Visit to NPH Peru

On March 16th, I embarked on my first journey to South America - en route to NPH Peru, now home to 47 orphaned, abandoned or abused/neglected children, ages ranging from one month to eighteen years. This is NPHs newest and smallest home.

I arrived to Lima late that night, wound up at a decent hotel in the city, and was picked up the following morning. NPH is located in Lunahuana, Peru, about two and a half hours south of Lima (depending on who is driving - our driver was quite quick. I don't think anybody passed US the entire way. I did definitely hear our tires squealing occasionally which only made the drive that much more exciting.) Much of the drive is straight down the Pan-American highway, along the coast of Peru. A beautiful drive, especially upon getting a bit closer to the home - lots of vineyards and other fruit/vegetable fields, located along the Lunahuana River. Lunahuana is well-known for their "Pisco" and wine - so one of the unpleasant things about the drive to the home was the mounds of rotting grapes along the sides of the road. After the winemakers are done with the grapes, they just throw them out in heaps onto the roadside, and eventually they are set on fire. It's a terrible, terrible smell.

The home is temporary located in an old hotel. After the earthquake in 2007, the area lost a lot of its tourism (mostly people coming in from Lima), therefore the hotel was closed down, and now is rented out to NPH. It's a pretty cute place. They are currently building their new home in San Vicente de Canete. We went to visit the plot of land - looks great, but the mosquitoes ate me alive. I'm still itching from them...

Afterwards the national director from the home took us out to dinner, where I tried "ceviche". I've never learned what the exact translation is for this - Babel Fish says it is "a dish of marinated raw fish". Appetizing, no? I never in my life thought I would be adventurous enough to try it, but they bought it for us, so I was forced to at least try a bit. And, disgustingly enough, I actually liked it! Wow, Latin America has really changed me - when I first went down in 2005 the only type of seafood I could bring myself to eat was pre-cooked shrimp - no shell, no legs involved. Now I'm eating raw fish - that's so wrong...

My first week in the home was pretty tame - I spent a lot of time just trying to figure out how things worked, and obviously getting to know the kids. My first weekend was the Lunahuana Grape Festival, so I went into "town" (it really is quite the ghost-town during the week, but people come out of the woodwork on the weekends) with a volunteer from Washington, and an "ex-mex" from NPH Mexico that is down there volunteering for a year. We met some pretty interesting characters - ranging from some hippies from the city that were there selling bracelets, necklaces, etc, playing African drums, and playing with fire as well. This guy we talked to was planning a trip to Europe, where he would join a circus he had been a part of previously. So interesting.

One of the "perks" of the Grape Festival, was the free wine tasting. Unfortunately, those folks like their wine pretty sweet - it was described to me as tasting like Dimetapp cough syrup (by my friend, in the photo below - the one in the middle). Naturally, I had to try it for myself. Sure enough, that description was pretty fitting. The only wine I actually enjoyed was the dry red wine. At $4 a bottle, it wasn't too bad. My drink of choice however was the Pisco Sour or Pisco Mango. Pisco, I just learned comes from the Quechua word, pisqu - little bird - and is made from grapes. It is the common drink of the people there. Our favorite drink - not because of the taste but because of the name - was "Tom Warry by Happy" - intended to be of course "don't worry be happy".

A little later on we ran into these 2 other guys who were looking for a good time in this small town of nothing. So we all just ended up hanging out in the central park after the rest of the town went to sleep. Turns out they were 18 years old, and both fashion designers. Haha, I really enjoyed it when they asked the three of us if we knew a bunch of these other famous designers he had met. Please look at the photo to the right, of the three of us from NPH, and tell me if you think it looks like we're into "fashion" and familiar with all of the latest designers. Come on kids...