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!

Outings

Well this weekend has been full of outings. Yesterday I took 4 girls (Karina, Diana, Candy, and Julissa) out of the PPA for lunch, bowling, and a movie. These girls never get to leave the orphanage, their parents do not have custody for reasons of violence and jail, and they are at the orphanage all days of the year. I got secret permission from the sister in charge of the girls area to take them out for the afternoon (the real way to do it is to petition to the state, which can take years, literally) so on saturday morning the nun gave us permission to sneak the girls out. I took them first to the mall Larcomar in Miraflores, where they were schocked by the escalators, and so riding it turned into the first activity of the day.


Escalator riding was followed by bowling, a game they had never played, and were surprisingly good at for kids. (this is Candy, bowling a strike)

We had Pollo a la Brasa (Peruvian rotisserie chicken) with coke for lunch and then headed over to see a movie, but of course, there was an ice cream stop first

After the movie (Meteoro, or Speed Racer in English, which was surprisingly great) I hauled 4 sleepy, sugar filled children back to the PPA for their dinner. The day was so much fun, the the look on their faces when we stepped out of the gates of the orphanage was priceless. They were full of that beautiful childhood innocence, and I was thrilled to be able to give them some experiences that I got to have when I was also their age. It wasn't all easy. Leaving the orphanage brought haunting memories for these children. Spurts of joy were often followed by tears and silence, but overall they all got to experience parts of their city of Lima that had been hidden by the veils of poverty and the incarcerating Baroque gates of the orphanage.

Equally important was having 3 of the girls, Karina, Diana, and Candy together. These girls are sisters, but their mother is pitting the younger 2 (Diana and Candy) against the 12 year old (Karina). These girls belong to the state, but their mother has limited visitation rights. Over Christmas, they were allowed to go home for one week to be with their mother. Karina had to call the police of the shantytown where they live to be escorted back to the orphanage because her stepfather was beating her. This girl is in 6th grade. She has the scar of a knife wound on her leg. Her mother was furious at her for denouncing the step father and now when she visits the orphanage on Sundays (she no longer is allowed to take them home) she refuses to see Karina and tells Candy and Diana that it is Karina's fault that they can no longer go home. It is outings like this with the sisters that reinforces their sibling bond and allows them to see Lima outside of the violent home where they were born. The 3 girls were talking, playing, and supporting each other all day, and it was very emotional for everyone involved.

Julissa is also a hard case. Being outside the orphanage reminded her of when she used to live with her family, all of whom are drug traffickers. She was also allowed to go home over Christmas with her aunt. During a surprise visit, the social worker of the PPA found her in a house full of drugs. Her mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and all of her aunts are in jail. Her father is long gone. She is now no longer allowed to leave the orphanage with any of her family. She didn't even have a sign-out card like the other girls when I took them out, and the nun wrote her permission on a post-it. The day was the biggest struggle for her I think, and the activities were interrupted by her long stares out of the Taxi windows as we drove around Lima.

Being with these girls reminds me why I am here and why the PPA is a huge part of my life. These children are so special but the ghosts of the past are robbing them of their innocence. My days are busy, exhausting and emotionally draining, but every once in a while, my spirit is lifted by a smile, a hug, or a laugh



Yesterday was also my first Latin American soccer (fútbol) experience. The Latin American countries are going through elimination rounds for the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. Last night was a game between Peru and Colombia at the Estadio Monumental in Lima, and the whole atmosphere was crazy.

The streets were jammed, and we ended up walking the last 30 blocks to the stadium because the cars were all gridlocked. These blocks were packed with vendors selling jerseys, hats, scarfs, facepaint, and anything else imaginable. Ticket scalpers were yelling out their seats and prices in the face of the police. We finally arrived to a packed stadium. The game was filled with cheering booing, and explicit commentary about the Colombians. It was amazing. In the end the teams tied, but I didnt really care, I was too wrapped up in the experience.
so thats the synopsis of one very long, activity packed day in my Peruvian life. More photos of my outing with the kids, the soccer game, and some PPA photos are here:

Kids and Peru-Colombia

More soon to come!!!

xx Molly

http://sendbarackyourbaby.com/

Latin American Idol

sometimes I leave my camera with the kids and this is there when I get back...

earthquake in lima

I seem to be following earthquakes around the globe. First in St louis, now in Peru. I thought living in California was the risky part!!! But everything is alright here, no damage, just scary!!

Babies, and stuff

Well the first group of volunteers has finally come to a close!!! It was a really great group to start with, but I really, as I already said, did not realize how exhausting this internship was going to be! There are a lot of behind-the-scenes tasks that I never accounted for when I was just a volunteer myself!  I worked both weeks of this team to learn about everything that goes on in case I would ever have to be in charge (unlikely).  But for the rest of the teams of the summer, I will work one week, and have every other week off, which is exciting, because working every week would wear me out in about a month!!! My blisters have turned into callouses on my feet from walking back and forth across the orphanage, so now i feel like a real veteran.  My spanish is also getting better and better every day.  I can sucessfully roll my rrrrrrrr's almost every time now, and some people (maybe they are being nice) ask if I am from here.  So it seems like my limeñan accent is also improving.  One of the little girls I have worked with for the past 3 years said to me the other day "When you used to come you spoke English, but now you speak in Spanish!!!" from a 7 year old, that means alot to me!!!

Aside from work, I have met a lot of great people.  I had a little "reunión" to inaugurate my apartment with some of Mili's and her brother Carlos' friends, and I learned a lot about peruvian indie music, among other things, and of course, my peruvian slang is skyrocketing!!! haha.  I have learned about ceviche, pisco, aji a la gallina, and the other night treated myself to an exquisite Peruvian gastronomy dinner at Astrid & Gaston, the "best restaurant in South America" (www.astridygaston.com .... coming soon to San Francisco!!) which was a palate of peruvian spices that blew me away.  The food here is delicious.  Mili and Carlos' mom has made a deal with me that for every kilo I gain, she will lose, so in September we will have to see who wins!!!

Also, I have some funny baby videos to post (finally) and there are photos of my first 2 weeks at 

Peru 2008- The Beginning

here some cute babies on a slide

Obama Mania!

viva Obama!!!!!!!

I am well, super busy, but great!!!! especially with Obama as the nominee!!!!