Puerto Alegria

Spring Review

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I can’t believe it is already January. Almost 2 weeks after Christmas. Even worse it has been almost 4 months since I have written something here and I don’t know where to begin. The whole spring season has passed… it is no longer winter here, but summer!

The busy work team season came and went. Unlike the previous three years where I basically set up my own room at Puerto Alegria (our boys home in the Amazon jungle) and lived there for 6-8 weeks, I spent almost every week at a different location this summer. To some the constant travel might be tiresome, but for me it meant a new experience each week and time with friends all over the country.

Things started to slow down in September, but just briefly. Billy and I accompanied a team from Nashville to our boys home in the Sacred Valley (just an hour outside of Cusco) for the week. Peru is a beautiful country, but I can’t think of a place that is any more beautiful here than the Sacred Valley. The valley used to be the backyard for Incan royalty, and they especially appreciated it for its special geographical and climatic qualities. It was one of the Incan empire’s main points for the extraction of natural wealth, and one of the most important areas for maize production in Peru. But apart from all of that, the valley, mountains, adobe buildings and rich colors are beautiful. Drive between the little towns about an hour before sunset and it is amazing.

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After the week in the Sacred Valley, we returned to Lima for a couple weeks to catch up on office work and prepare for the next 2 groups in October. Once October came, we hit the ground running with 2 very different teams and many hours on the road. Neither Billy or myself can really explain where the month of October went because it just flew by so fast. One minute we were meeting a group at the airport during the first week and the next, kids were roaming the neighborhood going trick or treating.

We started October by heading south to Ica for almost 2 weeks with a group from Scotland.

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And then headed north to Kusi for a few days with a team of medical volunteers from Health Bridges International. The HBI team comes to Peru about twice a year to work with Scripture Union – once in July and again usually in October. Typical HBI medical campaigns consist of setting up temporary, 1-day clinics in local schools, medical posts or even on SU property and offering free medical and dental services to the general public. On this trip, we divided the week between Kusi (about 8 hours east of Lima) and Ica (about 4.5 hours south of Lima) and the American and Peruvian medical volunteers gave personalized attention to the Girasoles boys and staff.

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November was a bit slower than October, but I managed to travel to Iquitos two separate times in the month. Billy and I spent a week helping a group from Living Waters for the World from a church in Nashville. The LWW team has installed a few different water filtration systems on SU properties and at a local church in Iquitos and they had come to check on the systems, perform maintenance as needed and scope out potential locations for another system.

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I ended up going back to Iquitos just a few days later with a small group on a vision trip. Vision trips are comprised of people who are interested in the ministry of Scripture Union Peru and want to know how they can get involved either as leading a work team or supporting the ministry financially. The 4-person group from the Hilton Head, SC area spent about 10 days in Peru and covered more country than most Peruvians do in a lifetime. I joined them exclusively for the Iquitos leg of their trip and in just 48 hours we visited our 2 boys homes, went out on the Amazon Hope boat while it refueled and flew to and from Iquitos.

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We were in Lima long enough to celebrate a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. While the services, classes and events at our church, Camino de Vida, are in Spanish, the lead/founding pastors are Americans. Each year for Thanksgiving, the couple invites the Americans who attend the church to join them for dinner at their home.

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In December, we didn’t travel with work teams but still managed to get out of Lima for various events. A weekend was spent on the beach at Kawai for a leadership training for SU staff and later in the month we ventured to Kusi for the week to celebrate Christmas with the boys there.

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It has been a busy but fulfilling and fun last few months. Each of this trips is worthy of an entry on its own – each has plenty of stories and photos to share – but time got the best of me.

Since I didn’t get to say it before, Merry (belated) Christmas and Happy 2013. As Billy and I look forward to a wedding, a well-anticipated visit of friends and family from the States, many trips with work teams, and our own trip to the States in the spring, we wish that your next year be happy, healthy, and prosperous.

*And I promise to not let another 4 months go by!

Summer 2012

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It’s been a busy past few months traveling around the country with numerous volunteer teams. I went to Kusi three times, Ica twice, Puerto Alegria for a week, and led about 7 Lima day activities for various work teams I didn’t travel with. While the constant travel can be weary, it is well worth it when I get to spend time with some pretty amazing kids and get to work with some caring and loving volunteers.

Here are some photos from a busy summer starting with 2 back to back trips to Kusi…

Afternoon soccer game at the foot of Huascarán.

Zócimo

Eloy

Andres

Two boys both named Abdias.

 

Delivering free water to people in Ica.

Luis Angel

Abel

Celebrating at Sheyli’s quinceñera party

 

Carlos, a boy who lives on the riverbank of the Itaya River in Iquitos.

A week was spent at Puerto Alegria in the Amazon jungle.

Blessing and christening the new big boat at Puerto Alegria.

Marcelo and Wellingher

Waldair and Marcelo

Maximo and Lexon

Alexis

 

And back to Kusi one more time for the summer.

Abdias

Tigger made an appearance at the 3 day Vacation Bible School.

Andres

Puerto Alegria Update

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Since my post in the beginning of April about my week in Puerto Alegria during the rainy season, I have spoken with Jherry, the director, numerous times about the river & water situation at the home.

A few days after the group and I left the home, Jherry, his wife Veronica, the staff and all 40 boys packed up their belongings and moved into the city of Iquitos. The river level kept growing and it was encroaching on the house (which is built about 4 or 5 feet above ground, about 400 feet from the river bank). Jherry told me that when they left, the water was 20cm below the kitchen floor and the boat dock and steps up to the property were completely underwater. The serpents had moved into the buildings looking for dry ground making it very dangerous to be there.

This photo of the dining room is from 2009. The water was 20cm below the floor of the building.

Meanwhile the river had taken over the property, the 40 boys and staff were living in a house built for a family of about 6. They have been confined to a smaller space than usual and living in the busy city – as opposed to the “countryside” of Iquitos. It was tight and an unexpected adventure into the city, but thanks to the end of the rainy season and God’s provision for them, the boys and staff are back in Puerto Alegria.

The boys are back in school (since classes were temporarily stopped because of the floods, they go to school Monday through Saturday to recuperate the lost days) and life is somewhat back to normal at the house. Over the next month or so, they will be working on repairing any damage that was caused from the water and cleaning up the debris left from when the water receded.

Please join me in keeping the boys and staff at Puerto Alegria in your prayers as they transition back into life at the home and safety as they are cleaning up the property. I’ll be heading to Puerto Alegria in a month with a group and I absolutely cannot wait to see everybody there.

Puerto Alegria Underwater

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I had the pleasure last week of heading north to the Amazon jungle with a group from Philadelphia for a week to see some familiar faces living at the Scripture Union homes in Iquitos and Puerto Alegria, a little village about 45 minutes by boat outside of the city.

As I have mentioned before, Iquitos is the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest and is surrounded by three rivers: the Nanay, Itaya and Amazon. The city can only be reached by airplane or boat, and houses along the three rivers are either built on stilts or floating logs, which rise and fall with the river water levels.

Houses along the Itaya River built on stilts – June 2008

Houses along the Nanay River on floating logs – August 2011

We started our week off by visiting the older boys (13 and up) that are now living at the newly formed Girasoles Iquitos home. While the location is different and some the faces are new, it is always a joy to spent time with kids that I have seen grow up over the past 3 years.

After saying goodbyes, we headed out to Puerto Alegria where we would spend the majority of our time with the little boys (who are 12 and under). Along the way, it was quite evident that the rainy season this year had hit Iquitos much harder than in years past. Boarding the boat that would take us to Puerto Alegria, it was hard not to notice the dozens of tents that had sprung up along the bank as temporary shelters because the occupant’s home was flooded – or more aptly put, completely underwater.

Many houses only had an exposed thatched roof – the rest was completely underwater like this home.

By the time we arrived to Puerto Alegria, the sun had set and it was hard to fully comprehend how much the river had increased – it had grown so much that the floor of the maloca (which is at the entrance of the house at the riverbank) was completely covered in at least 3 feet of water – this doesn’t take into account that the maloca floor is elevated at least 12 feet off the ground, and all of that was underwater too. Talking with Jherry, the director of the home in Puerto Alegria, he said that if the water levels grew another 2 centimeters (which was expected), they would surpass the city’s record.

Usually, none of this is underwater.

These stairs were completely underwater – from August 2010

Despite the constraints dry locations (we could pretty much only do things in the dining room), we had a very fun week with the 40 boys living in Puerto Alegria. Since the high river level flooded the school, classes were cancelled indefinitely until the students could return safely. I can’t imagine a more perfect group to have been in Puerto Alegria that week because without knowing that the boys would be off of school, they had prepared many games & activities to do with them. It was a blessing to both the team and the boys that they were able to spend almost all week together, from early morning to late evening.

Since it was Holy Week, the group shared about what the week meant but also brought a few traditions that American children participate in during Easter. We had an Easter egg hunt (which turned into bob for eggs in the flooded soccer field), the boys made & decorated Easter baskets (which were “filled” by the Easter bunny) and we had a Easter party, including decorations.

And, of course we made the customary trek to Iquitos with the boys to go to the Quistococha Zoo and the group was generous enough to invite the boys & staff to a pollo a la brasa lunch and the movies.

It was rainy at the zoo, so Alvaro and Presley turned a garbage bag into a rain jacket
Lexon & Job Neber, brothers

Marcelo & Alexis at lunch

It was the first time Lenin had pollo a la brasa. We had to take a photo with his first chicken!

We ended the week with dance and skit presentations and a dance party on the last evening. Of the 40 boys at Puerto Alegria, the majority of them are new. Despite that I had spent 2 months at the home during summer 2011, many of these boys arrived after I left. I enjoyed seeing the new faces, learning new names and being able to share a bit with them. For many, this volunteer group was their first experience with a group of foreigners who had come from far away to play and have fun with them. As we left Puerto Alegria to head to the Iquitos airport, we all couldn’t help but talk about how great it was to hear laughter and see big smiles on the faces of these boys – many who are at least a 3 day boat ride from their family & home.



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A little bonus sighting at the end of the trip? President Ollanta Humala was visiting Iquitos, surveying the water damage from the river and declaring a state of emergency for the region. We caught glimpses of him boarding Peru’s equivalent of Air Force One at the Iquitos airport before our flight took off. Humala is the man in the white shirt boarding the airplane.

The Business Trip

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About a month ago while I was scanning my Facebook news feed, I noticed that a few of my friends had mentioned that they were away on “business trips”. I love to travel and the idea of being able to travel with work always enticed me. I know it would be work, but the adventure of going somewhere always sounded great. While reading the wonderful places my friends were jetting off to, like London, San Francisco, Venice and Washington DC, I found myself wanting to trade places with them and go myself. But after a few minutes, I didn’t think much more about it.

A couple nights ago, I returned from spending almost the past two weeks on the road. Starting in Kawai, our property located 88km south of Lima on the Pacific Ocean, I helped a water filtration team from Tennessee install a system on the property. Kawai and I have a long history since it is the location that I visited on my first trip in 2001, and then kept returning to for the 7 years with a group from First Presbyterian. It is a beautiful piece of beach front property with lots of green grass, palm trees and wonderful people. After a few days in Kawai and another couple days in Lima, we boarded a plane to head north to Iquitos and our boys home at Puerto Alegria. The water team had an installation planned for a church in the district of Punchana (just outside Iquitos) and wanted to perform some maintenance on their system at Puerto Alegria. Since the team spoke little Spanish, and part of their program includes teaching about the importance of using clean, purified water and how to properly and effectively wash your hands, I went with them to help teach.

Working with the children a church in Punchana.

The Living Waters team with their install at Kawai.

After spending a couple weeks with the group, it was time to return home. As packed up my suitcase and boarded the plane to Lima, I couldn’t help thinking, “Why would I be so silly and want to trade places with my business traveling friends?!” They get to go to neat places and travel with work, but hey – so do I! They go to cities where they only know work colleagues, stay in impersonal hotels and just work all day. But when I travel with work, I go to work with friends, stay in their homes and not just “work” all day, but get to have fun. Lots of fun.

I get to see people like Jherry, our house father and director of the home in Puerto Alegria.

I get to spend time with people like Wixler, who I have known for many years.

And, I get to take silly photos with silly boys. (Thank you Luis for that photobomb…)

So, even though I’m not going off to the same wonderful places I dreamed of as a child, I’m going to familiar places – to where people know me and I know them; to people who greet me with open arms and to a job that is never completed.

And all of that is just fine with me.