Newsletter

April 2, 2006
I am sad to say this will be our last newsletter from Huaycan. We are leaving April 7th to return to the USA and our 3.74 acres in Wisconsin. It has been a wonderful experience, but like all great things, must come to an end. The project (bakery) that Dave was going to work on has still not begun and at this point we don't know if it will. Therefore, his main reason for being here has not materialized. We have had a great time with other projects in the meantime, but we have now run out of money and think that we can do a better job of supporting this community by raising money in the US than by spending the small amount we have left every month. We have finished up all of our projects.

The first completion was the final dinner for my English class. We invited the whole class for dinner at our home. Dave made pancakes (about 100+), fried ham, made scrambled eggs and we served all that with orange juice to them. They all absolutely loved the pancakes and we have given out the recipe many times since that. We feel that when we return to Huaycan, we will find everyone eating pancakes! We had a great time and I sincerely hope my students continue to learn English.

The next project completed was the dedication of the soup kitchen. We had a great time that day. They had a wonderful meal and probably fed 100 people. We were excited to learn that the other food kitchen in the area (It was in really bad shape also.) has joined with the one we built. They now have well over 100 people to feed each day which means they have more money to spend and better meals. It works out better all the way around. Mariam, the president of the soup kitchen, has done a marvelous job keeping it going with little or no support. May God continue to bless her work and that of the other cooks at the kitchen as they feed their community.

Two of the ladies we have worked with at the soup kitchen at the church came to the celebration also and it was great to have their support. They are such special ladies. They have both spent 17 years volunteering five days a week making meals for mostly the street people in central Huaycan. These people have no money, they sleep outside, they are dirty and wear the same clothes for days at a time. What angels these ladies are to serve these people every weekday.

We also have spent a significant amount of time this month with the Canto family. We saw Estefania through her surgery - she is all healed and back in school. She doesn't hide her hands any more and she can wear shoes that really fit - it's wonderful for her. What a blessing those surgeons were!

We decided last month that we wanted to help Rosita Canto get started in some type of business so that she would be able to better support her family. When we asked her what she wanted to do, she said she had sold vegetables at a stand before Tadeo was born and would like to do that again. So we sat down and decided what she needed, had a table made, bought a scale, and sent her to the market with enough money to buy vegetables to get started. This sounds really easy, but the true story is that she takes Maria Te (she's 13) and they get on the bus around 2 a.m. in the morning, ride into Lima to the wholesale market, shop, and bring back their vegetables in time to open around 7:00 a.m. and then she stays open until about 2:00 p.m. Maria Te sleeps on the bus so that she can go to school the next day. The other kids stay home and Estefania is responsible for getting them off to school. They are bringing back sacks full of potatoes, carrots, onions, ginger and alfalfa. They are very heavy and it is a major undertaking to accomplish this. The first time she went all was well, except she ran into some problems with her landlord (for the store) and a significant portion of her vegetables spoiled before she sold them. The second time she went, she had 50 soles stolen at the market, got really nervous, and came back home. This has been a rocky start, but we think it will work. It's a very hard way to earn a living.

Along with this, Dave had another idea for her. Cuy (guinea pigs) are a very special meal for the people from the Andes Mountains. They are raised by people and sell for 25 soles each. That's one day's wages for the average person here! They buy them for special occasions. Anyway, Dave thought raising cuyes and selling them would be a good business for the Canto kids. They can use the vegetables that did not sell to feed the cuyes so they wouldn't have as much waste. Plus cuyes are a good source of income and don't require a lot of care. So, off we go to have cages made, buy alfalfa and buy cuyes to start with. She now has one male and 3 young females and 1 pregnant female. Soon she will have 3 or 4 more. There have been some ups and downs, but things seem to be smoothing out now. Since I started this, 3 new babies were born. We now have 8 cuyes. We are hoping that these two businesses plus her washing clothes will give them enough money and a little less stress than before. We want her to get on her feet so that she won't run out of money and doesn't have to rely on us or the church or whoever to keep her family fed.

I have put in pictures of Brian and the cuy. We never made it up there when Rosita had her vegetable stand open, so didn't get any pictures of that.

I have also enclosed pictures of Doris, Jesus and her business. We were on our way up to Rosita's one day and ran into Doris. She is a young lady that had a small shop right on the corner of the main park. She did not own it, however, and was in danger at anytime of losing it. Several months ago the city of Huaycan was giving out grants to business people for expansion etc. She applied for one and got it. As a result she was able to move her business into a building farther up the hill. It is owned by a relative that wasn't using it, so she can live there and have her shop there as well.

We also made a trip this month back to Matucana for more cheese. We are going to try to bring some back to the US. Dave wants to try his hand at making cheese and wants the culture from this cheese to start the process.

Our last night in Huaycan we had our friends over for dinner and, again, served pancakes. We spent the evening sharing stories of our time together and singing wonderful Peruvian, Mexican and American songs. It was just the best time ever. We had Freddy and his sister Cecilia to assist us. They are incredibly talented young people. We helped Freddy set up a music school. As a result of his talent, he has been asked to represent Peru in France, Italy and Holland for 3 months this summer. He will be the director of a group of young people that will present traditional Peruvian music throughout these countries as part of an international music program. What an incredible experience for him and his students. We are so proud of him. His brother will run his school while he is gone and he will resume upon his return.

That about wraps up our activities this month. We have created a compilation (coming soon) of all the faces of the people we have come to know and love. After all, the whole reason we were here was to work with, learn about, and enjoy the people. If we have excluded someone, we are sorry. Everyone we have met is very special to us and will always be remembered as we begin our next adventure in Wisconsin. We are not saying goodbye - we are just changing our focus to raising funds and supporting other people as they make the same journey we have made. This has been just the best experience we have ever had - truly a lifetime opportunity. God has blessed us and we will never be able to forget the last 9 months. We extend our thanks and appreciation to the Peruvians for making us welcome and, especially to Luis for all his dedication to our various projects. Without him we would have accomplished very little. He will always have a warm spot in our hearts whenever we remember Huaycan.

Thanks to all of you also for your prayers and e-mails and financial support. Each one of you were a part of this adventure as well - we couldn't have accomplished as much or been as happy here if we hadn't known we had friends and family back home that care. Our last picture is our little piece of heaven in Wisconsin. Soon it will have a dome home, a garden, some chickens and some fruit trees. Keep watching our site as we will be updating it with our progress on our house as well as our fundraising projects for Love For Peru.

Dios te bendiga
Dave and Kathy

P.S. We are back in Wisconsin and it is wonderful to be with family again! Our last week in Huaycan was happy and sad and everything in between as we partied and said goodbye to all of our new family. Thank you all for your good wishes and we will always remember each of you.

March 1, 2006
Well, today is the first of March and spring for all of you is just around the corner. We are coming to the end of summer here, so it will be cooler, dryer, and probably dustier.We have had a very busy two months since January first. We will cover the highlights with words and pictures.

Our first project was to complete our classroom/reading room downstairs. It is finished and is being used for an English class twice a week, a children's Bible school every Saturday morning and a women's Bible study every Saturday evening. I also had a four-week class for the down's syndrome children at the Association.

The down's syndrome class met on Monday and Wednesday afternoons for 3 hours. We were going to do all five days, but things kept getting in the way (doctor appointments for the kids, teacher not available, etc.), so we cut to only two days. We expected four students - had two for two classes and then only one for the rest. But what a treat it was! Evelyn was so excited to come to school. She is 17 and has been out of school for two years and really misses it. She even had her old folder from two years ago which she brought. We had a great time practicing the alphabet, coloring pictures, doing puzzles and reading stories.

The Bible school is a success - ranging from 6 to 12 students every week. I found a book of the basic Bible stories, Old and New Testament, with a DVD that tells the stories with comicbook type characters - it's great and the kids love it. So we play the DVD, then we re-enact the story with the felt board, then we talk about it and finally do a craft of some kind. I found a website that has crafts for all the basic Bible stories for children, so I use it as my source for stories.

The women's Bible study is really a restart of the one Luisa had going last summer. We have a teacher from her church that leads the lessons (I did one, though, when she was gone and will fill in whenever she is not available.). She is an excellent teacher and really knowledgeable about the Bible.

Our English class meets Tuesday and Thursday nights for two hours each. It is composed of people from the community - 6 adults and 6 teens. They are all really good students and want to learn English, so it is much easier. Two of the adults and two teens are really doing well. This class will end as a free class next week. Then Edith (my helper) will continue classes, but she will charge for them. We'll see how that goes. If they don't want to pay, then I will probably continue them free. We're trying to give Edith a source of income to help pay for her college next year. She is one of our "projects". She has a lot of ambition and is a good person to help because she has the potential to be a big player in the continuing development of Huaycan.

Our second big accomplishment last month was a donation to a young man to start a music school in Huaycan. Freddy is a wonderful guitarist and singer and is part of a local band that plays Peruvian music. We know his whole family and they are terrific people. His parents sang as a pair professionally when they were young, but never quite made it to the big time. The whole family is very musical, so it was wonderful to see Freddy set up this school knowing that his family will be helping him all the way. He has a sister and brother that will help in the school as well. They will teach all different kinds of guitar and then branch out into singing and dance. We think he has a real opportunity as he is very talented, has business experience behind him, and is the first music school in Huaycan. We had the honor of blessing his school at it's grand opening and I have enclosed pictures of that and his group.

This month we finally got to work and completed a food kitchen. In January, Mary (the Director of Social Services for the church) took us to visit a soup kitchen that she said needed work. The president of the kitchen had come to her office around the holidays and asked for help because their kitchen was so bad. The food kitchen concept here is like a cooperative. The government says they need at least 15 women to join and set up a schedule to cook meals five days a week for the families in the community. In return the government gives them a lot, and the people provide a building. The government also provides pots and pans, a gas stove, and enough food each month to feed any families in the community that qualify for free meals. The rest of the people that eat pay one sole per meal (about 35 cents). The money collected is then used to replenish their food supply for the next day. They have no excess money for anything. In fact, they don't use the stoves provided because they can't afford the gas. The building was falling down, they were cooking on an open fire in the middle of a dirt floor in the building. It was constantly being broken into and their stuff stolen.

We started by tearing down the old building. Then we leveled the lot, built a retaining wall on the back side, constructed the new building complete with a brick fireplace to cook in, painted and now we will bless the building this weekend and they will start using it next week. The new building is quite different from their old one.

The best part of the whole process was the fact that Mary, the President of the kitchen, told us nobody has ever cared about them. Nobody has ever volunteered to help them. This community is comprised of mostly single moms with four or five children each. Their water is delivered in trucks every other day to tanks outside their houses. They have electricity if they can afford it. The streets are dirt and very rough. If we don't do anything else here, this kitchen was worth all the time, money and effort.

I have sent pictures of the community as well as the kitchen in process and completed so you can see the area. They are so excited about this building as it can also be used as a meeting place for the community and has given them something to be really proud of. Thank you Ralph and Carol for making this possible.

The repair shop at the Association for the Disabled has been humming this month as well. The two men have had to put together 10 wheelchairs for the city of Huaycan. They were a donation from a foundation in the US and they needed to be assembled so they can be given out. This is a real accomplishment as it means that the repair shop is beginning to be noticed and in the future will be used by other organizations as needed. There is no other wheelchair repair shop in Huaycan, so having them known in the community is a real plus for the entire city.

We spent the last week in February with a team of plastic surgeons and pediatric and family practice doctors from Pensacola. The surgeons did plastic surgery on many children from this area as well as from the jungles of Peru. One patient was Estefania Canto - she had six toes and six fingers on each hand and foot. They were all removed and she is doing great. She spent four days at our house because she couldn't walk and has now gone home for the rest of her recovery. Other children received operations for cleft lips, severe burn scars, droopy eyelids, malformed hands, etc.

The family practice and pediatricians saw children and adults in clinics, providing them with medication as needed, prescribing physical therapy, and helping them understand their various diseases and what they could do. The week started out a little slow due to logistical problems, but it ended very well and everyone wants to come back again. This was the first full blown medical/surgical team Love For Peru had brought here, so it was a real challenge to make everything work. Luis did a marvelous job of coordinating everything on this end and many families will be forever grateful for the help given to their children. They also brought medicine, scrubs and rubber gloves for the hospital in Huaycan as well as several bags of clothing for the church to disburse. Dave and I will be distributing them this week. I enclosed a picture of Estefania with her bandages, taken at our house with her family.

On the lighter side, we also took time to have some fun the last two months. The first event came about suddenly. The Canto family had come down for our Bible school and after the lesson, casually mentioned that it was Tadeo's fifth birthday. Well, we had to have a party. So Dave ran to the bakery and got cake and Inca Cola for everyone! They sell their cake by the piece, so it was all cut up and ready to go. He got a piece for Tadeo that had fruit and whipped cream on top. What a treat! He was so excited. This also means he starts school this year. Rosita is really excited because all her kids are in school now! Guess that feeling is the same all over the world. She says now she can have a few hours of quiet every day!

Finally, we made another trip to Matucana. We were there with Barbara in December if you recall. If you go back and look at the pictures, you will see it is mostly brown dirt. Not so anymore. The summer rains make the mountains come alive. They are totally green now and absolutely beautiful. This is what I thought the Andes would look like.

We climbed up into the mountains for about a half hour and saw the stream and the bridge in the pictures. It's hard to tell, but that is a wooden bridge over the water with rocks and grass growing on top. We didn't go any further up because a man coming down said it was raining up ahead and we shouldn't go farther because of the threat of landslides. The area has had some pretty good slides in the past couple of weeks - no people or villages - just the roads. That's a major problem in that area. On our way down, we stopped at a local farm and bought the best cheese in the world. We can get about 3-4 pounds for $3.00. When we come home, we will be sure to bring some with us. Dave is going to try to make it also.

We spent a day up there with Edith and then came home. It was really funny, too, we ran into one of our English students up there. It's a small world after all. We are starting to feel like we belong because we keep running into people we know everywhere. We went to the Indian Market in Lima with the surgical group on Saturday and ran into our Canadian friends who were shopping with their kids visiting from Canada.

As a last note, I have sent pictures of Scooter - remember our baby! He's now bigger than his mama and is not one year old yet! They still come to visit us once in a while and sit on the step and wait for us to come home. Dave has to chase them off as they want to stay. I think they have learned now, though, that they can come, but not stay. What a pair!

Well, that's about all for now. We are on to the next project.

God bless,
Dave and Kathy

January 6, 2006
We have entered 2006 - it hardly seems possible. In two weeks, Dave and I will have been here 7 months already. Time sure flies. One real blessing for us is that we have both been completely free of illness for two months now. Hope it lasts.

The first new thing is our "laundry room" on the roof. It's actually pretty nice to wash clothes and hang them up there as it is sunny and breezy every day.

This past six weeks has been full of celebration and not so much work. I worked with Edith and Luis to prepare the Christmas play which was a huge success. Edith is a wonderful young lady that is currently in her third year of college to become a teacher of English and Italian languages. She helped me with the play every Saturday plus every day the last week.

Barbara came from Florida and was there the last week to help with costumes and final preparations as well as the actual production. We used very large t-shirts for the costumes and added the appropriate head pieces for the kings, shepherds, angel, Mary, Joseph and the animals. It was pretty simply done, but effective. The association decorated the stage for us in very bright colors. The kids learned the Little Drummer Boy song and sang with gusto at the end of the play and then marched off the stage to the beat of our drummer.

The day of the play our Mary and Joseph did not appear, so we had completely new children - it was great. Our little Mary is only two years old, but she was marvelous! Our drummer is Tadeo - he is the youngest child (5 years) of the Canto family (there will be more later on them) and is having major problems with his eyes. He was so excited to be part of the play. All in all, we had a great time, the kids enjoyed it, and the audience was very pleased.

After the play, they served a wonderful turkey dinner and the lottery people brought gifts for all the children. We also have five lap quilts made by the ladies of St. Paul's Methodist Church that we are going to raffle at the association. We were going to do it on Christmas, but when the lottery arrived with the toys, it got very wild, so we decided to wait until another time for that. They will really be nice when winter comes again.

The highlight of our month was having Barbara visit. It was so nice to have a friend from the USA here to celebrate our first Christmas. She shared in all of our activities and we did some things we would probably not have done if she were not here.

We spent Christmas, just the three of us, in Huaycan. Christmas eve morning we visited the Canto family (I think I have talked about them in previous letters. They are the family Barbara is sponsoring and Dave and I are also helping.). We brought them each a gift and groceries for several days. We had a wonderful time playing Uno with the whole family on the middle of the floor. The best part was seeing Rosita (Mom) sit and look at the pictures we brought of Barbara's family and a group photo of the Cantos and Barbara. I know they will be looked at many times in the future.

Christmas Eve we went to church at the local Catholic church. It was an excellent service and we very much enjoyed it. There were probably 800 to 1000 people there. Christmas day several friends dropped by with gifts and we gave them gifts back. We started a new tradition for us - Dave made homemade chicken soup and dumplings for Christmas eve and it was wonderful! We also had the special mixed nuts Jennifer brought for us from Wisconsin, plus some really good chocolates from Lima, and of course panetone from Peru. That is their Christmas treat. It is Christmas bread exactly like stollen or the norwegian Christmas bread we used to have. I also made several fruitcakes and gave them out as gifts so they could see what our equivalent to their panetone is. They really liked them, but used them for eating at breakfast. I was a little surprised by that, but guess they are good anytime.

The association was closed during the week between Christmas and New Year's so we spent that week showing Barbara around Huaycan and took a shopping trip into Lima. We went to the Indian Market (Barbara loved that) and then went to Punta Sol for lunch. It is a really excellent fish restaurant on the Pacific in Lima. We were on the third floor on the balcony so we were outside and could watch the para sailing from the park below. We had tuna, lemonade, and fried yucca with aji sauce. It was wonderful! Then we walked along the shore down to the shopping center and had ice cream. The walk was wonderful as it was about 75 degrees, light breeze, and really sunny. They have totally redone the park over the past year and you can see by the pictures it is truly beautiful.

We also took one day that week and took a bus up into the Andes. I think that was the best time I have had so far in Peru. Barbara agreed. We went to a little town at over 7000 feet above sea level. The town was small and very clean, with all concrete paved streets. On the outskirts was a field area with rock fences where families kept their cattle and grew their gardens. It was a wonderful place to walk around in silence. We talked to several children there and they were excited about that. We also visited a very small market and bought some alpaca items. I got some really warm socks for Wisconsin, Dave got a sweater, and Barbara got a blanket. They were all made by the woman we bought them from. We also bought the most wonderful cheese - it is made up in the villages around the area and is sold only to the locals. It has a flavor like feta cheese, so makes a wonderful greek salad - Barbara and I had several while she was here. It also makes good sandwiches. Dave is already planning to go back for more as it was only about $6.00 for probably 5 pounds of cheese.

New Year's eve morning Barbara purchased another set of used bunkbeds for the Cantos and we all brought them up the hill to their home. They were very happy as now they will have only two people to a bed instead of 3. We rode in the back of the pickup for the delivery and found out when the police stopped us that we were breaking the law. They let us continue anyway, but I think the driver had to pay them off.

We were invited to Gert and Ada's home for New Year's Eve and Day. They are a couple from Netherlands that have retired here from Shell Oil. Gert is one of the contributors to the association and Ada has built a school and rehab facility out in the hills. They are wonderful people and we had a great time. Gert grilled chicken breasts and we ate oliebollen. Oliebollen translates to "oily balls" in English. They are made from a yeast dough and fried like donut holes, but with raisin and apples inside. The holland tradition is to spend all day new year's eve day frying huge quantities of these and then spend all evening eating them until they are gone. What a hoot. They were very good and you can rest assured we ate our fair share. (Those of you who really know Dave and donuts can imagine that.) We watched the fireworks in Lima from their patio and were in bed by 1:30. We got up early, had breakfast, and went to church. Then we came back to Gert's home for a snack of coffee and the last oliebollen and they brought us home about 4:00. It was a wonderful weekend.

Ada also works with the local people producing pottery through a very ancient process and sells it to support her projects. So, last Tuesday, we visited her office and looked at all the pottery. Barbara and I bought several pieces each to furnish our homes in the US. It is truly beautiful stuff.

That afternoon we also walked from our hotel in Mira Flores across the park filled with very old olive trees (planted by the Spaniards 400 years or more ago) and visited Piero's mother. We had to pick up some things for Piero which Barbara brought back to the US for him. She is a delightful 91 year old lady who lives in a beautiful home that she and her husband built many years ago. She has a lovely patio with many plants which she enjoys and talks about. She has brought her sister who had a stroke to live with her. She has a bedroom overlooking the patio and thus has a wonderful view every day. We thoroughly enjoyed chicha and pie with her and were invited to visit any time. Chicha is a drink made from red corn and is very good - somewhat like grape juice.

Barbara left on Tuesday night and arrived in Pensacola early Wednesday morning, safe and sound. Dave and I must now get back to work on our projects - the reading room downstairs and the soup kitchens. The reading room is looking good. We have bought some books, a really nice bookcase and folding chairs for adults. We also have our new felt board for the Bible stories and a whiteboard for teaching. Ada is donating 16 small wooden chairs for children, so we just have to buy some tables and we are set. Beginning January 16th, Edith and I will be teaching summer school for the downs' syndrome children at the association. There are about 5 or 6 of them, so they will come to our room each day for two hours and we will work with them. Edith is busy setting up the curriculum and I will be the helper. Dave and I are paying for her to do this as it is good experience for her and it will also give her some money for next semester in college. This is something I have never done, but am really excited about it. On Monday we have a meeting with the social worker at the parish to go up and see the soup kitchens, so Dave will know what needs to be done with them and begin that process.

We also came back from New Year's to find that Luisa (our landlady) is completing the back part of the first floor of the building. We are getting a first hand look today at how they do cement work on the floor and stairwell - all by hand - it's amazing! That is about all the news for now. We have hundreds of pictures and have tried to include only the best ones. This is a new year and we wish each and everyone of you God's continued blessings.

Dave and Kathy