I'm alive

Hey everyone, I know that it has been far too long since the last post. A lot has been going on around here but it all just seems so normal to me now that I have trouble getting motivated to post about it. One of the more noteworthy things I've done in the last couple weeks was take a trip to Lima to talk with the lady who is in charge of the orphanage regulation in Peru. We have an inspection coming up soon so we decided that it was a good idea if Maribel and I went to get an overview of all the things that we need to improve or change in order to pass the inspection. The things we need to change aren't really serious, but it's a lot of small stuff. For example we need to get covered cabinets in the kitchen, touch up paint and decorate some houses, enclose one of the water pumps and other misc. jobs like that. I think that the new English teacher, Steve, and I are going to start working of that stuff next week. To decorate the houses we are going to use a projector to put pictures on the wall then paint them in, imagine big stencil. Other projects that Steve and I are planning are switching out some light fixtures and enclosing the pump.

Here is a picture of Yhonson after his team won the championship in a soccer league he was in. He did really well playing goalie and had a blast. Their team won the 200 sole prize and split that between 10 of them.

Last week we threw a surprise birthday party for one of the house moms Gina. She is the one directly to the left of me. We had the other house moms there, Maribel, Gladys and another friend Rosa (far left) who has been doing a lot in the community to help the orphanage. We had the party at Maribel's house and had about 8 kids come as well. It was a lot of fun and she was really surprised. You can also observe from this picture that my hair is just getting out of control.

Canada eh?

The team from Canada has arrived. I went to Lima with Fred, Rita, and to go pick them up. We left on Tuesday night by way of bus and arrived in Lima the next morning with a day to kill. We went and got a hotel room to set up a base camp for the day. Fred and I roamed the streets of Lima scoping out where to buy food for the bus trip back and running some other areas while Rita and Meg relaxed in the hotel room. My errands included picking up some printer toner for Jose Luis and bringing one of his internet antennas to a repair shop. Then I had an errand of my own, I went and bought a wetsuit. I can now surf pretty much whenever I want and don't have to wait for a sunny day to do it. I went and tested it out yesterday morning and it worked very well (I got my sandals stolen...I have an excellent plan to get back at these little kids that I'll share with you afterwards if it all works out). I decided to buy a higher quality one because I figured that it is something I can use for a very long time not only surfing but scuba diving and other water sports as well.

So after the errands were done, Fred and I went and bought a whole bunch of food for the team's bus ride back. So then we waited. We had to go to the Airport at 10:30 pm because Meg was leaving and Rita's friend Heather was arriving. Then we had another person arriving at 5:00am so we just waited in the airport, hanging out on really uncomfortable chairs. The team got in about 7:30 then ate breakfast at the airport and we were on our way out of Lima at 9:30.

We arrived in Pacasmayo at 7:00 and had a big dinner with all the kids and the team together. Last night there was a really great concert put on by a band that came with us from Lima. they played traditional Wino music that pretty much ruled.

I woke up this morning with the news that we had been robbed. Someone knocked out window in the tool shed and stole Fred's welder. He was pretty pissed, I know how he feels considering I've been robbed the last two times I've been surfing. The team put on a spa day this morning and in the midst of that I found out that the school is out of water which is bad because that means the orphanage will be out of drinking water. There is a businessmen meeting later today in about an hour.

That's all I know for now.

Camp!

I just got back from a week long camp this Friday. It was a nice change of scenery for me because it was in the middle of a forest and it was quite a bit cooler than here in Pacasmayo. The camp was built about 40 years ago by an American church but now it is completely ran by Peruvians and they do a really good job. The kids all loved it and behaved really well. I just sat back, relaxed and listened to my ipod all week making sure none of our kids ran away or hurt themselves. It was a pretty easy job because we only had 6 kids in this age group which was 12-16. It was 4 older boys and 2 girls.

Throughout the week the schedule was wake up at 7:00, church gathering at 7:30, breakfast 8:00, group bible studies from 9:30 - 1:00, lunch, fun activites, dinner, more fun activities, sleep at 10:30. Of course there were breaks and small group times scattered throughout the day. One of the activities we did was climb a freaking mountain. That was pretty intense. If you have ever been to Peru and see those gigantic hills/mini mountains then that is what we climbed, except this one was more grass and rocks and sandy. I was really exhausted after that activity, then the next day we walked to the nearest pool. They told me that the pool was close, I guess that my concept of close is a little different from theirs because I don't consider a 5k walk close. My legs were already sore from the mountain climb the day before so they were jello after the pool walk. I was just surprised all the kids handled all the walking so well.

Other activities included skits and dramas. All the kids got really into those and actually did put on some really nice presentations. There was also a bonfire and all the teams had to create costumes to show off for everyone else. My favorite was a kid who's team dressed him up like cupid.

The pool

Yhonson on top of the mountain

Climbing the mountain

Playing some outdoor games

General assembly hall of the camp

Rain again

The last couple days it has been raining. It only rains about 4 days a year but when it does so it all comes about 4 days in a row. My roof is leaking where they put the air vents in, so I've had fun toweling up all the water that didn't make it to the buckets. Some ladies from the community came over last at at about 10:00 asking for plastic sheets to put on their roofs. We had a roll of plastic in the tool shed so we let them have that.

I've been surfing a lot lately, perhaps a little too much. I suddenly started breaking out in rashes in various parts of my body so taking a combination of Antibiotics, Cortizal pill and some special cream I have managed to get them under control. But in the mean time that means I gotta take it easy on the surfing. I haven't been for 3 days now and I'm anxious to get back out.

On kid news, Nelson who has been here for 3 years got adopted this week. His parents came from Italy. I talked with the parents as much as I could, Italian is similar to Spanish but not quite. I talked to the official from the agency a lot more though. I found out a lot of interesting stuff. For example the average wait time after all the papers are cleared from both countries is 8 months. Peruvians have priority over foreigners, for example if there is a kid up for adoption and an international couple has been waiting 6 months for a kid that fits their criteria but a Peruvian couple just finished their paper work the day before they still have priority, thus the reason for longer waits for international adoptions. Also the guy that from the Italian agency said that the reason they parents are adopting from Peru is because it is so much easier than any other country. The guys said the reason it is so hard for people in the US to adopt from Peru is because of all the US paperwork and the agencies in the US.

Last night I took Danilo out to eat pizza, he really enjoyed it but I think he was a little over stimulated. By the time we made it back to the house he started crying and was overwhelmed. I was also a little perturbed because I realized my cellphone had fallen out in the moto taxi. So I lost my cellphone and some dude is making calls on it right now, but it's a good thing that I don't have the monthly plan an only use prepay. Unfortunately now I have to go get a new cellphone and a new number.

Danilo eating some pizza

Nelson's new Parents with all the kids