We have now been in San Juan de Lurigancho for nearly two weeks, but it feels like it has been a lot longer than that. We enjoy living here, have a humble, yet comfortable, apartment, and love being part of the Catorce de Febrero community (where we work with the school).
Three great additions were made to our home this week. First of all, our lovely landlady Ana, who we often pay to cook us dinner, offered us the password to her Wi-Fi so we have Internet in our own apartment. We have to be sitting right next to the door to pick up the signal, but it is still a great convenience. Secondly, we now permanently have hot water. The first four or five days here we were forced to endure frigidly cold showers, although looking back on the situation it was quite comical. Ana told us she would get us hot water the day after we got here. However, during Gabe’s first shower the shower head, due to a rusted pipe, literally fell out of the wall in the middle of the shower. Gabe walked out of the bathroom holding half a pipe in his hand while Michael and I laughed hysterically. Gabe started off by saying the shower “just fell” but as Michael and I laughed more he admitted “while maybe I slipped a little and hit the shower head with my hand.” Either way, the pipe needed to be replaced. Within 24 hours the pipe was repaired, and a man came in to fix the hot water heater. Again, Gabe tried out the new shower to find that the water that came out was not only still cold but also zapped you with the occasional shock. Not good. The same repair man came back to adjust the circuit switch. After that repair we got about two hot showers in before the system failed again. However, the very next morning the same repair man, now we should consider him a friend, replaced the entire circuit switch and now the shower works beautifully. Lastly, today Katlin, a student at West Point joined us. She will be staying for two weeks and helping with the school. It is nice to have her around.
Being able to come home to a hot shower makes spending a day walking to school on dusty roads even better. On Sunday, we went to a sporting day with the Catorce de Febrero community. Gabe and Michael took on two Peruvians in two on two soccer and lost by only one point. (I got to be the timekeeper.) That meant we, as the losers, had to buy a bottle of Inca Kola for everyone to share.
Tuesday morning we had a successful meeting at school with families from the community. About 25 mothers came to the meeting in which we announced our plan to build a new classroom, a bathroom, and repair the roof and everyone was very excited. This Sunday we are meeting with contractors to get the plan finalized, and we hope to start construction next week. We are pleased that things are moving along quickly.
Three days a week we help out with morning classes for kids. One of us assists with the three year old classroom and the other two stay in the four and five year old class. We try to help out with the class structure but really love just getting to know the kids. Brothers Willie and Emerson are very helpful and teach us how to play games like “mata gente” (essentially like dodgeball) and “escondidas” (hide and seek). Lizeth is just adorable inside and out. Identical twins Kevin and Steven are little trouble makers in the three year old classroom. And some, like Angelo, seem to be pouting half the time but are still cute. Yesterday Angelo kindly offered me a slice of his orange during snack time. Another girl, Gabriela, also offered me a slice of orange but it felt like she had put it in her mouth already so I just slipped that into the garbage.
We have also started teaching English to some of the mothers in the evenings. By teaching English we learn how difficult pronunciation is for a non-native speaker. The first time our students try to say a word like “uncle” it comes out more like “oonclish.” The women catch on very quickly, though, and are great students.
Although we are becoming more of a fixture in the community we still hear occasional shouts of “hola gringo!” in the streets. Last week we went to Mass at a neighborhood church and the priest called us up at the end to introduce us the congregation. He was very nice and it was good to be part of the community. When we left church Gabe added, “Man, how did he know we were visitors…?”
The longer we stay the less we feel like visitors, but as comfortable as we are here we still think of all of our friends and family who are not with us every day. We hope all is well with you and keep filling us in on the news back home!
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