Chispas House Covering Today!

Today, I (Courtney) had a 9-hour house covering in the youngest girls' house (herein referred to as "casita").  The name of this casita is Chispas de Amor, or, Sparks of Love.  Despite being extremely nervous last night and this morning, everything worked out well (I only had to punish 1 of my girls today).  Here's a snapshot of what I did today:
.Arrive at the casita at 7:45 to get instructions from the madre.
.Color some of the pages from a coloring book I had copied.  (I also learned during this time that princesses are WAY cooler than nature to color.  Thankfully, I had plenty of princess coloring pages on hand.)
.Play an easy version of charades (which was a somewhat new game for them, and a game that the LOVED.  Point for me.)
.Do puzzles
.Watch Aladdin with Tio David (who was kind enough to come hang out with me for awhile)
.Go get the baby's lunch and feed her.
.Clean up and then go get lunch with the rest of the girls in the comedor.
.Stay and finish eating with the last of the girls, then help clean up, make sure teeth get brushed, and give them vitamins (they take the chewable animal kind, and they think the vitamins taste like candy).
.Play outside on the playground (this was where the punishment came in.  Another little boy put some sand down one of my girls' shirts and she started pummeling him.  She threw some impressive punches for a little girl but, nevertheless, I took her inside for awhile and then proceeded to hunt down and punish the sand-throwing punk.)
.Give the baby a bottle and put her down for a nap.
.Another round of charades and coloring
.A group from a nearby church came and handed out candy and cupcakes to the kids...yum!
.More playing outside, and reading inside...this was actually my favorite part of the day: snuggling with about half of the girls, baby on my lap, reading fabulous books about a mouse dentist who tricks a wolf patient, career day at school, and one very hungry caterpillar. 
I decided at the end of this day that, while I like kids and want to have my own someday, I definitely do not want to have 9 kids under the age of 10.  It was simply impossible to keep my eyes on all of them all day and I spent half of my time worrying about the girls that were out of eye sight, hoping they weren't picking on someone or jumping off the top of the slide.  On the other hand, I was delighted to find that some of the girls in the house were really into books.  Even one of the girls who could read pretty well by herself couldn't get enough of me reading to her.  <3 Oh, so much love for that sweet girl!  Anyway, here are some pictures of the girls that I took care of today.  Enjoy! -C

Watching Aladdin

Oh yeah, we built a fort, too, out of chairs and blankets

Hey, let's see if we can put our feet behind our heads!

Coloring!

The end of the fort

We got mail!

Sneaky, sneaky (and delicious)!

Today we had the excitement of receiving a packet of letters for us.  It looks like the packet took only about a week to get from Jenison, Michigan,USA to Trujillo, Peru!! We received cards and letters from our Hillcrest post-high friends as well as from several other members of our church, Hillcrest CRC.  And clever Sally Dykstra snuck some PopRocks in with her card, which we enjoyed immensely!  Thank you!  So many of you asked us questions…hopefully we can blog you all some answers soon!  We have taped all of these cards to one of our living room walls, where we can read them as often as we’d like….especially when we’re feeling down or wondering if our work here really makes a difference.  

Don't worry, folks, there's plenty more room on the wall for more!

 And sometimes I do wonder.  Our work here is hard, and some days it’s REALLY hard.  When I’m told as I’m leaving my office for the day that I need to plan activities overnight for a group of kids for the next day, and that our washing machine flooded the floor, and that 14 kids need photos (lost among the 400 other photos on the memory card) printed NOW for their homework the next morning, and that I have 2 meetings tomorrow (times still TBD)…or maybe they’ll end up being Monday… that I need to prepare for, I feel the heavy, almost crushing weight of my work here.  Then I see the cards on our wall and feel all the love and support from our friends in the States.  I remember that even though I feel like I’m carrying the world on my shoulders, I really have the support of so many other people, and that makes the weight feel at least a little bit lighter. 

So thank you to everyone out there for sharing just a little bit of my load whether it be through prayer, encouraging words, or candy (Kristi, we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of your package)!

In addition to the arrival of our packet of letters today, an excitement of the week was yesterday, when we celebrated the Month of the Bible (September) with Bible memory, Bible songs, and skits.  Each of the 4 casitas worked this month on these performances (with the help of some of our dedicated volunteers).  One of the highlights for me was the Tesoros house (littlest boys) belting out “Jesus Loves Me” in Spanish…and then in English.  I wish we had recorded it on video…it was one of my favorite moments so far at the orphanage.  The volunteers also banded together to put on a “skit.”  We decided to do it game-show style: “Which of the Ten Commandments are We Breaking?”  We acted out 10 different real-life examples of ways we sometimes break the ten commandments and had the kids guess which one it was.  They LOVED it, especially when Justin Bieber (aka David Busscher) sang his hit song “Baby” and was swarmed by screaming fans…can you guess which commandment that was?

The Amigos (older boys' casita) doing their skit of Daniel and Goliath

3 boys from the Tesoros house--Adorable!

Look at how much David loves his money :(

Ashley coveting my teddy bear

Justin Bieber being adored by his fans

 Oh, and just so you all know, I have the greatest husband EVER.  We’re in a foreign country, and he still manages to bring me flowers just to brighten up my day.  Who’s the luckiest girl in the world?  That’s right, it’s me.  -C

P.S. Bible month photo credit goes to Samantha Alday :)  Thank you!

This Morning

My day started at 6:55, when I rolled out of bed to have our devotional and prayer time at 7:00 with the other volunteers.  (and now you know who the I is, as Courtney prefers being slightly better kempt for said prayer time).  At 7:30, Bryson and I went to bring four the kids to school.  The van wouldn’t start, so we had to push it into place next to the bus so we could jump in from the bus.  This week, every day except Thursday, the vehicles wouldn’t start.  Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, neither one would start so we had to push them to get them started (they’re both manuals).  Turns out, a 40ish passenger bus is a difficult thing to push fast enough to get it started.  

Anyway, Bryson navigated the crazy Peruvian traffic—what with unmarked intersections, indeterminate numbers of lanes on each road, and pedestrians who apparently want to die—and got the kids safely to school.  Given that we had an annoying start with a vehicle that wouldn’t start, we decided to treat ourselves to a Peruvian wonder that Bryson recently introduced me to: Nectar de Cana, aka Sugar cane juice.  There is a stand on the side of the road—on the way back to the orphanage where they serve it, along with various other fresh pressed drinks including various cacti.  It’s pretty cool to watch.  You walk up, say you want some nectar de cana, and the girl takes three chunks of sugarcane, cuts them down the middle, and then cranks them through a hand press, where the juices run down into a cup.  It’s essentially frothy liquid sugar, and is very, very tasty.  It turns a bad morning into a good morning.  We got some roasted peanuts from an old lady sitting near there, I bought some flowers for Courtney, and we headed back the albergue to start our day.

At a little after 9:00 I started working again on fixing a laptop that had a keyboard and touchpad that wouldn’t work.  After reading through a bunch techi blogs and some Q&A sites, I did a hard reset on it and now it works wonderfully (huzzah).  Then, I went to spray insecticide on the trees in our orchard.  However, the giant metal sprayer-backpack thing had a couple leaks that I needed to fix first, which I found it soon after I pumped it up—first, it sprayed out the back because the hose wasn’t sealed correctly, and once I fixed that, the sprayer shot off the other end of the hose because it was connected well either.  Sigh.  Oh, and I tried to help hold the mop head holder that Bryson was trying to weld back together, but to little avail.  After spraying the trees, I went and watered the garden, which I had tilled and planted seeds in earlier this week.  Hopefully at some time in the future we’ll have beets, lettuce, and a couple beans or spices or something  (I just asked the cook what she wanted me to plant and she picked out from among our cans of seeds...I’m still not clear on what they are).  At some point in all this, I got to read a couple books to the four pre-school boys, which was awesome.  They really like Where the Wild Things Are, (in Spanish of course), and love making monster growling noises, as well as telling me which of the monsters are good monsters and which of them are bad monsters.  (The good monsters are the ones that are smiling, and the bad monsters are the ones that aren’t.  They pet the pictures of the good monsters and hit the pictures of the bad monsters).  I very much like kids, and that beat out the sugarcane juice for my highlight of the day.

Anyway, At 12:15, I walked over to the elementary school and picked up the little kids.  One of them was naughty and smacked another one in the face (quite viciously), and then he didn’t want to sit in his timeout, so I had to hold him in the timeout spot until he’d stay there himself.  15 minutes later, after 10 minutes of being straight jacketed, he finally was able to leave.  At 12:45 we left to pick of the kids at the school in down, with me driving.  It’s a stick, and the days in my life that I’ve driven stick wouldn’t make much more than a week, and it’s in Peruvian traffic, and I’m still figuring out the route, but I managed drive there and back well enough.  Oh, and I think we had to jump it again.  And pour water in the radiator, because it’s leaking badly.

And that was my morning. (and yes, my morning didn’t end until 1:30, but that’s because they don’t eat lunch until 1:30 here.  Aka, morning goes until 1:30)  -D

No guinea pig yet...

not our ceviche

...BUT we did have ceviche for lunch today.  Ceviche is raw fish that is marinated in lime juice until the acidic juice “cooks” the fish.  I’ve been told that North American limes aren’t strong enough to cook the fish sufficiently…so don’t try this at home!  Ceviche is often mixed with chile peppers, onions, and/or tomatoes.  The dish is said to have originated a long, long time ago in the area which is present-day Peru.  

A few days ago, we bought our first (and last?) bottle of Inca Kola.  It is probably the most popular soda around here.  It is more carbonated than your standard cola and tastes like a lot like bubble gum.  David thinks its taste resembles Jones Soda; I think this is because of the type of sugar it uses.  I’m not a fan of it, so I’ll probably just stick to my Pepsi.  

not ours either

In the past week, we also had lomo saltado which is another traditional Peruvian dish.  It’s basically strips of beef with pieces of tomato and onion served with white rice and French fries. (Well, technically, they’re just called fried potatoes here, but to the norteamericana that I will forever be, they’re French fries and will be eaten always with Heinz ketchup.)  I think this may have been my favorite meal at the orphanage to date. 

Some of our less adventurous food endeavors this past week included pizza (from Pizza Hut, no less), grilled cheese, and eggs and bacon.  Stay tuned for my review of the cheesecake (or milkshake…I haven’t decided yet) we’re planning on stopping for after church tomorrow!  -C

Becoming Peruvian

            We’ve been in Peru for a long time now—(well actually three weeks or something, but it feels like a long time).  The initial culture shock and jet lag have worn off and we’re beginning to feel like life here is more or less “normal.”  We’re used to our kitchen being outdoors, we’re used to wearing our shoes inside, we’re used to dogs roaming the streets, we’re used to lunch at 1:30 and dinner at 7:30, we’re used to 2+ hour church services, we’re used to catching and riding Peruvian buses, and we’re used to sleeping under a mosquito net.  Our room/apartment-ish thing here now feels like home—our furniture is where we want it, we have tons of pictures on the walls, and I can now successfully navigate it in the dark middle of the night without running in to things. 

            However, plenty of things here are still able to surprise, annoy, and/or rankle us (Courtney hates that word, so now you know it’s David writing this ;-).  Things generally not working are one big source of annoyance—the water is off here about 4 times a day while our water tank is being refilled, which gets really inconvenient when you need to do laundry or wash dishes.  Lots of lights don’t work and most of the plastic chairs here are broken in some way.  More acutely troubling to us lately has been the fact that our hot water heater for our shower has been useless for about half a week now.  The Peruvian conception of time still takes getting used to—a meeting set for 9 simply won’t start til 9:30—and getting someone to stick to a schedule or to behave in a task-oriented way is like pulling teeth.  Frustrating to me especially is that people very much like to discuss every possible way of doing something, but almost always just stick with the way it’s always been done.  The fact that a different way might be more efficient or save time and energy doesn’t carry nearly as much weight around here as in America. 

            Oh, and because I forgot to mention it earlier, we’re (and especially I’m) used to being dirty.  The coal storage facility next door coats the orphanage like it’s a chimney from a century ago.  The leaves are black, the floors are black, the kids our black, and the insides of our lungs are probably black too.  Besides the coal, it turns out that playing with, holding, and being around kids who roll around in the coal-covered dirt makes you even more dirty.  You just can’t say no to that cute little dirt-covered kid who wants to be held, but they definitely leave their mark on you (and Courtney is a pun scrooge, so now you for sure know it’s me). 

            Finally, we eat like Peruvians.  Rice, rice, rice, pasta, and about half a gram of meat a day is their standard fare.  Courtney and I supplement it with other food, like peanut butter, but the other day we realized how much we’d already changed: We made a trip out to Pizza Hut, and were only able to eat a tad over half a large pizza between us.  Now, this may sound just fine to those of you not recently graduated from college and/or not any longer a guy who pretends like his metabolism hasn’t slowed down yet, but to me half a pizza still sounds like a midnight snack for one, not a meal for two.  However, sometimes we still manage to eat like Americans.  This evening is a prime example: We cooked a pack of bacon, made five grilled cheeses in the bacon grease, and then ate it all.  That pile of grease has a warm place in my heart. -D