Moving in

On Thursday I moved in to the new place like was planned.  I got there and immediately was in the middle of a couple meetings that they have every end of the month.  The meetings were great and caught me up on a lot of what is currently going on around here and introduced me to all the staff.

After the meetings I found out one of the things they needed done was cutting the hair of all the boys.  There quite a few more here, 21, so Alex, the operation guy who is also the one who gives the haircuts, was excited to hear that I had experience.  So on my first day here I was already cutting hair..haha.  That kind of got me off on the wrong foot with a lot of the kids because they all had really long hair and weren't too thrilled about having it all cut off.  However by today they are not harboring any more bad feelings about it.

Other than ticking off the older boys I've spent the last couple of days getting to know all the kids and settling into my room.  Last night I went out for chicken with the volunteers that are here and while I was out I bought a fan and a power strip for my room, so I was able to sleep comfortably.

There were also a couple of going away parties for some of the volunteers that left yesterday and today.  I have taken a few pictures, but I'll start taking some more and getting them posted.

I have set up my schedule so that it will allow me to go back to Pacasmayo on the weekends where I plan to be a house parent Friday and Saturday nights.  Even though I already know I will see them on the weekends (except for this one) and I know that I am very close I still am missing them very much.

Answers to the Question

The question was if you could pick a super power what would it be and why.

I would be Ben 10 so I could convert into the man of fire.  (This is after he wrote a page about 10 different abilities that he would like to have and I told him he had to pick one)

I would have the power to fly and be super strong so I could be in charge of the world and save people, I would also be able to clean my room really fast.

I would like to power to fly so I could get from one country to the other really fast.  I would also like to be super strong for what ever reason or to fight a lion.

I would want to fly so I could save people and earn their respect and love.  Then I would continue to keep getting stronger and earning more powers until I became invincible. 

I would like the power to run really fast. So I could get from one place to the other and if a car is about to run over someone I would save them.

Carnivales

So not sure if you are aware of this or not, but every February Peru has a little custom called Carnivales.  Now this isnt the dancing in the street throwing beads type of Carnivales, its a little different.  Their version of Carnivales is throwing water on everyone, any time, any place.  For example last year I was walking down the street and a couple of little girls threw water balloons at me, and a house tried to hit me with a bucket of water from the second story. This year some girls tried to run up and soak me and Sam while we were walking into town to buy groceries but Sam yelled at them and scared them pretty bad, but it was good because we didnt get wet.

So, here are a few pictures of our carnivales at the orphanage.

I will post the answers to the question "What super power would you pick and why?" in a couple days.  The answers are really good.

Crowd Participation

I've been doing some writing exercises with the older boys and I've run out of ideas so I need your help.  Lately  I've been asking the boys a question and then making them write an answer down in the workbook I got for them.  Questions like "What do you want for your future?" and "What are the qualities of a good father/husband?".  Questions that make them think a little bit.

So if you guys want in on the actions post a question you want me to ask them in the comments.  I'll pick a couple that I think they would respond to well and then write you guys back their answers.  Simple as that.  I'll take a couple of photos of them writing as well and post it.

New Mailing address

Starting the 24th of February I will be living at a new orphanage.  For anyone who would like to send me packages the new mailing address is

Albergue Infantil Hogar de Esperanza
Autopista Moche / Salaverry KM 3.5
Frente de Camal de San Fransisco
Trujillo, Peru

All bets are on

So we somehow started this new trend lately of betting for almost everything.  It started out me betting them they couldn’t do a certain trick with their toy tops.  If they would win I would owe them a piece of gum and if they lost they would owe me some sort of cleaning duty that they didn’t already have to do.  Then it evolved.  We started doing push-ups and chin-ups for movies, I quickly learned that a couple of the boys here can do lots and lots of push-ups when they are motivated by the prize of getting to pick a new movie to buy.  At one point I was down 6 movies but I won them all back, they quickly learned that I am really good at bargaining my way into winning so I don’t have to do anything. 

The most recent bet and by far the biggest was I bet them that they could not run to Jequedepeque and back.  J(for short) is about 3 miles away, making it a 6 mile round trip up and down very long and steep hills.  Only two of them took on this challenge and they thought they had it in the bag.  Some others went along for the fun of it.  We decided on a prize of them being able to take out their mattresses and sleep in front of the TV for 4 days, I decided not to put a bigger prize or any penalty on it because I knew that they would end up dying trying to avoid the loss or reaching for a super prize. 

The first attempt was cut short because there was an emergency and I had to return the van (that’s another story for later).  But today after 3 days of rest we went out for a second try.  I figured they had a pretty good chance of making it there because the first attempt they made it about ¾ of the way to J.  They did indeed make it to J in about 35 minutes but instantly collapsed on the agreed about turn around point.  We made a side bet saying that if they just made it there and not back then they could take the mattresses out one day.  They decided that it was enough, one day of mattresses would suffice. 

After some thinking I realized that I inadvertently created a super child who was now able to do 70 push-ups in a row, 20 1-handed push-ups (with his right hand), 16 pull-ups, and run for 3 miles pretty much barefoot without any prior training, all for the sake of winning a couple $1 movies.  My winnings out of the deal I got my house cleaned and dishes, floor, and table cleaned after breakfast for two weeks and counting.

The emergency that I mentioned earlier that pulled us off early on the first day was a very sad one.  One of the new house moms was preparing a bottle for the baby and got the water too hot.  She accidentally split this too hot water on the baby’s head and burnt him very badly.  He went to the hospital and got some creams and bandages and is doing fine now.

Following behind them in the van

The choaches

Aftermath

Took them to the river to cool off

cooling off

A squaters house on the way

Still no internet

Still don't have any internet at the orphanage so I'm currently smooching off the wireless of a hotel here in town.

Not really too much has happened since the last time I posted the pictures.  We had an inspection from MIMDES yesterday and that went terrible. Well at least the meeting between Avis and the inspector went terrible that I got roped into translating for, I should've hid better.

Last couple of days I have had a really bad stomach ache, it's much better now.  But yesterday morning was really bad, I woke up with debilitating stomach and a little kid poking me to tell me that another little kid had pooped all over the floor in his room and smeared it on the wall.  Remember this was the same day as the mimdes inspection so yesterday was pretty terrible.

Also, I can now tell everyone that I have officially accepted the other position in Trujillo to work at another orphanage.  The orphanage is Hogar de Esperanza (home of hope).  The web page is www.perukids.com
and the US side organization that helps support it is http://corazondeesperanza.org/ so check those links out if your interested.  I will move there the 24th of February and they promised me internet access so hopefully more and better blog updates.