Tough love

It's not always rainbows and ice cream when I'm spending time with the kids, sometimes I have to give some fatherly discipline too.  This past weekend was a good example of just that.  Everything was going pretty well until it was time to go to Bible class Saturday afternoon.  They are supposed to leave at 4:00 so I started telling them all to get ready around 3:00, which they replied with "we'll get ready at 3:30".  So I let them slack a little in getting ready.  I'm not technically on duty Saturday afternoons, I'm just there to hang out and spend time with them, so I figured that I would let the house mom handle getting them ready to go.  Well come 4:15 I walk into the house and six out of the seven older boys are still there and definitely not ready to go.  So I got them out the door by taking away soccer balls and other privileges.  I walked them to the church with Sam because we were headed into town to get a car to Jeque.  So we get there and they enter through the back door, but as I look through the front door there are three of them missing.  I walk inside and find them hiding in the bathroom.  Well I put the fear of God into them and they quickly walked to their class.  I also told them that I was going to talk with the teacher and if I heard any more complaints about them that there would be more punishment.

So while they were in class Sam and I went to Jeque to eat dinner with Auden and Wendy who were just returning from their three month visit in the states.  We had BBQ hamburgers and Auden's delicious grilled teryaki chicken.  For desert we ate one of the yellow cakes and chocolate icing that my awesome sisters sent me. We even played catch with a baseball.  It was like a real american backyard grill out, haha.

Returning stuffed from the BBQ I knew that it was time to have a house meeting.  The boys behavior this weekend and especially this afternoon was just not acceptable.  So I told them that we were going to have a meeting soon, and some of them already feeling shameful went to their beds to try and sleep through it.  But when it was time I went and got them out of the beds.  The greatest offenders came in with their heads down already feeling a little shameful one even had a stocking hat pulled all the way over his face that I had to take from him.  My speech went something like this, "Do you all understand why I'm here, why I'm in Peru?  Do you understand why I come every weekend?"  wait for their answer...one said "to spend time with us, and to rest."  So I responded, "The reason I'm here is because I care about you guys, you and your futures are important to me.  So yes I come here to spend time with you, but I also come here because I want to see you succeed.  If I just wanted to rest I would stay in Trujillo and do nothing on the weekends."  Quiet..."What I'm asking of you guys is that you respect me and that you behave in the manner that you know you must behave. If you don't want to do that, if you don't want me to be here tell me." more silence..."Then do you guys understand what I'm saying to you?"  They nod their heads in silence and Angel realizes that Nelson is not nodding, so Angel reaches over and pushes Nelson's head back and forth. "Ok, for those of you that hid in the bathrooms today, go to your rooms."   All of them that knew they had behaved badly were very remorseful while those that knew they were behaving well were feeling really good.  The next day one of the greatest offenders apologized to me, while the other two still didn't want to look at me.  However when it came time for me to leave Sunday afternoon they were all back to normal and wanting to keep playing with me.

On a lighter funny note.  Last night I had a huge scare.  I woke up to what I thought was something stinging or biting me and I flipped back the covers and saw a big black something.  I pretty much freaked out, flipped out of my bed onto the floor wound myself all up in my covers, then took a closer look at the suspect.  It was my headphones wound up that I forgot were in my bed when I fell asleep.  They had wound up tight against my legs and the rubber cords were pulling out my leg hairs.  So then I laughed and went back to sleep very relieved that it was my headphones and not a scorpion.

Good moments

So a couple memorable moments from this last week.

Funniest: Tonight I walk into one of the boys houses to find a couple of them "doing homework" this homework entailed looking through a magazine to find products starting with "o" and "u".  However the magazine they were looking through was a fashion magazine and they were spending inordinate amounts of time looking at the female models in dresses and skirts.  When I called them on it they threw up the biggest grin I've seen from any of them and said..."shhhh don't tell mom" and we all just busted up laughing.

Proudest: I got a late start one day picking up the kids from school.  The van's tire was flat so I had to put air in it, then halfway down the driveway I realized I left my documents in my room so I had to drive back and get them.  These things combined put me a good 10 minutes behind my usually scheduled departure time, however I still made it to the school in time to pick up the kids.  I drove like a true Peruvian that day.

Most heart-warming:  Earlier this week when I went to go pick up the special needs kids from school I was sitting and watching the other kids come out.  There was a sweet little girl probably around 6 or 7 years old that was waiting by the door.  An older boy with downs syndrome walked out of the gate and she immediately walked up to him grabbed his hand and said "Hi big brother, did you have a good day today?  Lets go home." then she lead him by the hand down the street.

Monday blues

This past weekend was a little exhausting.  Mainly because on Saturday I brought the older boys from the orphanage to go watch the youth from church play in a soccer match against another church.  What I thought was going to be a show up and watch one game and leave type of deal turned into our game is scheduled to go third so we have to sit in the heat with no shade type of deal.   Also it was during lunch time which I didn't account for so I ended up eating some saltine crackers and half a plate of rice for lunch.

I started off Monday bringing the kids to school who were a bit more rowdy than usual, then went to go hang my clothes up on the line.  Just as I was putting my last shirt on the line it broke.  So all my clean clothes got dirty again.  To get my Monday back on the right track I went and hung out in one of the homework sessions where I have been able to motivate the promptness of getting homework done via bear hug currency.  Pedro and Jorge aren't much for candy but if I say, "you get a bear hug for finishing this page" they are on it.

Last night I didn't get any more rest either because I had to take the 1 year old to the doctor for the 2nd time in a week.  She had the same type of asthma attack so I think it's time they got her an inhaler.  On the way back from dropping the kids off at school today I stopped by the hardware store that's like home depot and picked up a couple of things we needed.  Then interestingly enough I saw a fight break out on the other side of the street as I was driving away.  From what I saw it looked like some middle aged man was being a jerk to someone and tried to push/slap him, the guy that he pushed just kind of brushed it off.  However there were some teenagers who witnessed it that were looking to have some fun so they tackled the older man and pretty much were just humiliating him by frizzling up his hair and clothes.  All the meanwhile a security guard was standing there chuckling at the whole ordeal.  So moral of that story is don't be a jerk in Peru or you'll probably get shamed.

Some time with the baby

Cure for the Monday blues

Updates and volunteer fun

First a little more on the baby situation that happened last Saturday night.  Sam had not been feeling good all week so I told her that I would watch the baby on Saturday night so that she could get some more sleep.  So she put him to bed and then she went to her house to sleep.  All was going fine until about 11:00pm and then he woke up.  He started out just fussing a bit, I thought that his arm might have fallen asleep on him so I repositioned him and tried to get him to stop crying.  That didn't work and his fussing turned into full out crying so I picked him up and walked him around to no avail.  Next up was checking his diaper which was clean, then on to trying to give him his bottle which he didn't want any part of.  Now his crying elevated into full out screaming so I had to go get Sam.  I felt bad because it was supposed to be her one night of sleeping in but I really had no other choice.  He calmed down as soon as he heard her voice, "..what is going on.."  We took him back to his crib and took his temperature he had a high fever and the medicine that we had was not strong enough.  We called Gina who went to the pharmacy to go get some medicine that was a little stronger.  Meanwhile he fell back asleep on top of my chest with a wet rag on his head.  Gina got there we gave him the medicine and his fever went down in about 30 minutes.  Gina opted to stay with the baby the rest of the night, he woke up about 4 more times but was fine the next day and took such a good nap it made me jealous.

We recently had some volunteers here at Hogar de Esperanza that were from London.  So we had a great time talking in each other's accents and eating crepes.  They left Tuesday.  

Yesterday I got to start off my day by getting woken up at 4:00 am in the morning to drive a little kid to the hospital that was having a nasty coughing fit.  The hospital is about 10 minutes away so much closer than I'm used to.  I slept outside in the car for 2 hours while I waited for them.  They gave her some medicine and put her on oxygen for about 30 minutes and then everything was fine. So I came back slept for another 20 minutes, ate some oatmeal and then was off to drive the other kids to school.  

Tomorrow the head guy for the operations and maintenance is going on vacation for 10 days so I am filling in for him.  Right now I think we are getting ready to get everything organized and ready for his absence. I'm still headed to Pacasmayo tomorrow so I'll post another update on Monday.

A lot of rice

 The orphanage is on a city food program that provides the staples for any feeding station or orphanage that gets certified.  This means that once a year we go and pick up our allotment.  And let me tell you we put the "a lot" into allotment.  I made two trips in our pick-up truck for a total of 40 bags of rice each weighing roughly 120 pounds.  We also received cooking oil, 4 120LB bags of beans, 4 120LB bags of sugar and anchovies.  The rice they provide us lasts Hogar de Esperanza 7 months, the cooking oil and anchovies all year.

So my Friday consisted of carrying lots of bags, and my back hurts to prove it.  I met Sam in Trujillo afterwards and I ate half an extra large papa johns pepperoni pizza and then we went to Pacasmayo.  I spent the weekend there once more but right now I'm a little too exhausted too remember exactly what happened.  All I remember is me saying "sure I'll watch the baby tonight" and then I didn't get any sleep.  The baby woke up with a fever, and we called the orphanage director who went and bought some medicine.

Sorry I'm too exhausted right now to put any more effort into my blog tonight.  I'll post again in a couple days when I'm more rested with a more extensive recap.

The weekend

I went back to Pacasmayo this past Friday and spent the weekend with the kids at Casa de Paz.  I had only been gone for 10 days but it felt a lot longer until I was finally on the bus headed back.  I think I'm beginning to grasp what it must feel like to be a single parent with shared custody and only being able to see your kid(s) on the weekends.  The building excitement through the week, the instant joy of seeing them, and the sinking feeling of saying goodbye.

We didn't do anything spectacular or out of the ordinary this weekend but we had a lot of fun.  We started playing marbles because the kids here in Trujillo taught me and so I thought that I would be able to beat the kids in Pacasmayo because I never once saw them play in all the time I was there.  But I was wrong, I think Peruvian boys are born with the ability to play with tops and marbles.  They all brought out their marbles which I had no idea they had and proceeded started to school me. 

Right now I'm back safe in Trujillo and looking forward to starting this week of my new routine.  Getting back from Pacasmayo took a little longer than I hoped because the bus line that I wanted to take didn't have any

tickets so I took a different one that ends up on the wrong side of Trujillo.  So I had to wonder around Trujillo for awhile trying to find the right "mico" to arrive to the orphanage.  Next week I will make sure to get my bus ticket early and it should save me some time.

I just thought of this but its really funny so I decided to come back and edit it in.  I've got the boys at the Pacasmayo orphanage playing the safety/doorknob game.  You know the game where if you fart you have to call safety before someone else calls doorknob and if you don't call safety first then you have to run to a doorknob and touch it all the while you are free game for anyone to punch you as hard as they want.  That has been a great source of entertainment as of late and has caused a lot of epic battles, as well as strangely increased the amount of gas passed or at least increased the amount of known gas passed. My favorite doorknob call so far has been on Gerson.  This morning he was still half asleep in his bed and he let one fly, he was fully awakened by his little brother Joel yelling "puerta" at him and punching him awake. 

Getting Busy

Well I've been pretty busy as of late.  Monday my day started off with going to the big market early in the morning with the pick up truck.  I helped buy food for all the kids that would last about 6 days that amount of food pretty much filled the entire back of a pick up truck because there are more kids here, 40 in total, and also more volunteers.  Right now there's only 4 volunteers but we just had 5 leave and have more coming very soon.  After the market we came back and I took the annual "Thank you" card for Hogar de Esperanza, I'll post that at the bottom. After that I ate lunch with the kids, then headed out into Trujillo in the van to pick up some donations of school supplies for the kids.  The orphanage here has done a really good job of PR in the Trujillo area so they have had a lot of success with people donating things that they need.  We went to various churches and dentists and doctors where they had left donation boxes and we picked them up.  I got back to the orphanage at 7:00 and ate dinner and crashed.

I found out that my usual schedule starting next week when school begins that I'm going to start my day by driving 5 of the kids to a special school across Trujillo.  They have class from 8:00 to 1:00, and I will be responsible for bringing them and picking them up.

Yesterday after dinner I went and played cards in one of the boys houses and we had a lot of fun.  It was really my first chance to do that because I had been going into town a couple nights with the other volunteers to eat, or had just been wiped out (like today).  I am starting to get all the names down finally, and keep wondering what is the brains limit for remembering names.

Close up so you can see their faces

whats going to go on the card