Travels and Babies: 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: