Camping trip

I just got back from a three day, two night camping trip with all the kids of the orphanage.  Well, I call it camping, they call it staying at someone else’s house.  That’s because my definition of camping is pretty much staying anywhere that there is no electricity or running water and lots and lots of mosquitoes.  We stayed at Gina’s parents house who live out on the farm.  They are surrounded by rice fields and irrigation canals but not so much of anything else.

To get all the kids there I made three trips back and forth each with a load of supplies and kids.  On the first trip I carried 7 mattresses on the top of the van.  Before you freak out they where only about 6 inches thick each but still that is a lot of mattress.  It was enough to make one of the tie down ropes break on the way there and send them all flying down the highway.  By the time I got turned around to go pick them up a friendly gentlemen in another van had stopped and gathered them all up.  I drove up to thank him and get the mattresses back on top of our van for all the kids, however the man insisted that the mattresses were his.  That is of course because he found them and risked his life gathering them up on the road.  I told him that was ridiculous and of course he knew that the mattresses belonged to us, however he would not give them back without some sort of finder’s fee so I have him 20 soles.  I really could’ve probably gotten away with giving him 10 soles but I didn’t have any smaller bills on me.  So lesson learned always carry small bills in case you have to “tip” someone.

After two more uneventful trips all the kids were there and the fun began.  We did a lot of swimming in the canals that day and played some board games that my mom had brought.  We ate lunch and dinner that was prepared on a fire and I took my parents along with the littlest kids up to a neighbor’s house where they could sleep on beds and take showers.  My parents had an eventful night with a couple of sick kids.

The next day we swam some more and I took the older boys bird hunting with their sling shots.  We did actually get one bird which I was pretty amazed at because those sling shots don’t have great accuracy.  Then we did some swimming.  Then we swam some more.

Overall it was a great swim..camping trip.  I am a little relieved however that the initial period of 10 days got shortened to three.  Ten days of swimming..err..camping might have been a little too much. 

 



The House



Dinner table



 



Bird Hunting



One of the swimming holes



Back in Action

My parents and I made it safely to Pacasmayo.  The most dangerous part of the arrival was when we had a herd of kids rush the van as soon as we pulled through the front gate.  It was just as great to see everyone as I had imagined.  Lots of hugs and high fives all around. 

I started my shift right off the bat.  Gina, the house mom of the boy,s has been working 24 hours a day 6 days a week for the past year and a half, so I figured that while I'm here I will make sure she gets some much needed time with her own kids.  In order to do that I'm taking the night shift,  I'm working in the boys house from 8:00 at night till 11:00 in the morning. Don't worry it's a lot easier than it sounds and I am really enjoying it.  I come in around 8:00 and since its summer vacation we all stay up till about 11:00 watching movies or playing cards or board games then we all wake up around 8:00, I make breakfast they do their chores then send them outside.  Ya, thats right, I make breakfast for all 11 of us.  Today I got the kids in a little bit of trouble because I sent them outside before they finished all their chores (hey they told me they were done) and when Gina got back at 11:00 she got on to them for not doing them all.

Another funny tangent here, after about 30 minutes back on my first day I was playing soccer with the kids (by the way don't ever play soccer barefoot on concrete when you haven't been doing it in a while or you get some badly bruised feet) Aurellio who is one of the guards came up to me and asked me how to pay for a shipment of bricks they just got in.  30 minutes here and it's like I never left, haha.

Yesterday we took all the kids to the beach.  There is another volunteer here, Samantha, whose mom and brother were visiting.  Friday was their last day so we figured it would be fun to get all the kids down to the ocean.  I brought a surfboard but didn't get too much surfing in as I was busy pushing kids on it through some little waves.  My parents and I are also taking all the kids out to eat in the evenings on rotation.  Thursday night was the older boys, last night was the older girls, tonight is the younger boys and tomorrow probably the younger girls.  

Monday is my meeting with another orphanage in Trujillo.  We are going to talk a little more in depth about a proposed job opening for me there.  I'll let everyone know how it goes.

Also, I'd post pictures but my mom has almost all the pictures on her camera because I was in the water all day yesterday.  When I get a little bit more free time I'll get the pictures from her and put some up here.  The internet is kind of slow as well so that's making it hard to post stuff.

Video

Video

I made a video but it was too long to put on blogger so I had to upload it to Facebook instead.  Please click the "video" link above to watch a slideshow covering my trips to Peru up until this point.  

Wednesday I return to Peru with my parents.  I am returning during a time of a lot of changes that are critical to the future of Casa de Paz and to my future in Peru.  I also just found out today that I am returning on the dawn of a 10 day camping trip, haha should be fun and have lots of stories from that, although don't expect any updates while I'm out in the wilderness.  

So please be praying that the right decisions are made by all parties involved and that we can make sure all the kids at Casa de Paz are ok. 

I also want to thank everyone that has been so supportive to me not only in the last couple weeks but for the last four years.  It's been great so far and I hope it continues to be great in the future.  

The next time you see a post hopefully I will safe in Peru. 

Hasta pronto.

Imminent Return

You might of seen on facebook already but I now have an official return date.  I bought my ticket for the 5th of January.  There has been a lot of changes in my plans since the last blog post so I'll catch everyone up to speed. I've decided to put my plans for starting a new project on hold for awhile, there are a lot of reasons for this, one of the main ones is that I have been offered a position at another orphanage in Trujillo.  The position was described as an administrative position and I am extremely interested in it.  I'll keep everyone up to date with how that unfolds.  The only thing keeping me from jumping all over this opportunity is the emotional attachment I have with the kids in Pacasmayo where I have been heavily involved in the past two years.

So the plan right now is that I will return to Pacasmayo in January and spend a month at the orphanage in Pacasmayo and see how things go, if things work out then it is a possibility that I stay there, but right now it is looking very likely that I will be going to Trujillo in February.  

To clear some things up, when I say "see how things go" I'm referring to the current unstable condition of the orphanage in Pacasmayo.  They recently had an inspection and they need to change a lot of things physically and administratively.  These things are in truth pretty simple to change it is just a matter of people wanting to change them.  Sorry I'm being vague I just don't want to step on anyone's toes right now.  The deadline for these changes are February and I'll have a good idea if they are going to be made when I arrive in January allowing my decision making process to be much easier.

On a side note you may have noticed I'm playing around with the format of the blog a bit.  Hang with me if things get a little crazy, and if you absolutely hate the new layouts just let me know via comments.