I'm probably going to have to do this in a couple of sessions so please bear with me.
Peru is a wonderful country with happy loving people. It wasn't really what I expected. When we were briefed on this trip the way people were talking I was expecting to not have anything (or very much) to eat and the place being so filthy that I wouldn't want to bring my clothes home. What the reality was was far from that picture.
We stayed in the city of Trujillo with a population of approx 800,000. It's a big city but it's not like our cities in the sense that it's definitely a third world country. But I felt safe walking down the streets despite the surrounding paranoia about the crime.
There seem to be 500 little taxi's to every 2 cars. It's a very noisy city too but one where you seem to walk everywhere or you take a taxi. Good luck crossing the street because traffic signals are merely a suggestion.
Within the city there are poor and rich neighborhoods just like any where else. The difference is that the poor neighborhoods are like nothing in the states. Here the poor can get welfare or food stamps. They can shop at the Goodwill on half price day. There is no help from the government for these people.
On the outer limits of Trujillo are what us gringo's call the barrios. They are like pieces of a pie and they stretch from the city to the mountains or the ocean. The mountain people come down to look for work and settle in these places. The one thing the government does do is if you squat on a piece of land in the barrio they give you that land. Only a certain size though I'm not sure of the dimensions. They then can build what ever structure they can to live in. They start out with like a woven grass wall hut or one made from card board all with sand floors. Trujillo is one big sand pile. If these people find work they save there money so they can pay $150 sol($50 US) for a load of clay to make bricks with. They mix this with sand. Every where you go you can see these bricks being dried in the sun. I watched a young woman turn bricks for a couple of hours one day to make sure they all dried. (I would have helped but we were busy with the kids) Even when they can finally use bricks there roofs are grass and their floors are dirt. They can have electricity also. What I saw was a cord hanging through a roof with a bare bulb in several homes and there isn't running water anywhere. They either buy water from the store or a truck comes and fills up a community cistern where they all get their water from. They all seem to have outhouses.
In barrio 4 we didn't have access to a community center because they didn't have one yet so we had to use a church members house. Sweet lady (Barrio directors wife) to let us use her banios. It was a little three sided house with a toilet with no seat and a curtain for a door. Not private at all and unfortunately one of the ladies with us was very sick that day. We went everywhere in twos so I sat in this lovely woman's house while Christine was not having fun. What I saw in this house was some furniture lifted on bricks so it wouldn't sink into the sand floor. She had a bare bulb light hanging from the ceiling and a TV. She was watching Mexican novella's. She had hung a faded picture of a beautiful garden on the wall. She had made the best of her little house that she could. Behind me she was washing the families cloths in a bucket and hanging them out back to dry. Out back was the banios the clothesline and a clay cooking stove and two separate rooms for sleeping. They slept on foam mats. That was all they had. But in this Barrio she was the rich one in the neighborhood. We take so much for granted. But that was our last day.... Let me back up a bit.
Monday we started our day going to the hospital burn unit in the city. The hospital had a sign that said it was built in the 1500's. There was not A/C or heat in this hospital so every window was open. The equipment looked like it was new in the 1950's. The three people in the burn unit were in very bad shape. There was a two year old that was burned on half her body and an 11 year old that was burned on her lower body. The 20 year old woman was severely burned on her face. From what I could tell you could be taken here and treated at minimum with very little money but if you needed surgery or major help you had to wait till you had the money. There was a young girl there that had fallen down a hill and severely injured herself. She was laying on her stomach at an odd angle and had been in that position for three months. She now had a severe infection in her hip and didn't have the money to have it treated. There was a little boy that was born with Hydrocephalus. (water on the brain) His parents had saved the money to have his head drained once but it was needed again and he was blind now from the pressure and his little head was swollen twice the size. He need surgery again or he will die but his family couldn't afford it. The hospital was very sad and hard to visit. We prayed with as many as we could and danced and sang and made them smile. We passed out coloring books and food and tried to give the parents hope.
That afternoon we went to our first Barrio to visit and help in the one room kindergarten. We played with the kids and told them about Jesus and did crafts. Yep we got to talk about Jesus in a school house. It was amazing. We then went to the Community center and called for the kids by playing Christian kid music as loud as it would go. It's the call to gather there. And they came... We did a skit for them about the Good Samaritan we sang and danced and played games and gave as much love as we could give. It was magical and we were exhausted.
Day two started in the city again going to a make shift special needs school. We were the only group to do things in the city each day. This school was started by parents with autistic kids that weren't getting help. They did the best they could but it was all volunteer. I had never been around severely autistic kids before and it was an eye opener for me. Kayle (my daughter) really lit up. She really has a gift for kids. She was great with them. We helped them with their daily activities in learning and played games that helped them learn and develop. Then from there it was to Barrio 2. This Barrio is built on a land fill. It reminded me of the pictures of India you see where the poor live on the land fill. This was sports day. We were there to teach the kids some sports and play. We taught them Baseball and basketball. They schooled us in Soccor and volleyball. These people love volleyball. Kayle played soccor I helped the little kids make paper Elephant puppets.
I will be posting more later my hands are tired.
Blessings,
Sherry
