Some random stories from Peru...

1. The food at NPH Peru for the most part was pretty good. Breakfast was usually a couple rolls - sometimes it would have a slice of ham inside, or stuffed with grapes or olives. Lunch typically was rice, occasionally some type of meat, lettuce and tomato salad, potatoes, and some type of fruit juice. I found it interesting that they don't eat tortillas there, but potatoes instead, as that is one of the most abundant crops of the country, or so I was told. Dinners were always soup or something similar (breakfasts on Saturday and Sunday were also some type of soup). One typical desert of Peru, which is what we had my first night there as dinner, is called "mazamorra", and is made of purple corn. The easiest way of describing the consistency is the following. When I worked at ChildServe (an intermediate care facility for mentally retarded children) during college, there were several children that couldn't have normal liquids, since they didn't have a proper swallow reflex. So, we would add thickener to their drinks so they could swallow it easier. This dinner reminded me of drinking thickened juice - not really a pleasant experience.
   
2. At lunch one of my first days at the home, a kid comes up to me with a bowl of of something that looked like squished tomatoes and some other various things, and asked if I wanted any. I asked what it was, and I could have sworn he said something like "we call this Ecuador". I asked him what he said, but he had already turned his back and was on his way to the next table. I called him back to ask again, and sure enough he said "This is Ecuador. We're sick of talking about chile." That's what they call hot sauce. Haha, funny kid!
3. Another day during lunch, a herd of unknown men wandered into the dining room carrying huge sacks of shrimp. I asked the kids I was eating with what was going on, and they told me that every week these men come to donate shrimp. The next time I looked up, a man snuck around the corner, video camera in hand, and began documenting the event. He was the most animated cameraman I think I've ever seen in my life. Since the kids told me this happens there every week, I started to just ignore what was going on, and concentrated on finishing my lunch. I had just stuffed my mouth with rice, I look up, and sure enough, there's the camera. Just inches from my face. Due to the lack of filming etiquete and obvious lack of asking permission to video somebody, the man immediately started drilling me with questions - where am I from, what am I doing at NPH, asked me about the kids, asked if I liked shrimp, my full name, etc. He's lucky I didn't spit my rice on the camera while trying to answer his questions. We later heard that this actually aired on the tv. I'm pretty sure though that the only thing anybody saw was my nose, since he was filming SO close to my face. The kids I was eating with thought it was absolutely hilarious. Come to find out, this does NOT happen every week, and apparently it was a big deal that this crew came to the house.
4. Related to #2 - when we were eating our "dish of marinated raw fish" after visiting the construction site for the new home, I noticed a sign that said there was a ban on eating shrimp from the month of January to the end of April, in order to allow the shrimp to reproduce. I then asked the director how it was that we were eating shrimp in the home, if it was supposedly banned. He told me that the authorities go to restaurants to "bust" those that are not obeying this law. If somebody is caught with shrimp, it is taken away, and this is how the shrimp arrived to our home and into our bellies the following day. Nothing better than eating "illegal" shrimp.
5. There is a 14-yr-old boy in the home that has three chicken he raises on his own. They call him "pollito" - little chicken. He doesn't appreciate it too much when everybody is constantly asking him when they get to eat his chicken.
   
6. The watering process in the home amazed me. Since the coastal region of Peru where the home is located, gets little rain, huge efforts must be made to keep the grass green. The way they "watered their lawn" was opening the water valve, and just letting it completely flood the lawn. The first night they did it while I was there, we had just come out of dinner, and I asked one of the caregivers what was happening with the water. It looked as though a water pipe had broken. She didn't seem concerned, and just told me they were watering. After the water rose a bit, all of the kids and caregivers went out with their buckets, and scooped water, and threw it into areas the water was unable to reach. It was really quite the experience.
7. And speaking of experiences - I went white water rafting down the Rio Lunahuana my first weekend there as well. It was absolutely amazing - the water was a bit more rough than we were expecting, but I only nearly fell out maybe once or twice. So, I was successful and really wanted to do it again before leaving, however never found the time. Hmm, next time!
8. Some of my favorite words they use in Peru - buenazo (really good), feazo (really ugly or really not cool), aquicito (right here), allacito (right there), etc. In general, they just add "azo" to anything to exagerate the word, which isn't done in Central America, but I really love it. There they would use "isimo" or "ote" at the end of the word.
9. I felt the earth shake for the first time in my life while I was in Peru. One day I was standing outside with the nurse talking, and we heard some rumbling in the distance. I immediately thought it was thunder of course, and then just a few seconds later the earth was trembling, and all the kids ran from their rooms. Turned out it was just a small earthquake and everything was fine.
10. In all of my travels, never once have I missed a connection, until my trip home from Peru. We left an hour and a half or so late from Lima, making me miss my connection in Miami. My flight out of Miami was again delayed by 2 hours, making me arrive at my gate in Chicago just after they closed the doors. I woke up at 3am that day. This was just after 10pm, therefore I got stranded in Chicago overnight, and flew first thing in the morning to Des Moines. I was then mis-directed by the agent as to where I needed to catch the shuttle to the hotel. Something like half an hour later, I finally figured out where I needed to be and was happily asleep by 11:30ish. I guess it was finally my turn to have some bad luck during my travels...and that wraps up my Peruvian experience.

Hola Ojos - "hello eyes"

This is how I was greeted once in a little shop in Canete, when I had gone in to use the internet one day. Yes, that's right - can you imagine a world where you have to travel at least an hour to get to reliable internet access? And, what's even better is that this drive can turn into much more than just sitting in an overcrowded van for an hour.

I had to go into town one day to check emails for work, and I was going to attempt the connection in Lunahuana, where our home is (which is only about a 5 minute drive in either a taxi or van). However, when I went out to catch the van, I happened to get into one that was going straight to Canete. I figured since they were heading right there, rather than stopping and waiting forever in Lunahuana, I would just go with them. This would "assure" me of good connection and limit my frustrations in trying to get the other place to work. Well, turns out that I made the wrong decision...

About half way to Canete, going up a pretty steep incline, in the middle of the desert, the van started shaking uncontrollably. Every time the driver stepped on the gas, we all would nearly get thrown into the seats in front of our own. Nearly everybody in the van (we had 19 people in a 15 passenger van - and mind you they were not all small people, and most of them came along with bags of who-knows-what that they needed to get from point A to point B) started shouting at the driver to let us out. He however, refused to give up on his van. He kept on trying and trying, until finally we were all nearly to the point of passing out from the gas fumes that were quickly filling the van. I was waiting for all of us to go up in flames at any minute. He finally pulled over, and everybody piled out - except for me of course. I got pinned when the driver got out and threw his seat backwards so he could get at the engine or whatever it was that was underneath there. His seat ended up in my lap, and to my immediate right was an elderly woman, and sitting next to her, facing the other direction, was another elderly man - both of which could hardly move. I finally couldn't stand the smell any more, and eventually crawled over the both of them and got to some fresh air.

A couple other modes of transport passed us after we had stopped, and most passengers piled in to other overcrowded van or overcrowded taxis (they would pile anywhere from 6-7 people in the taxis). Just as I was about to flag somebody down, the driver started up his van again, and assured us we would be able to go. So, I climbed back in, and hoped for the best.

The poor driver of our van - lost most of his passengers, therefore only made maybe 15 soles (about $5) for driving an hour. If he would have made it with a full van, he would have gotten maybe $17.

Once we got into town, things didn't get much better. He was FLYING (probably trying to make up lost time therefore lost money). He stepped hard on the brakes, nearly putting me on the floor since I was sitting in a seat right by the door, therefore there was nothing in front of me to stop me (and seatbelts are obviously unheard of down there...). We then felt a *thud*, and heard a yelp. Sure enough - looking through the back window I saw the poor dog was had just run over, thrashing along the side of the road. One of the women in the van started screaming as though it was HER that we had just run over. Oh, it was terrible...

After that, everybody in the van simultaneously did the sign of the cross as they tend to do before traveling, to protect their "viaje".

We eventually made it...

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...