September 11, 2002 - Piura, Peru
I am back in Peru for the next month. I will be volunteering in Piura in northern Peru. I arrived in the city yesterday, and helped load many bags of clothes and distribute them in a neighborhood. Today I am translating letters from English into Spanish. I am not sure what will be next, but it seems like it will be interesting.
September 13, 2002 - Piura, Peru
I was awoken this morning at 5:23 AM to an earthquake. No damage, just a nice and early wake up call.
September 26, 2002 - Piura, Peru
I am still working in Piura. There are a lot good projects in action here. There are 500 families that have a sponsor family in the US and receive a sack of rice, a bag of beans, powder milk, and soap every month. There is lots of buying, sorting, loading, and delivering. We bring sacks of donated clothes to neighborhoods and distribute them. Other families have specific requests for new mattresses or kitchen supplies. We handed out pencils and paper to children at a school with 200 students and 4 teachers. We built a new house for a family. A typical house has a metal roof, bamboo beams, woven mats of bamboo for walls, and dirt floors. A family will live in the house with only a couple of beds, an old table, clothes, and kitchen supplies. If they are lucky to have a steady job, a typical salary is less than $5/day ($1500/year). The people I work with have big hearts, and I will be sad to leave all their big smiles.
I am living in a convent for less than $100 a month for my own room and 3 meals a day. It has all of the luxuries you would expect in a convent: cold showers, thin mattresses, and a curfew. But it is home, and I am part of the family. There are 5 Sisters that live in a different part of the building who teach religion in the schools. I live with about 8 young Peruvian girls who are studying in high school or university. They are teaching me slang and have infectious laughs.
I went on a pilgrimage with 17 other people I have been working with. On my first day in Piura, they asked me if I wanted to join them on a hike. I enjoy hiking, so I said yes. Slowly over the last couple of weeks I got the entire story, and it was not until the last day I figured out the magnitude of this journey. Thousands and thousands of people walk from all directions to visit the "Virgen de las Mercedes" in Paita. Some people walk for days. We only had to walk 37 miles. At one time, and during the night. There was no training program. There was no carbo-loading dinner. There were no gatorade stops every mile. Some people walked in flip flops. Some people carried 5 year old children. The focus was on mental and spiritual strength and not physical. I made it the 37 miles to the Virgin. Somehow a day later my body is not tired, just really hungry.
October 4, 2002 - Piura, Peru
My last days in Piura were full of similar activities as above - minus the long walk. I spent a lot of time in a pickup delivering food, clothes, toys and furniture. I either sat between Pema and Manuel in front (and turned up the volume every time one of my favorite catchy Spanish song came on the radio), or I rode in the back and waved as "hola, gringa" echoed in the streets. There were 2 more earthquakes. And there was a night a salsa dancing that caused me to miss my curfew. I promise it was not my fault. I ended my month in Peru in dramatic fashion with a 103.5F temperature and all that goes along with food poisoning and an intestinal bug. I was very lucky to get sick around friends that checked on my day and night and offered 30 different teas, remedies, and massages (with and without eggs) to get me better. In the end I tend to believe that the tylenol and cipro did the trick, but I will never really know. As my bus left Piura a group of friends waved goodbye to the visitor known as Gringa - trece/quince - mochilera - y a veces Kathy. I made a 24 hour journey south to Bolivia.
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