Arrival and Day 1

After 2 long days of travel we made it. After preliminary gear checks it looks like the computer we brought for Avis is going to be fine. I haven’t booted it up yet but everything is in one piece, so that’s a good sign. I was planning on sneaking into the orphanage and surprising the kids, but I got tackled by Gerson, Yhonson and Joel as soon as I stepped off the bus. I was the one who was surprised. After we unpacked our bags we shared a meal with Avis, Ashley, and Tony and Marianna who are a couple from Canada that are planning on building a house down here. I also received another surprise when Avis showed me the living quarters that Orelio and Carlos finished over the last couple months. I am sleeping in a one bedroom place that is mine to stay in when I come back in May.

Day 1- First thing first, I had to take the Rojas kids to get a haircuts. I had talked to them on Skype about a month ago and noticed that their hair was really long, and then they told me that my hair was too long. So I said, "well, I'll cut it when I get to Peru" so they decided to wait until I got here to cut their hair as well. So four weeks later we all had the longest hair we've ever had. After the hair cut we went and got lunch. After that my mom went with some of the ladies from the church to hand out bags full of necessities to the new group of poor people who migrated here. The people already in the town called it an "invasion". Basically a big group of people all moved to Pacasmayo at the same time with no possessions. While my mother was doing this I walked around the town and bought some supplies. Meanwhile dad was already doing what he does best, building a fence. He and Orelio had to build a temporary fence to legally divide the property. The boys and I helped, and they felt really macho learning how to drive nails and cut boards with a handsaw.

Ok, sorry there's no pictures, I've been trying for awhile to post them but for some reason the internet isn't agreeing with them right now. I'll try to get some up soon.

Merry Christmas

Thanks for all the donations. Here are photos of some of the 39 kids receiving their gifts. Yes, 39 now. There are 10 new ones from when I was there over the past summer, and 3 have been adopted out. The older ones received cards which informed them that they got to go to 10 days of summer camp, which starts January 22nd. They were all very excited when they found out (the house moms were too, haha). The younger kids each received their own gift as well.