Jackie & Tim's Adventure in Peru: This Week and the Birthday Blowout

This week we continued wiping noses and changing diapers at Mantay two days a week and spent the rest of our time at Inti. Oh and we forgot to mention that a few weeks back our landlord brought us a refrigerator (college dorm size), but its good enough for the food we keep and in Peru far less things are refrigerated (you only refrigerate milk and OJ after you've opened it).

Outside of work, we did not do much this week as both of us are slowly getting over a cold. We did finish off the end of the one can of Ragu sauce that we were able to find in Cusco. This probably doesn't sound like a big event, but after tasting the tomato sauce in Peru, you would understand how sad we were. On a good note, we found a place that has Mac N Cheese for 3.5 S/, which is about a $1.50 (before this find, we had paid $5 for a box).

On Thursday, we used some of the donation money to purchase more books for Inti. Last week, we organized their library by subject and realized that there were major holes in the history, geography, and science departments. We helped fill some of those gaps, but I'm sure we will be buying more books soon as Inti is opening a second location in Santiago, another area of Cusco. Inti used to be located in Santiago, but had to find a new place to rent a few years back. Because of this, many of the children in Santiago no longer had a place to go before or after school.

Every two months, Inti has a fiesta to celebrate the children's birthdays. This Friday, Inti celebrated 12 children's birthdays for April and May. We used some of the donation money to buy a piñata, candy, pencils, and stickers to fill goody bags for the party. Both the morning and afternoon parties were successes.

Here's the children in the afternoon playing musical chairs.

With every fiesta comes a good deal of dancing in Peru. I had a record 8 different girls ask me to dance (not many pictures to show for it though as I think Jackie was jealous).

Maybe, it was my dancing skills that attracted them . . .

Here's Luz Marina dancing (she runs Inti and is an incredible woman)

Here's Guillermo dancing and singing. He was the center of attention most of the morning.

Here's Jose Carlos (one of the birthday kids). When he walked in on Jackie and I making the goody bags, his face looked like he had just won the lottery - it certainly does not take much to make their day.

Here's Jackie and Carlos (probably the friendliest kid at Inti).

Here is Sergio dancing . . .

Sergio's a great story (historia de exito) at Inti. Karen, one of the professors (to the right in the picture) noticed that he was always sitting by the window in his home looking out whenever she walked by, so one day she decided to stop in and talk to the parents. In Peru, children with special needs are often ignored. Sergio was confined to his room and had never learned how to walk. Well, Karen convinced the family to let Sergio come to Inti. He not only walks now, but plays along the other children and here he is the center of attention dancing on top of a chair at the party. His parents and sister are extremely proud and much more supportive of him now that they know his potential.

Here's the professors getting into it too. The chair dancing rivaled a Murphy wedding.

The piñata in the afternoon was an interesting experience. I was tasked with holding the piñata and probably got hit more times than the piñata. With the children blindfolded and spun around multiple times, both myself and a few of the children received a few blows from the bat. Although, it was all in good fun - amazing how little the children cry here.

It was a madhouse once the piñata broke, even a few of the professors dove for the candy.

It's present time . . . Each child who has a birthday in April or May receives a present from the donations (arts & crafts, a game, a stuffed animal, etc) including a toothbrush. One of the professors gives the child the present and a big hug.