Bikes!

Yesterday and today has been all about bikes. My parents and I went and bought 4 bikes from a store in downtown Pacasmayo. 2 big ones and 2 medium sized ones. I feel like we got a fairly good deal because we got those 4 for $300 US dollars which is a little less than what we would have paid at wal-mart. Bikes are one thing that are pretty expensive here in Peru. The salesman was as nice as could be (he wanted us "rich" gringos to come back and buy more stuff from him). He insisted that he bring the bikes up to the orphanage in his own truck with cardboard packed between each one to ensure no stratches or dings. While he was there he also got a private tour of the school from me because he has 2 kids that he might want to send there.

Anyway, the kids LOVE the bikes. Yesterday 5 kids who had never even been on a bike learned to ride, and today many more got much better. Yesterday we brought all the kids old enought to ride them over at the same time (about 16) and today I brought them in 2 groups, girls before lunch and boys after. The bikes have to stay over in the school area right now because there is no room in the orphange to ride them.

Also yesterday, continuing our trend of taking about a different family group to dinner about every other night, we took out Ruben, Linche, and their sister Ninilinito (I'm not sure if I got that right... it's a pretty difficult one). They are the newest ones to the orphanage, they arrived about 1 week before Christmas when the police took them from their mother who was too drugged out to function. Currently their mother is in some sort of rehablitation center as far as I know. The kids were only supposed to be here until she got out, which was suppose to be last week. Who knows... anyway they are still pretty shy and we could really tell that they were very scared of walking around in the streets and of people in general. Ruben the oldest brother would grab his younger brother and sister by the hand and just walk so fast that we could hardly keep up. This is unlike the other kids who just stroll down the street very slowly no problem. This is why it was so good to see these same kids having fun and smiling while playing with the bikes. You can scroll up to see Ruben smiling with one of the bikes.

This morning Lisa and about 4 other ladies went to the womens' prison. She will blog about that another time and share the experience with you all. We also cooked dinner for missionary night tonight. Pasta and redsauce with thin pan fried chicken.