Girasoles

Casa Girasoles Ica

Posted on Leave a Comment

Last week was spent at the Casa Girasoles Ica and working in the local schools.

The Dearborn team was the first work team to stay at the site with the boys for a long period of time. Because of the newness of everything (the Casa Girasoles Ica was inaugurated on January 20th this year) and being the first work team to stay with the boys, it was a new experience for the boys and house parents, Augusto and Nancy.

I spent every moment I had not working or sleeping, playing and talking with the boys or Augusto & Nancy. Since I had been to Ica once before this summer and I was the Scripture Union worker, I didn’t seem to be one of the team, but rather an extension of the house parents. All of the 22 boys knew my name and would call me Señorita Kate. If Augusto or Nancy weren’t around, they turned to me. I helped with homework assignments, led them in prayers and song before meals, and helped Augusto & Nancy take care of 22 boys.

Schools in Peru run a little differently than they do in the US. Instead of going to school all day, there are two shifts of children and teachers. The boys at the Casa Girasoles all go to school in the afternoon, which means they start at 1pm and are in classes until 6pm. On Wednesday evening, I was able to go with Augusto to the school to pick up the boys from classes. It was fun to see where they go to school and to surprise them. On Friday, the entire team showed up to the school with Augusto to visit the classrooms of the boys. They had no clue that we were coming and later that night, they all were talking about their special visitors to school!

Today, July 6th, is Día del Maestro (Day of the Teacher) in Peru. Augusto, who treats each one of the boys as his own sons, invited the teachers at their school to the home on Saturday to thank and show them where the boys live. Since the house is painted white, and Augusto & Nancy wanted to make a good impression on the teachers, they decided on Friday morning to repaint all the walls (both inside and out) of the large house and do a super cleaning of everything. Now, you can imagine what needs to be done to a 4-person house to be cleaned, imagine what has to be done to a house with 22 boys! Needless to say, many of the older boys stayed up quite late into the night cleaning and repainting their home.

At the party for the teachers, we played games with the teachers and boys. A few days earlier we had made the hand print shirts with the Ica boys too, and they all wore them at the teacher party. We were also fortunate to have somebody donate about 60 Beanie Babies that we were able to pass out to the boys. They carried them around all morning and during the games, many gave me their treasured gifts to keep safe while they played in the grass.

Now, I am staying in Lima for a few days before heading to another jungle site Kimo.

Dearborn team arrives in Peru

Posted on Leave a Comment


Painting, originally uploaded by katherinebruder.

Week 5 in Peru was spent with some familiar faces. A team from my home church, First Presbyterian Dearborn, arrived very late last Friday night with a couple surprises. Unbeknownst to me, my mother and brother joined the team and are down here for two weeks working with me. They told me that everybody at our church knew that they would be joining me down here, even before I left for Peru! 



We spent a week at the Kawai campsite, which is about 1 hour south of Lima on the Pacific Ocean. Now, even though the site is on the ocean, it is not beach weather. Since it is winter here in Peru, it is almost always cloudy and frequently it mists. I have rarely seen it rain here, it just feels like somebody is lightly spitting on you.
 
Due to a labor strike in the area, we are not mixing cement and doing heavy construction work like in previous years, but rather, we are striping the paint from one of the main buildings and repainting it with a clean white paint. The building really needed to be repainted and looks much better now.

This is my 8th time spending a week in Kawai. Every year, I return to this location with my team from Dearborn to see the boys that live in the Casa Girasoles Kawai. It is great to see old friends, one year older. A few nights ago, our team presented the boys with a quilt that some of the women in our church made for them, and we also made t-shirts with all of our handprints on them. Now, you would think that a 12 or 16 year-old-boy would not want to make a t-shirt, let alone wear it, but they were all excited to participate in the project. Some even put their shirts on right away, even before the paint was dry.

Now, we are in the desert city of Ica, which is about 4 hours south of Lima. Being in the desert, it is nice and warm and sunny! We are one of the first teams to stay at the Ica site in the Casa Girasoles house. There are 22 boys that live here, many of which moved into the center after the devastating earthquake that hit Peru last August (the epicenter of the earthquake was very close to Ica).


We spend the mornings working at the site, the afternoons visiting local schools and the evenings are spent with the 22 boys, who range between 6 and 15 years old. 
 
On Sunday, we visited a local church, El Shaddai, which we have gone to every year for 7 years. It was great to see Nestor & Carolina, who used to work with Scripture Union. It was also a pleasant surprise to see their newest addition to the family, Nestor Matais, who was only 12 days old! 
 


This Friday, we are going to surprise the boys that live at the Casa Girasoles Ica by visiting them at school. The home father, Augusto, explained to me that all of the boys have told their friends that a group of Americans have come to stay with them at their house and want to show us, their American friends, to their Peruvian friends.



Puerto Alegria, truly a place of happiness

Posted on Leave a Comment

Another week has passed in Peru and I just couldn’t be happier. I just returned from being in the northern part of the country, way up in the jungle by the Amazon River, from the city of Iquitos.

I had never been to Iquitos before so everything was new to me. Scripture Union has a boys home in the nearby village (even that is too much for the area, it’s more like 10 homes in one area on the River Atalya) of Puerto Alegria, where 40 boys live in the Casa Girasoles.

The site parents, Gene and Patty, live at the home with their two children and the 40 boys. (All of the SU sites are called Casa Girasoles – which means Sunflower Home. The idea is, like a real sunflower that follows the sun throughout the day, these boys will follow the Son throughout their life).

Since Puerto Alegria is in the northern jungle area of Peru, it was quite hot and humid all the time. You would wake up in the morning to humid warm weather, and go to bed at night with your sheets slightly damp. Showers didn’t help and with the construction work, it was always sweaty. Not to mention, also being in the jungle, there were a lot of interesting and new bugs – and of course the familiar mosquito. So, bug spray was a must and now I have a lot of bites all over my arms and legs.

But despite all these not-so-pleasant things, Puerto Alegria has to be one of my favorite places in Peru. The site, which means Port of Happiness, exudes happiness, fun and love. The forty boys, who range between 8 and 18, were a joy and every spare minute was spent with them. I have hundreds of photos of my new friends (one or two I will hopefully send along soon), and many fun stories and jokes shared with them. I have never felt so comfortable with these Girasoles boys. It was hard to leave the site this morning knowing that I might not be back this summer, or next year, but I’m going to try to work something out…

Now, it’s to the Pacific Ocean (where, sadly, it’s cold and gray all the time) with my home team from Dearborn!

First Two Weeks

Posted on Leave a Comment

It’s been almost two weeks since I left Michigan for a summer of working and traveling around the great Incan country of Peru.

For those of you that don’t know, I am spending my summer volunteering with Scripture Union of Peru, and organization that primarily works with former abandoned boys around the country, but also many other things. As an “intern”, I travel with the various work teams from around the US and UK, who come to Peru to work at the organization’s homes for abandoned boys, in local schools and do construction work. A typical day for a work teams includes a morning of construction work, an afternoon of songs and games at a school, and an evening with the boys that live at the various centers across the country (like an orphanage). (I’m working on uploading photos from this year, but accessing the Internet from my laptop is a rare occurrence – this is the first time I have been able to check my email in 2 weeks!).

Upon arrival to Peru, I joined a group from Southwood Presbyterian in Huntsville, Alabama. The 17-person team was made up high school juniors, seniors, recent graduates, and some parents. I, being the only one from the North, was quickly dubbed “the Yankee” and was also the one with the accent. Any time I didn’t know what they were talking about, or asked for a pop instead of a Coke, or pointed out one of our many little differences, it was explained as a “Northern thing.” I spent a part of the week with the entire team at the SU home in Kawai and a small two-day trip to the desert city of Ica, before a majority of them traveled to another work site in Cusco. The rest of the week, I returned to Kawai with the 5 remaining members to continue working, visiting schools, and playing games with the former abandoned boys.

After taking the Southwood team to the airport, I met up with a good friend, Linda, who is in charge of the entire Scripture Union schools program in Peru. Under Linda, there are workers in each of the regions and major cities of Peru. Each regional worker has many volunteers who visit their local schools everyday sharing positive values such as honesty, respect, integrity, etc. Many of the children that these people work with do not have positive home lives and are not learning these things from their parents or teachers. Each volunteer spends about one or two hours in a school, visiting classrooms and playing with the children.

This week, I am with Linda and a group of school teachers from Southlake Christian Academy in Charlotte, NC in Arequipa (city in the southern part of Peru). We arrived in Arequipa after a 14 hour bus ride from the capital city, Lima and jumped right into working! We are visiting various schools all day along, and at night, the teachers are sharing teaching tips with the SU volunteers and local teachers.

On Wednesday, I leave the group of teachers to head back to Lima to meet yet another team from North Carolina. We will spend the night in Lima and then the next day fly up to the northern city of Iquitos, which is located in the Amazon jungle. It’s quite hot and humid in Iquitos, and should be quite interesting…. After my week in Iquitos, my team from First Presbyterian Dearborn will be here for two weeks. It will be nice to see some familiar faces from home!