Sep 2011

Yesterday completed my second work week as a volunteer at Hogar de Esperanza, a Christian orphanage outside of Trujillo, Peru. Currently, 48 children ranging in age from one to seventeen years old call HdE home. The children come here for a variety of reason including abuse, neglect and abandonment. In spite of their pasts, the children are like children everywhere. They are happy, resilient, funny, and often mischievous.

My days here are quite busy, which I love. As a short term volunteer I have been asked to do several temporary jobs that just never seem to get done by the long term volunteers...that can be read as tedious tasks (but surprisingly enjoyable). The orphanage is located next to a coal plant, so EVERYTHING is covered in thick coal dust, including the plants. The orphanage has spent the last few years trying to begin both an orchard (mostly avocado trees) as well as a vegetable garden. They only recently realized that the trees might be possibly dying due to the thick layer of coal dust coating the leaves. So, I now spend three mornings during the week washing leaves in the orchard.

My other mornings are spent working in joyeria (jewelery) and doing random organizational projects. The joyeria program ran by Hogar is awesome. Each child spends time with Ashley (a long term volunteer) making jewelry...they are suprisingly good at it (better than me)! Each piece of jewelry is then tagged with that child's name and birthdate. Once it is sold (most of it is bought by people coming through on mission trips), half the money goes toward joyeria supplies, but the other half goes into an account for that child. Once he or she "ages out" of the orphanage, they get that money deposited into a bank account to help them get started on their own.

Each afternoon, I spend an hour helping with an English class for some of the children and then spend the remaining two hours helping with a special needs tutoring group. The English class is fun! It's so amusing to watch the kids try out new words in English. They pucker and scrunch their mouths trying to form the unfamiliar sounds. I'm sure I look very similar when trying out new words in Spanish. My tutoria group is definitely growing on me! At first I have to admit I was a little frustrated...it is really hard to teach when you don't speak the same language! However, I'm slowly learning more school related words...and spend a lot of time asking the kids, "Como se dice?", which they are more than happy to help with!

I'm defintiely going to be sad to say goodbye to the children and volunteers who make Hogar de Esperanza a true Home of Hope!!

I've been at Hogar de Esperanza in Trujillo, Peru for 5 days....and in Peru for 13 days. While that doesn't sound like a lot, it often feels like much longer! Tonight as Elyse and I were riding in a taxi back "home" from the mall, she commented that I seemed so calm. I was surprised to realize that she was right. I was calm! I no longer fear for my life every time the taxi darts in front of a bus, darting through traffic to cross the street seems normal, and the sound of Spanish being spoken all around me no longer feels completely foreign.

Can it be that I'm starting to feel (somewhat) at home here???

I think settling in at Hogar de Esperanza and once again having a routine, have probably helped a lot with the transition! There are seven other volunteers here, plus Elyse and I. The others are all long term (all but one will be staying for a year) and 6 out of the 7 are Americans. Even though Elyse and I will only be here for 3 weeks, everyone has gone out of their way to make us feel welcomed and at home, which we really appreciate!

Elyse and I share a suite in which we each have our own bedroom and a private bathroom for the two of us to share. I'm very happy to say the hot water works great....I'm sad to say that the water does not! The water tank at the orphanage frequently runs out of water (around 4 times a day) and must be refilled. It makes showering, laundry, and washing dishes an interesting experience since you never know when the water will just stop running!

This past week was a vacation week for the kids because they didn't have school. That meant the normal volunteer schedule was a little different. Elyse and I were able to meet many of the kids and kinda float around from activity to activity, which was a nice way to settle in. Next week I will be spending my mornings working in the garden/orchard and organizing the library. Then in the afternoons, I'll be helping with an English class for some of the children and also with tutoring (should be interesting with my limited Spanish).

On our first night at HdE, we went with a few of the other volunteers into town to visit the mall and eat at Pizza Hut. Going anywhere is an adventure!! We always use the micros (a variety of sized vans/buses) which are designed to hold somewhere around 15 people. I swear it felt as if there were 50 people crammed onto that thing! In Peru, a micro employee stands in the door and shouts the destination of the micro. He then waves people onto the bus and sometimes seems to use his own body to block the doorway to keep them from falling out when it's too crowded. While this is a really cheap way to travel , I will NOT miss it when I go home!

Our second night here was especially fun since we arrived in time for bonfire night! All 40 something kids along with the volunteers gathered around a huge bonfire to roast marshmallows and sing praise and worship songs (well, Elyse and I didn't really sing since we didn't know the words in Spanish).

Weekends around here are very relaxing! We spent last night eating left over pizza, then watching a movie with a few other girls. Today we did our laundry....which has to be hung up to dry on the clothes line on the roof. Lunch was a scary serving of anchovie soup, so Elyse, Ashley, and I went into town (another crazy micro ride) to a different mall and had Mcdonalds. Nothing tastes like home quite like McDonald's fries!

Tomorrow we will be attending our first Peruvian church service...in Spanish. I hope Elyse can survive it since the only thing she really understands is when people are asking her name. More to come about church later.

We've spent the last four days in Huaraz (a town near the base of the Andes). If this part of the trip is any indication, God definitely has his hand on Elyse and I as we travel! On our first day here (Thursday), we got lost. Anyone who knows Elyse or me very well at all won't be surprised by that! So, as we were wandering around, trying in halting Spanish, to ask for directions, we met an older man and a younger guy (John) painting a fence. We asked them how to find the street our hostel was on. They could see we were confused, so the older man told John to take us to our hostel.

On our way to Caroline Lodging, John's girlfriend (Kathy) met up with us and walked us back to our hostel....which was only one street over, by the way. They then invited us to dinner...the food here is amazingly cheap. We all had soup, an entree, and apple juice for 16 soles (roughly around $5). Over dinner they told us about some of the things to do here in Huaraz. Poor Elyse doesn't speak any Spanish and I haven't studied Spanish since my freshman year of college, so the conversation was halting at best, but they were so patient (as all the people here are).

We spent most of Friday with them as well. They took us to a smaller town outside of Huaraz to visit a natural hot springs heated by a volcano in Monterry. I have never seen water quite that color, but you only live once so I gave it a try. (I hope the picture I'm trying to post will upload so you can see what I mean.) After lunch they decided we needed to try the local delicacy--guinea pig (called cuy). Despite my protests of not being that hungry (aka totally grossed out at the thought of eating guinea pig), they ordered it anyway. Let's just say that not all meats taste like chicken.

After leaving Monterry we boarded a van meant for 9ish people (there were 25 people including the four of us riding in the van) to nearby Carhuaz to visit a waterfall called Bruja Armaawan. I'm a huge klutz so climbing up to the waterfall was interesting to say the least, but totally worth it!

We were so blessed to have met John and Kathy, who introduced us to a side of Huaraz we would never have experienced on a typical gringo tour. I can't wait to meet the other people God is waiting to bring into our path as we continue this trip!

Upon arrival in Lima, we immediately went through customs. Peru has to have the most simple customs routine in the world...well, maybe not as simple as Italy who let me in the country without even seeing my passport, which sadly left me without a stamp for Italy in my passport. Back to Peruvian customs....I handed my customs form to an official who apparently could not speak or read English. Without having any idea of what was written on my form, he stamped it, stamped my passport and granted me a 90 day stay in the country.

The next bit of excitement was the luggage procedure. At the Lima airport, after you collect your bags, you get in line to press a button that makes a light turn either green or red. If it turns green, then it's smooth sailing and you're free to enter the madness that is the Lima airport. However, if it turns red, they search your luggage. Since we only had one hour from our arrival time to meet our driver, I was doing some serious praying that the light would be green!! So, I push the button...and it was GREEN! Next was Elyse's turn....GREEN again! YAY!!!

As soon as we passed through the gate to the main area of the airport we were surrounded by taxi drivers more than eager to drive us to a hotel. Overwhelming doesn't begin to describe it!!! We had arranged with our hostel, Condor's House, to have a driver meet us at the airport. Of course, we couldn't find him. We asked at the customer service counter about a pay phone...which after three tries of putting in my credit card and depositing an unknown amount of Peruvian soles in the pay phone we still couldn't figure out how to call the hostel. So, we went back and forth to the customer service counter until the lady finally offered to call for us. The driver then came and met us in the lobby and we were off to Miraflores.

Our hostel definitely left a lot to be desired! The more expensive rooms were nice, but we went with a cheaper room...mistake. We are right next to the courtyard which was loud! Our room doesn't have a window that could be opened and as most buildings don't have air conditioning or heating, the room is very stuffy and moldy smelling!

The city of Miraflores is much busier than I expected! Our hotel is off the main street that is lined with all sorts of shops and businesses. A few blocks away is a grocery store where I had my first try at ordering food in Spanish. I was awesome! Aside from the food we bought at the grocery store, we ate at a few restaurants including McDonalds. Yes, I know that makes me an ugly American tourist, but I am not above admitting an almost giddy feeling upon seeing those golden arches whenever I travel overseas.

We are only planning to spend a couple of days here before travelling to Huaraz (a city in the highlands about 8 hours away by bus). I'll try to write more once we arrive in Huaraz, but it's not nearly as developed as Lima/Miraflores, so I don't know what the internet service will be like.

Sitting in the Miami airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Lima, Peru, this trip still seems somewhat surreal. Saying goodbye to my mom, dad, and Erik this morning was hard. I promised not to cry…almost kept that promise. My wonderful best friend and travel companion, Elyse, decided to distract me by reminding me how long it would be until I come back home (Me: “It’s just ‘til December…it’s not that…” Elyse: jumps in with “That’s a long time!”) and later as we’re waiting for takeoff, she shared that she thought American Airlines recently crashed. So, within the first hour of our trip, I was reminded that it will be MONTHS before I see my family again and that I was sitting on a airline’s plane with a recent crash history….needless to say, I was feeling oh so comforted at that point…

I’m almost afraid to write this, but this has been one of the best travel experiences I ever had. As of now, no typhoons, no entire airports shut down, no plane equipment issues. It’s almost too good to be true! This is normal people travel! Let’s hope this continues!!!

I recently read a RTW blog entry talking about the things that the traveler would miss. Instead of doing that, I’d like to make a list of things I hope to gain from this trip. Here are a few things to get me started. I'm sure I'll add more as I go:

1. Learn to relax and take one day at a time.
2. To be willing to take a leap of faith and move outside my comfort zone.
3. Learn to trust…trust other people, trust myself and most importantly, trust in God’s plan.
4. Gain an greater appreciation for simple things.