Last Friday night I finally made it to the Casa Girasoles Kusi home, which is located approximately 9 hours northeast of Lima. I’m currently here with a team from Huntsville, Alabama – a work team I translated for last summer too. I was happy to see some familiar faces as they exited customs, and have enjoyed getting to know the new members.
Friday we made the long, but absolutely beautiful trek from Lima to Kusi. Billy and I were lucky to have seats in the first row so we were able to look out the front bus windows at the majestic Andes mountains as we followed the winding road. To reach Kusi from Lima, we traveled north on the Panamerican Highway (the same highway that travels from Alaska to Chile) along the Pacific Ocean, and then turned east and climbed high into the mountains, finally reaching an altitude where we could see snow. Words simply cannot describe this trip.
Nor can words describe the time I’ve spent here in Kusi. In Peru, there are two national languages, Spanish and Quechua. Spanish was brought over in the 1400s by the Spaniards, while Quechua is one of the many indigenous languages. The name Kusi comes from the Quechua word for joy, which is appropriately used to describe this home.
The past few days it has been great to see the same boys from previous years. With all the sites, I feel I have the strongest connection with the formerly abandoned boys of Kusi. Many of them call me hermanita (sister), la fefa (the boss of the groups, with the Andean accent), among many other names. I immediately felt back at home in the house parents, Rosa and Angel’s house and with the now 43 formerly abandoned boys.
I’ll be here in Kusi until Friday, where I’ll take the Alabama group to Lima for a few days, and then return to this wonderful place.
Spreads for a 13-month full color calendar that I designed with photographs from my experiences in Peru as an effort to raise money for Scripture Union Peru.
Each photograph is of a different location or facet of the SU organization.
A lot has happened since my last update, so I will give you brief things that I have done in the past month.
During mid-August, I said goodbye to my last work team and to the boys at the Casa Girasoles in Kusi (which is the little “city” that I wrote about in the last two emails). From Kusi, I traveled north to Trujillo (which is 9 hours north of Lima on the Pan-American Highway) to work in the schools program. This means, I accompanied Lupe with her to the various schools in the area that Scripture Union is working with to teach values to the children. By law, every child should receive at least 1 hour of values education per week, but at many schools it is either not being taught or the teachers do not do an excellent job with it, so Scripture Union has a program to send volunteers into the classrooms to teach them values such as respect, integrity, loyalty, honesty etc through skits, songs, games – pretty much anything they can come up with.
After spending just a short week in Trujillo, Ciudad de Dios and Chiclayo, I returned to Lima to extend my 90-day visa, so I could remain in the country 1 more month. While in Lima, I spent some time working with the families of my two “bosses” and enjoying some down time in the capital city. Saturday of my “free week” was filled with a conference for all of the SU workers in Peru (the Chosica retreat I wrote about earlier).
That Saturday night, I returned to the Lima airport for one of the last times, to pick up my mother for a two week vacation through Peru! For two weeks, we traveled the country by bus and plane, visiting friends we have down here and seeing some sites we just never were able to visit in previous years. We spent the first few days at the Casa Girasoles Ica, visiting the boys and family, teaching English and helping out with day-to-day activities. After Ica, we headed north to the Casa Girasoles Kusi, where we stayed with the house parents and again, helped out with the 28 boys that live there. We took them all on a field trip to the pool and spent time just hanging out with some pretty cool kids. After Kusi, we headed back down south to the majestic Cusco where we spent a few days in the old colonial city. We finally made it to Machu Picchu and even ended up running into Amanda Abramczyk (a fellow Alma alum) on the Plaza de Armas in Cusco.
We spent the past two days in Lima, wrapping up last minute things with my internship, saying goodbyes and getting ready to return to the States. As I am writing this, we are sitting in the Lima airport, waiting to board our red eye flight to Atlanta, putting us into Detroit around midday tomorrow, Sunday.
I’m sad to be leaving a place that has become so familiar and a place with many friends and family, but I know that it is just a short 9 months before I am able to return again.
I just left a conference for all of the Scripture Union workers in Peru; all of the house parents from the 5 Casa Girasoles, the 17 schools directors from all over the country, and the board of directors were all in one location, at the SU site in Chosica (which is about 1 hour from the downtown Lima offices).
The majority of the morning was spent getting to know the other SU workers, or in my case, catching up with people I haven’t seen since I first arrived down here in Peru. It was amazing to see people that live so far away (from me in Peru) that I didn’t think I was ever going to see again.
The best surprise was to see an old friend, Kevin Saldaña, who I met in 2002 and haven’t seen for at least 5 years!
Spending the day at the retreat was the best way to end my summer as an SU intern.
I wrapped up my final week at the Casa Girasoles Kusi with a team from the States. Things were quite similar to the previous weeks (and the previous emails I have sent about Kusi). Because of this, I’m going to take this time to write about one boy in particular from the Kusi home.
Kremly, is a 9 year old boy that lives in the Kusi home with the house parents, Rosa and Angel, and 26 other abandoned boys. Like the other boys in the home, Kremly has had a different past, and a not so easy childhood. He arrived at the Casa Girasoles Kusi about 9 months ago and has a beautiful little smile and the mischievous and clever personality of a little boy.
But, unlike the other 26 boys in Kusi, Kremly is completely deaf and unable to communicate vocally with the rest of his Kusi family.
For Kremly, Spanish is not his native language – he speaks in signs. His real family did not have the financial means to send him to an appropriate school in the nearby city of Yungay (not that such a school exists), and because of his special circumstances, he was sent to live in Kusi.
In Kusi, Kremly still doesn’t attend school because there is no way to communicate with him and to teach material he needs to know. Despite this, he is quite in fact a clever and intelligent boy. The house parents, Rosa & Angel have come up with some signs with him that stand for things he needs to do and know. For example, there is sign for washing up, time to eat, playing soccer, mother, father, and let’s go, in addition to many others, that the people of Kusi use to communicate with him.
The first few days I was in Kusi, Kremly was quite distant, did not want his photo taken, and did not really spend much time with the foreign team members there to visit. By the time I left, almost one month later, he was just as personable as the other boys, always wanted to have his photo taken, loved taking photos with my little digital camera, and even a few nights, fell asleep in my lap while at a bonfire or while the group was dancing and singing songs. The last week I was there, he was allowed to go up to the Lake Llanganuco with me and the team, only if he stayed with me at all times (Rosa made me promise that I would take care of her sweet little boy and not let him out of my sight).
Some might think that to have a little boy that you can’t communicate with would be a chore and frustrating – which at some times it was. But, most of the time, we managed to get by and despite our language (and sign barriers), Kremly became my little buddy in Kusi – to the point where he was always with me.
As for Kremly’s future, Rosa and Angel are trying to get him into a school for deaf children in Lima where he will be able to learn proper sign language and be able to communicate. Unfortunately, the school doesn’t accept students that are older than 4 because they are more difficult to work with, and in addition to that, the school (where Kremly would have to live as a boarding student) costs 700 soles per month (about $250). This might not seem like a lot of money for a child’s future in our terms, but when you have 26 boys to take care of and a limited amount of money, this is quite a bit to spend. Hopefully something will work out for this adorable little boy.
I’ve included a photo and video of Kremly. We were experimenting and demonstrating the differences between photo and video.
As for the rest of my time in Peru…. I’m back in my home-base Lima just for one night before heading up north to the coastal city of Trujillo where I will finish my last two weeks with Scripture Union working in the schools teaching values.
