Feast Day of St. Francis de Assisi

Man, I am way behind. This entry finishes up stuff from before our trip back to the States for 2 weeks in October.

The Thursday afternoon prior to our  departure was the feast day of St. Francis de Assisi. So of course the Hogar (de San Francisco de Assisi) celebrates in grand style. We arrived to find a set of high school kids in their uniforms playing music for the Hogar children. They performed several songs all on Andean pan-flutes but later saw nothing wrong with bringing out the electric guitar for a little rock-n-roll. Later, tweenager Julia joined the kitchen ladies in a display of traditional Andean dance and the one blind boy showed his prowess at classical guitar. By then it was dark and time to parade the Hogar statue of Saint Francis de Assisi through the neighborhood and take him visiting.

In Peru, saints are personal and local...in fact, it's not really the historical saint that is worshiped, it is the local icon, the statue. Like rockstars, their names are stickered on buses and taxis: for example, "El Señor de Cachuy" = "The Lord of Cachuy". In this city of refugees from the Andes, a taxista with this sticker is proclaiming his allegiance to the town of Cachuy and asking for the specific protection of that particular Jesus statue. The celebration of the main statue in Lima goes on for all of October, with adherents wearing purple all month as they march "El Señor de los Milagros" through various parts of town. Meanwhile, many institutions and homes have their own personal saints. I am guessing this is like when Catholicism mixed with Haitian slave theology to create voodoo, but in our case it is Catholicism mixed with traditional Andean temple theology. Incadoo, perhaps?

So all of us at the Hogar set out while men traded off carrying the wooden St. Francis on his 4-post palette. One of the main women walked the whole procession backwards, with her hands on the palette. A quartet of brass and drum played a plaintive, shuffling tune, reading the music from sheets taped to the back of the man in front. A cadre of schoolkids had made candle torches by affixing 2-L coke bottles onto sticks and decorating with paper-maché (they looked great, though many melted into a toxic mess by night's end). At one stop, Jen and the Hogar's clinical therapist had an encounter with a driver who did not like that we were blocking the street..."I have a crippled child I have to take to the house right over there!" he said. "So what," Jen responded, "we have a whole bunch of crippled kids!" "Carry him!" said the therapist. Of course, to their chagrin, the kid the man carried to the house turned out to be a very large teenager, very severely handicapped. Oops. When we stopped at the local school, the nuns had their students lined up to sing and recite poetry into a completely non-functioning microphone that they passed around. At the mayor of Chaclacayo's house, he introduced us to his two house saints that they had brought out to the sidewalk with candles and sandwiches. When we got back in front of the Hogar, the band suddenly perked up the tempo and the 4 main women took the palette and actually danced the statue around the street while a wicker firework structure lit up the night. I think when I get back to the states, I want a big decal on the back of my car that says "El San Francisco de Assisi del Hogar de Chaclacayo"!

If you are a Facebook friend of mine, you can see a video at:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10201548831655828&set=vb.1028344610&type=2&theater

On an earlier weekend we were at a lady's home with the Hogar kids and she had four very old textiles on the wall (1000yr +). The photo here is a detail from one, "from a coastal culture". It looks to me like the two characters are playing jump-rope with a 4-legged, laughing fish. I'm sure it's really a net, but still the overall effect seems light hearted.

Carter and Julito catching a ride on Julio's back.

We  got away one weekend with Julio and Maureen's family...this photo is in the pool at the little casitas up in Santa Eulalia.

Julia, Mariza and Angela #1

Another weekend, we took some of the "tween" girls from the Hogar to a club not far from the home. It's so easy to interact with the young kids, but of course the older kids are away from their families too, going through very long treatments, while having all the normal issues of growing up. For instance, right when we got to the club, Jen had to show one of the girls how to use a tampon. I also sometimes forget that these kids are in a very different world with us...I introduced one of the girls to a water fountain, having to stop her from washing her hands in it.

[On a different day, I had to explain a toilet seat to a younger boy after he peed all over it...but that might just be because he's kind of slow].  Anyway, clubs here are walled compounds, with lunch and a pool and games, etc.This one was pretty fun, with some petting zoo animals and big rollaround balls the kids could get in. Aracely really enjoyed the swimming pool and everybody enjoyed a chicken lunch.

Aracely, Julia & Angela #1

Random Events of August

The final weekend of July in Chaclacayo.

August is the month where things transition back to normal. July, the patriotic month of winter vacation, departed and Carted started 2nd grade with his new teacher. Traffic is all snarled again and September holds no big plans for us. But in many small things, our lives here continue to be interesting.

Santa Rosa de Lima...on the 200 sole bill that doesn't
really seem to circulate.

The Hogar where we go out and visit the kids continues to be a big part of our weekends. Recently, it was the holiday for Santa Rosa de Lima, the first South American saint, in which people traditionally go to her home in Lima and throw wishes into her well. The Hogar kids were all invited to a rich lady's house in Chaclacayo for a lunch and play. The kids love the lunch and, even better, love the giant trampoline and little wading pools the lady sets up. I noticed a couple of the long-term volunteers savoring a rare can of beer. Victor, 13yrs old, sat happily in a tiny wading pool for over an hour...like a pigeon in a bath. Even though the hostess suffers Parkinson's tremors, she insisted on doling out the ice cream afterwards.

Archery

In a strange moment that day, as we were on the van heading over to the lunch, we saw Jimena out on the sidewalk, not coming with us. Oh, said the doctor, she is going home today. We struggled to the window for a futile farewell wave as the van drove off. Jimena was one of the very special ones, a handful, a pain in the ass sometimes, but energetic and engaged and loving despite being a 9yr old covered in burn scars and a fused hand. I know we should be happy, she is going back to her family, her treatment is going well. Blah blah blah. Just this last week we learned that Jenny is going home soon...she is the cerebral palsy girl in the wheelchair in the first photo up top. This feels a little different...we are certain that going back to Jenny's family simply means she will be parked in a corner and ignored. We could be wrong, but we've met the mother and I doubt we are wrong.

Other little things: Marcela, Carter's Spanish tutor, rewarded him with an Archery class...one that I was able to take part in as well. The lovely little fruit aguaymanto has come into season just in time for me to experiment with pisco infusions. These infusions are great in a couple of the signature Peruvian cocktails: the pisco sour (1pt lime, 1pt simple syrup, 1 egg white, 3pt pisco, shake with ice, dash of bitters) and the chilcano (pisco & ginger ale & a bit of lime).

Jennifer and I went late one night to Brisas de Titicaca, a exhibition dancehall that alternates displays of traditional Peruvian dances with opening the floor for guests to dance. Jen and I had a hard time finding it, a few times incorrectly turning down the dark street where hookers were loitering in their skimpy dress. The native costumes in the hall, though, were fun to see. Brightly colored, modeled from different regions, with accompanying group dances. Also, I have mentioned the marinera before, the dance where a barefoot lady twirls her handkerchief and the man twirls his sombrero. Finally I got to see it. It was elegant, as expected, but also athletic and subtly erotic in the same way that the Argentine tango is. The footwork is forceful and the dancers circle around each other like cranes doing a mating dance, but then quietly come together and hide behind the hat for a beat or two.

Marinera

We had met up with Sanjay and Garima. They are in their final months in Lima as Sanjay prepares to take over the Country Director position in Mozambique. The new Country Director is coming in from his post in Ecuador and we hear good things about him.

We also went to a circus. Apparently, winter is circus time in Lima. We went with several people from Peace Corps to a special charity show in which all proceeds and the performance are all donated to a local child-welfare organization. A street-wise priest runs a program in one of the poorest areas out on the outskirts of town. Many of the kids from the neighborhood attended as well and we were amused to overhear "Mirá, gringos!" and watch as Carter's fair curls earned him a few new girlfriends. Central Lima is so cosmopolitan and the conquistador blood still so in evidence that gringos like us don't usually garner more than a glance or two. The show was good, intimate, with acrobatics and trapeze and horses and clowns. At the end, the performers all came out for a farewell and a speech about the charity. One of the acrobats, dressed for her role as a tough, scowling gladiator broke down weeping and kind of hid behind the others. I guess there is some overlap between what the kids in this program experience on the streets and what Peruvian circus performers experience. 

Finally, I posted this on Facebook, but for those of you who haven't seen it, here is a picture of Carter's note from when he and a school friend had to apologize to each other.

Everybody loves their mummy

Black & White Ball (and other social engagements)
Friday was a full day. Our niece and nephew, Dominick and Nicole, plus Carter and I went out to Chaclacayo to the Peace Corps training center. The most recent group of trainees were being sworn in and it is fun to see their excitement: they've been assigned their sites and the whole experience is clearly becoming real for them. Jen and I also get the privilege of seeing volunteers later, at the end of their term, and seeing how they change. So I know that 2 years from now, these new volunteers will be talking about their joys and tribulations (learning the local dance, connecting with the village kids, sampling local cuisine like fried guinea pig brains, pooping in the bushes with makeshift toilet paper, etc etc). Jen deals with her fair share of crises, so ceremonies like this swearing-in are feel-good events.

By good fortune, the training center just happens to be in the same town as the Hogar we visit. So after the reception, we take our niece and nephew over to meet some of the kids we know. Being their on a Friday evening is different: Jen helps with homework while I pitch in around the dinner time with bathroom trips and toothbrushes, mostly for those with limited mobility. There are volunteer tutors and I see that the kids get some computer time. There is even one who is watching an anime cartoon and Dominick and him have a brief anime-geek moment, even if they can't speak each other's language. [As an aside, Dominick researched and found a local mini-mall that specializes in anime...and when I took him there last week, he almost peed himself he was so excited by the 15 stores all focused on anime and video games merchandise.] Anyway, the kid at the Hogar quickly hid the cartoon because the Doctor came down for dinner and does not allow the computers to be used for stuff like that.

We got home at 9pm, but our Friday was not over. Jen and I had tickets to join several people from the office at a "Black and White Ball", all to celebrate Marcela's birthday (Marcela works in the office and also tutors Carter Spanish 2X per week in our home). Since Peruvian nightlife doesn't really get going until 11pm, we had plenty of time to don our B&W attire and still be some of the first guests to arrive. The venue served ice and mixers, but we all came with coolers to prepare cocktails and snacks. Something fabulous about Peruvians is that no dance floor stays lonely for very long. The mix of music would swing around through American 80s music, Latin dance-pop, and traditional oldies from the Andes or the Amazon. Also, the soundtrack to Grease. Peruvians love the movie Grease (though here the cable guide calls it "Vaselina"). Anyway...we didn't get home until 3:30am.

Skull from the burial area, still with jawbone, skin & hair

Cerro de Oro UNCOVERED
I have written in the past about the Huari ruins and burial grounds we have visited a few times (click here). After struggling out of bed Saturday morning, we took Dominick and Nicole and headed south of Lima to the site where we met up with Greg "Goyo" Plimpton, one of the few silver-haired Peace Corps volunteers. Dominick and Nicole were treated to the obligatory walk through the grave-robbed area, with the millions of bones and skulls and artifacts. In addition to the broken pottery, twine and woven fragments, Nicole and I each found a weaving shuttle, and I found an almost complete cotton tunic. But then Goyo walked us over to the archeological dig. It was his energy and bullheadedness that finally brought an

Goyo, at the dig

The mummy's tomb.

archeological team to the area and the results are amazing. To his surprise, the team completely ignored the burial area, useless to them I suppose, and started literally brushing sand away in an blank spot of earth. But they knew what they were doing, they uncovered the outlines of walls, then painstakingly dug down to reveal the whole buildings and even some walls still plastered smooth. Then, incredibly, they realized one wall was hollow and broke through to uncover a tomb with a fully intact mummy and several artifacts. And then, they found another one! The mummies have been taken to Lima for analysis. The artifacts include a heavy bronze knife (curved), a sculpted jug, some kind of complex decorative weaving...all seeing the light of day for the first time in 1000yrs. This stuff was all gone by the time we visited (these artifact photos are from Goyo), but it was great to see the site and to know it is being properly appreciated in at least a small way. Peru has tons of mummies, so this won't make the news probably, but to me it feels personal and amazing. I hope Goyo knows what a cool thing he's done.

Paracas / Islas Ballestas
Afterwards, we continued south to Paracas...also something I have written up previously (same link as above). It was chilly, but the kids and I played table fusbol and we all wandered around the beach. The boat trip out to the Islas Ballestas on Sunday morning was the same as before...dolphins, sealions, penguins, millions of cormorants, boobies, Inca Terns, etc etc. By the time we got back to shore midday it was beautiful out, so we ran back to the hotel for a swim and some lounging around. Then, on our way out of town, we stopped at a little lunch stand in the village so Jen and I could share a mixed cebiche and a mixed fried seafood. It had fish, octopus, shrimp...and then as we left we noticed that sea turtle was on the menu too. We really hope we didn't eat turtle by mistake, but there were some unidentified things in our mixto.

Anyway, it is Tuesday as I write this and I just dropped off Dominick and Nicole for their long flight back to Portland, OR.

P.S. Yesterday, Carter advanced a belt level in taekwan-do.









Below are some extra photos:

Intricate woven object from the tomb.
What is it?!

The bronze knife and other stuff.

Coool animal ceramic...but what animal?

The weaver's shuttle from the burial area

Plenty of donkeys in the area.

Jennifer schooling the new generation.

Machu Picchu

There are some things that are touristy for a good reason: Yosemite, Alcatraz, etc. Machu Picchu is a phenomenal experience, something that all the tourism can't diminish. Our morning train crossed the high-altitude farmlands outside of Cusco, over 3 hours wending its way downhill and into the steep ravines where the Andes begin to meet the jungle. The train was a "Vistadome", with windows in the ceiling and very comfortable. The route through the Sacred Valley is chock full of Inca sites, but from the train we saw adobe homes and donkeys and fields full of birds. We are already talking about returning to the area, it needs a week to do it justice. Eventually the hills sharpened up and the Urubamba River canyon closed in. After passing Ollantaytambo, one of the last stands for the Inca, the cloud forest ecosystem grew up around us. There is much foliage, granite cliff faces are peppered with basketball-sized epiphytes (plants who do not need soil to survive) while many trees are host to large epiphytes with big red flowering stalks. Looking up through the ceiling windows, we caught site of the snowy crag that is Mount Veronica, and looking down we begin to see ancient Inca terraces and structures built up the steep slopes and along the river. At one short stop, a little old lady ran up with a bouquet of local flowers (orchids, lilies, etc) and Jen ran out and bought them for a dollar. The lady suddenly had to scamper off the tracks of the train from the opposite direction, then stood laughing and blowing us kisses.

Putucusi hike

Aguas Calientes is the little tourist town down below the Machu Picchu ruins, named for local hotsprings. The streets are lined with restaurants and stores for travelers, with hawkers who don't quite realize how off-putting their constant calls are: "Pizza! Very good! Meester, pizza, you try!" Our little hotel was perfectly clean and comfortable, but nothing special. Part of the view was the soaring cliffs, but part was a tangle of stairways and wires and the neighbors laundry room. Everybody but Dominick headed out for a hike up Putucusi (Happy Mountain), the peak opposite Machu Picchu. We were unprepared for the steepness and were surprised to find that a good distance of the trail was wooden ladders. Carter loved climbing the ladders, though of course Jen and I could imagine the headlines if something awful happened to him: "World's Worst Parents Allow 7yr Old On Cliff Ladders." In the end, we did not make it all the way to the top because the clouds threatened rain and the idea of backing down slick ladders was unappealing. Still, it was really fun.

Aguas Calientes

Dominick and Nicole pretty much slept from the afternoon into the night, so that left Jen, Carter, Mariza and I to a mediocre, overpriced dinner at the hotel restaurant. The barker/maitre'd/bartender/chef was a gregarious guy, but his repeated statements that the place was "3-Star" did not make it so. We were abed soon in order to be up and out by 5am to catch the bus up to the ruins. The line was already a few blocks long, so we were grateful when a woman came up the line selling coffee, strong and dark as you wish. Once the buses started moving, it was clear that the operation was as swift and organized as the Berlin Airlift. After another line at the entrance to the ruins, we hired a guide and went on in.

The ruins

There is too much about the ruins itself to lay out here. There is plenty to marvel at in terms of engineering and ingenuity (water from 2km away! masonry so finely matched that the seams are hard to see!). The insight into the culture and beliefs is also compelling, with stones set as sun dials or to mirror the exact ridgeline of the local mountains, windows set to align with the solstice, and areas for worship, agriculture, fabrication and both a tony part of town and a middle-class neighborhood. Machu Picchu was clearly a significant hub, but perhaps not as significant as a handful of other sites nearby: Ollantaytambo fortress, or Vilcabamba, the final holdout of the Inca, or their capital of Cusco, of course.

Looking past the farm terraces, up to the
peak of Machu Picchu Mountain

After a couple hours at the ruins, and after our bag lunch, some of us headed up Machu Picchu Mountain. There is a small peak rising above the ruins (Wayna Picchu), with ruins atop that people hike up to, but our route was much less traveled (perhaps because it is a steep, 1800ft climb up a lot of stone stairs). Carter was by far the youngest on the trail and the subject of endless commentary by our fellow hikers, and our niece Nicole muscled through it too. They were troopers and seemed unfazed by the sharp incline or the sheer drops, though we were all pretty pooped in the end. From the top we could see down to the ruins and the local river canyon, folded upon itself like origami. The descent was perhaps more agonizing than the ascent, but eventually we met up with Dominick and Mariza and caught the bus down to town.


The hotel was very decent about giving us a room to shower in even though we had checked out. Plus, we had plenty of time for a lunch by the river in Aguas Calientes, so we were clean, happy and tired when we caught our late-afternoon train back to Cusco.

Here are some extra photos:

On the trail up Machu Picchu Mountain

Peak of Machu Picchu Mountain, with ruins below

 

 

Nicole atop Machu Picchu Mt., with
Putucusi & Aguas Calientes below.

Along the tracks.

Cusco

We are in the middle of a 2 week visit by our niece and nephew from Oregon. They were here for less than 12hrs before we packed them up and we all headed off for Cusco and, ultimately, Machu Picchu. Dominick, Nicole, Carter, Jennifer, Mariza and myself. The flight to Cusco cruises over some snowy crags of the Andes before banking sharply around a mountain and landing in the town at 11,200ft. I had been drinking coca tea all week, plus we had all superstitiously taken the anti-altitude pills, and in the end no one suffered overly much from the altitude. Cusco was the center of the Inca empire and, later, the symbolic victory of the conquistadores. Many, many of the narrow streets are lined by ancient stone foundations with lots of colonial structures built right on top of the Inca masonry. For palaces and temples, the Inca masons were so precise that no mortar was necessary.

Daybreak down the street from our hotel.

Our hotel was on one of these small streets, a typical colonial building set around a courtyard, with a breakfast room looking out over the terracotta roofs, many with the ceramic bulls that Cusqueños place up there to protect their homes. We immediately set out for a walk, succumbing happily to the first poncho saleswoman we encountered. Eventually, we found a place for dinner where I enjoyed the very local trout. Cusco is the hub through which travelers get to Machu Picchu and we had to leave the hotel for our train at 7:30am. Even so, we were all up before daybreak to go see a local market. The market was a failure (closed), but being up at daybreak was fantastic. We walked the streets, some of us stumbling upon one of the most famous Inca foundation walls, a mortarless wall that includes the famous "12-angle stone". We still had time for breakfast and the half-hour taxi ride out to the train station.

36hrs later we returned from Machu Picchu (see the next post for that trip), and checked into a different hotel. This hotel was bigger, snootier, but very nice; it was clearly once a very important building and was right next door to what was once the Temple of the Sun, the most important of Inca temples. Jen and I were celebrating our anniversary (16!) in a happily NONfancy way. We picked up some street sandwiches (pork, onion, avocado) and a couple of beers and ate in the corner of the room as Carter slept. There was plenty of time on Sunday prior to our return to Lima, so we walked the city again. Our first stop was the Temple of the Sun, but it was closed. There was a very cute little girl, dressed in native dress and hugging her lamb. We were taking photos and talking to her when another tourist came up and accused us of harassing her, a poor native girl alone in town. It was a strange moment and it was only later that I put together the proper imaginary response: the girl was put there by her family, his belief that little girls in Cusco just wander around in full fancy dress with their lambs was naive, and after 500 years of oppression and corruption and poverty, it just didn't seem so bad to give the girl a dollar for the privilege of appreciating the native dress. What, he would prefer that she grub for potatoes instead of milking some of the huge flow of tourist money running through Cusco?
 

Dominick at the market

Anyhow...we headed off and this time found the Cusco market open. We had fun exploring the exotic offerings: pigs heads, trout roe, fabulous fruit smoothies, aromatic herbs and many things that remain a mystery. Eventually we found our way around a couple of other plazas and the central plaza. It's a beautiful town, and the sun was out, so it is easy to forget the bloodletting that permeates Cusco's history: battles and executions and later even more executions. Many people feel a spiritual power in the area, but I'm not convinced that it is anything more than this powerful resonance of a history both glorious and terrible. But forget all that, it was a lovely day and we found a cool, weird little lunch place. It supports a charity for children, near as I can tell it is a charity that runs community events for kids with clowns and facepaint, etc. They served me a very nice quinoa stew and our vegetarian niece Nicole was able to enjoy a papaya/banana pizza.

Carter's "vintage" poncho.

Mariza and the 12-angle Stone

Santa Eulalia

Weekend before last, after a few hours at the Hogar with the kids, we continued up the Rimac River valley for another 45-minutes, heading for an overnight getaway with our friends Julio, Maureen and Julito. Our destination was up a tributary where both the little village and the river are called Santa Eulalia. Many Limeños have rustic getaway homes here and the area is known for horses. We showed up, diverted around the little plaza because they were setting up for their annual founder's day fiesta, and made our way to a little walled retreat with 4 bungalows and a small, unheated pool.

We shared a bungalow, spending our time barbecuing and drinking beer while the boys ran around. The amenities were minimal, but we had come with coolers well stocked and our bocce set, so we had a lovely time. It was the warm weather for which we were totally unprepared...Santa Eulalia is so far inland that the Lima marine layer cannot reach it. One big topic was Julio's recently completed 2nd short film, completed just in time to make the 14-film cut for the Lima film festival (out of 300 entries). As I type now a week and a half later, the films have all been shown and we are crossing our fingers. In the meantime, I helped him with a poster design.

At one point on Saturday, the boys ran ahead of us to throw rocks in the little river (big stream?) as locals emerged from dusty roads, heading for the village celebration. At one point, back at the bungalow, the caretaker's small dog "Colita" ran out and barked at 4 passing horsemen, to their great amusement. They were dressed up and heading for the fiesta. Peru's national dance is called the marinera, in which a barefoot lady in a gown twirls a white handkerchief while the gentleman steps around her twirling his hat. Though I did not know this at the time, it turns out there is a version of this dance in which the men are on horseback, dressed as these 4 horsemen were.

Sunday we had a slow morning, barbecuing for lunch and then packing up. I was harboring the idea we might stop on the way out to see some of the fiesta, but bad luck struck in the form a gut-wrenching attack on Jen's stomach and it was all we could do to make the drive home without a messy mishap.

June, July and Fiestas Patrias, 2013

Here we are, one year into our Peru experience, and I realize it has been 6 weeks since I wrote very much here. July 28 was Peruvian independence day (Fiestas Patrias), but the whole month is patriotic. Lima flies the colors, red and white, for the whole month...and not just because every house is legally obligated to fly a flag at the end of the month.

Schoolgirls

Cajamarca
At the end of June, Jennifer went for a week to visit some Peace Corps sites in the Cajamarca region. The main town, Cajamarca, is up north at 9,000ft and most famous for being the site where Pizarro ambushed the emperor Atahualpa and set in motion the overthrow of the Inca. Jen just passed through, however, staying for several nights in the smaller towns. The small town of Chota was in the thick of their patron saint's celebration; consequently, Jen got very little sleep as the town band played all night in the plaza and then at daybreak started a parade through the streets. She missed the actual fireworks show, but saw the multi-story tower of sticks erected in preparation for the giant, flaming finale.

Street food (note the woman skinning the guinea pig)

Regional coordinator & volunteer speaking with
a mom.

Jennifer was greatly impacted by the primitive way many people there live. There is plenty of crushing poverty in Lima, but this is another level altogether. Up there, it is a fortunate home that has plenty of guinea pigs (living inside with the family, running free on the dirt floor). Problems start young, babies pitch into malnutrition as soon as they ween because the diet is almost all starch. Children and women develop emphysema because cooking is indoors and unventilated. Even that most picturesque image, the Peruvian mother toting her toddler in the colorful wrap on her back, indicates a damaging lack of stimulation for the kid. Peace Corps tries make a difference early. Offering government stoves (ventilated!) in exchange for visits to the community center where volunteers will give classes or simply play with the kids with bottle caps or something. The area is beautiful; the bucolic fields, the mountains, the community. But it is Poor.








The Hogar out in Chaclacayo

Jen and Carla at the ice cream shop.

Eloy is getting tired of just sitting around all day.

We have now been visiting the Hogar long enough to be regulars. Many people I know recently contributed money for formula (or baby bjorns) and it felt great to be the one able to march in their with a box of goods. Thanks to all of you, it was more than I could carry back from the states and I am ordering more!

Getting to know the kids as individuals has changed the flavor of our visits. A few times, we have taken a couple of kids out on an excursion, seeing what it is like to give a kid a little individual attention. Carla and Christian came out for ice cream, lunch, video games and ice cream again. A week later, Jen took a couple kids to the movies, but the power failed 20 minutes into the film. I let Viktor Huaman (13yr old, club feet) sit on my lap and steer our car; he was so pleased, I am again reminded of how the kids, particularly the older ones, are lacking that person who will take them driving, or show them how to use a power drill, or tell them not to use that whiny voice. The town square out there has been more fun than normal, with bouncy houses and some small rides set up for the patriotic month, with cotton candy for the kids, etc. The only mishap being when Ana banged her leg and then reached down and petulantly pulled off her cast. We are noticeable, what with our Threepenny Opera of wheelchairs and burned kids; townspeople will come up and chit-chat, the carnival guy gave us discounted fares, weekenders shake my hand (Chaclacayo is a close destination for Limeños). It's not all gravy though; we are around enough to have falling outs (e.g. Bryan (9yr old, corrective leg surgeries), is mad at me because I would not let him keep Carter's graphic novel he was reading). And though we have been around enough to see many of the kids improving (Ana's foot is no longer sticking weirdly from her knee! that cleft palate has healed up nicely! Viktor, you're riding a bike!), we also see some of the new arrivals. Kiara is, for lack of a better word, feral. The new baby upstairs is so malnourished that he looks like an old man. The older of two sisters recently arrived is 9, but appears 5 and acts like 2 and has been crying for her mom for a week straight. Her crying stopped long enough for her to enjoy the carnival rides on Saturday, but then she peed her pants and started crying again at the house until the cook walked in and hollered at her (which sounds heartless but, I promise you, was not).

Paddle tennis at Muscle Beach.

Cousins at Judy and John's house.

Los Angeles
Carter and I spent a crazy, busy, wonderful week in LA. We saw plenty of family and friends, with signature experiences like Dodger Stadium, Santa Monica Pier, s'mores in the back yard, a matinee on the Promenade, and plenty more. Carter got to play with his cousins, spend some quality time with his grandparents and I got to see some good friends. Before the trip, I had assumed that I would spend the week wallowing in "how different it all is." But that was weirdly not the case. I did honk at someone like a true Limeño, and I certainly appreciated a good, old American diner breakfast and a good, old SoCal burrito meal.

Dodger Game!