in another house with her two children because she does not get along with her mother.  Her  year old daughter is the product of a rape by her father when she was 13 years old.  Her other son who is 3 years old is the product of another rape.  This girl is beautiful and in high spirits, but I cannot help imagining the pain she has been through in her life.  She does not have a job, and there was no food in her house.  Her son was crying from hunger and had red-tinted hair from malnutrition.  There was nothing in her house except a dirty mattress covered in bugs on the floor with a thin blanket.  

The trip left a really deep impact on me and I plan to return in a month or so to check up on the scholarship student as well as to bring some clothes and other donations to this family.  

In other, more uplifting news, I took another trip with 2 of my kids out of the orphanage for an afternoon.  This time I went with Linda (6th grade) and Angel (2nd grade) to an arcade, lunch, and a movie.  We had a great time and it was nice to have fewer kids to give them more attention.  They played games, shared their tickets, and split their prizes at the end.  

I feel like it would take a LOT to get most siblings to care for each other as much as these two do.  They were abandoned by their mother, but still have their father who used to take them out once a month.  However, he has a bad case of TB and hasn't been to visit in almost a year. 

Tomorrow I am going with the social worker of the PPA and Linda to the house of her father to see how he is doing.  I am sure it will be another emotional trip.  

For more photos of Pisco, the PPA, and my outing with Angel and Linda, you can see them here:

Pisco and more Lima/PPA

I also have some cute videos that I will upload soon!