I'm Here...

We did not land last night until 10 pm. By the time we cleared customs, etc. it was after 11. Then, there was a 45 minute drive to the house.

There are about 41 volunteers here right now, and the house is very crowded. Some are from Australia, some from Canada, quite a few from New York, and then everywhere in between the two coasts of the U.S. Ages vary as well. I share a room with 4 other women, and I share the bathroom with 10 other women! It would be like college again if there was actually more than 1 toilet and 1 shower for so many people!

We volunteers started today with our placements. Some people have already been here for weeks, so we newbies had a little tour to all the placement sites first. My placement is in Villa El Salvador, a "town" within Lima. I am working at a Wawa Wasi, which means "Baby House." This center is run by an aerobics instructor who basically operates it on her own dime. The government supplies rice and oil. I actually help out in a room for 1 to 2 year olds that are suffering from severe malnutrition, which in Andean descent in seen by reddish hair and white spots on their cheeks. The parents of the kids that attend this center are mainly single moms. About 1/5 of Peru lives in "absolute poverty," which means that a family of four lives on less than $1 a day. The children, not surprisingly, had no problem with my lack of Spanish. However, the other women who work there do not speak English. We used a lot of mutual sign language today. The other volunteers have placements anywhere from a home for disabled people, a senior citizen center in a poor neighborhood, a health clinic, a day care center that is run by the government (much nicer than the one I help at), and a physical therapy center.

Some cultural revelations: 1)You cannot flush toilet paper down the toilets here (you can figure out what you do with it); 2) Lima is huge, the city is about the size of the entire state of Rhode Island; 3) My Spanish is in desperate need of improving; 4)the dogs are aplenty; they just run around on the streets; 5) the children attend public school in 2 shifts. One shift goes from 8 to noon; the other half of students go from 2 pm to 6pm; 6) Llama and passionfruit are actually really good tasting; 7) Lima is in a desert region on the coast, which means there are cacti and palm trees right next to one another. During their winter (right now), the humidity actually makes it cooler outside, and the sun is rarely seen.

Today was definitely an eye-opening experience. Everybody here is so nice, and I have met some very interesting people. More to come later.