Well last Tuesday was my final day at the orphanage Casa de Paz. It was extremely hard saying goodbye to all the kids and people who work and live there. I am missing them very much right now and hoping that I can one day return for a visit. But for right now life must go on. It's been a little bit of a hard transition these first couple of days. I came back and my mom had fallen on her bike and broker her shoulder the day before so she couldn't come to the airport to meet me, then Friday we had to put down my old dog Cole who I got on my 12th birthday.
For some going away festivities the kids threw a "surprise" going away party for me. All the older kids went to Maribel's house and lured me up there so when I walked through the door they all jumped out screaming surprise! The party included a lot of dancing (there are videos of me dancing with kids and house moms but you will never see them...ever.) as well as eating some good food and cake. The after the cake they had what Joey B would call "Barnabas time" where they went around a circle and told me all sorts of heart touching things. Afterwards I could only manage to get out a few words to everyone but they knew how much I loved them all.
On my final day there a team from an organization called "Inca Link" came with a bunch of volunteers to throw the kids a party. It was the Dia de San Pedro so all the kids had the day off school. It ended up working out really well because I was able to spend the early morning with the kids all to myself and then hang out and play some games with them and the big team of 40 people who came around 10:00 am. The big team served as a pretty good distraction to keep me and the kids from completely losing it when I left. Yes there were still plenty of tears but they had something they could jump into and try and take their mind off of it.
So anyway, I will go ahead and sum up my time there. It was an amazing learning experience. What I have learned in this past year will benefit me and others who I come in contact with for the rest of my life. I learned about a lot about business and management, Peruvian government, politics: but the most important things I learned were relationships, parenting, love, sorrow, patience, and myself. I would say that Ecclesiastes 3 would be a pretty good summation. There were good times, and there were definitely bad times. But this year I spent living with these kids and all the experiences good and bad that came along with it I would not trade for anything in the world.
I would like to go ahead and use this entry to say that as one chapter ends another begins. I am very certain that in the future (~6 months - 1 year) I will be starting work on a new project in Peru. The project right now as it is shaping up is looking to be an organization that does youth development programs in the area of Trujillo Peru. Our first, and maybe our largest scale project will be an orphanage. I am still ironing out some details and as soon as I have everything ready to go I will disclose everything.
The kids and I
Surprise!
