Friday, November 30, 2007

Plumbing...

We're sick. It came on fairly slowly, but it's here with a vengeance. We're not quite sure what set it off, because we were completely fine for the first couple of weeks!?! I (C.J.) was worse at the beginning of the week and ended up staying home for a morning, but yesterday Keri woke up having spent a good bit of time in the bathroom the previous evening. She obviously needed to stay home for the day, and I stayed home to keep her company, though I did feel well enough to play soccer in the afternoon (actually a real answer to prayer for me!).

Keri's home again today, and I'll be returning there before lunch. It's been especially frustrating for Keri, because she was supposed to do some home visits yesterday and today where her skills were going to be really put to use with some adaptations.

Our diet has obviously changed (soup, tea, toast, jello, not much else), and we both started an antibiotic regimen (along with A LOT of Imodium), but we're pretty sick and tired of being sick and tired. Sorry for the depressing post, but we really feel like we need your prayers right now!

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Another Week

Hello again, friends. It´s Keri. It has been another week in Peru, already. We are doing well, although the merciful time of no stomach problems has ended. We both have had combinations of that and colds. It´s kind of hard to concentrate on speaking another language and fulfilling your job duties when you don´t feel well! I thought I would take this blog to give you some glimpses into what life is like in Peru for us right now.

-We have a maid/cook. No, we don´t live with incredibly rich people. Having live-in help (as well as a driver, often times) is part of living in middle-class in Peru. We have breakfast and dinner cooked for us every day (as well as VERY good lunch at CASP in the afternoons). She does our laundry, makes our bed, washes our towels, buys us bottled water, etc. It´s a very odd feeling to not even have to clear out plates off the table when we´re done! But that´s all part of the culture.

-Speaking of food...the food here is amazing! Lots of rice, meat, and potatoes, but they use really yummy spices. We have enjoyed eating (even with the above-mentioned problems that started this week). We also have a fresh-made smoothie every morning with breakfast, and fresh mango or papaya with strawberry yogurt most evenings. All of their fruit, bread, and meat is incredibly fresh (in fact, Elena, our host, told us at the grocery store that most of the fresh meats she bought were probably walking around yet that morning).

-We walk to work (only 3 blocks), and it´s not a bad neighborhood, but the other day I was about to leave CASP alone (CJ had already gone home to take a nap--he wasn´t feeeling well) with our computer bag, and 4 people from CASP stopped me and told me that was really dangerous. Pray for our safety.

-And speaking of safety...pray that the taxis we get in don´t get in accidents! Driving here is CRAZY!!! I don´t think I´ll ever again complain about CJ´s driving. Last night our taxi from the mall home made 3 lanes out of a 2 lane road several times. I was sure we were gonners! Taxis are incredibly cheap here. For a 30 minute ride, it cost us about 15 soles ($5 USD). Nothing like in the U.S.!

-There is only one place that we know of in Lima to watch college football. It´s a sports bar about 20 min. from our house. We were there last night with tons of other Americans watching Kentucky go into 4 overtimes with Tennessee. We looked around at all of the people yelling at the TV in English and had to remind ourselves that we are in fact in Lima, Peru. Pretty much all of the people were Gators fans, too, so they weren´t too happy that their game was being missed because of all the overtimes!

-The pollution here is aweful. Most days we´re okay, but every time we take a taxi somewhere, we come home with our eyes, noses, and throats hurting and irritated.

-The people of CASP work HARD!! Most days we work from 7:45am to around 6:15pm. We are the first ones to leave many times. Again, I´ll have to talk more about the center in another blog.

-I had some humbling and frustrating moments this week trying to be an OT here. The resources and materials we have in the US are just not attainable here because of cost or unavailability. They recycle so many materials at the center, but a simple velcro strap for someone´s wheelchair, or cyclindrical foam on a pen so a kid can grab it are luxuries. It´s frustrating for me to know how much we take for granted in the US and how much the technology we have available to us there could help these kids. CASP is doing amazing things with them, but I know that many of them could benefit so much from things they can´t even dream of.

-And finally, it´s been tough to balance feelings of being REALLY ready to be home in STL (after we see our families at Christmas!!!) and in a stable life and routine with wanting to experience this time to the fullest. We are glad we are here and experiencing another culture, and very excited to see more of Peru (We fly to Cusco to see Macchu Picchu on Dec. 7), but we are also very ready to be home. We are going to be part of a church plant in STL when we get back (we can go more into that later too), and we are yearning to be a part of the preparations for it with some of our dearest friends! So that can be tough sometimes. The 4 weeks left here will go fast, and we are so thankful for this opportunity, but home sounds really good too.

That´s all for now. Love you all!

Monday, November 19, 2007

Pictures!

We got some time at work on their fast(er than where we're living) internet connection. Since you should all have read the previous posts, we'll just include the pictures this time (with some brief captions). We've done a lot in this past week, so there are going to be a lot of pictures. Enjoy!

In the park in Guayaquil, Ecuador with the iguanas--there were at least 100 in this tiny park

The cathedral in Guayaquil across from the park

Our first stop in our tourism day--El parque del amor (the park of love for gringos). We're not sure if it was named because of the statue below, but it fits...

The statue in El parque del amor

Ruins at Pachacamac--We think these were probably restored a bit

The Temple of the Sun at Patchacamac--we were told this was probably just the bottom section

Keri in the entrance to the Temple of the Sun

The temple had quite the view--nice work Incas

Really interesting to see really poor areas right next to the ruins

The people that found this named this temple "Temple with the ramp"

The big cathedral in downtown Lima

The presidents palace (in the same sqare as the cathedral)--it was originally Pisarro's

Another cathedral where we toured the catacombs--it was originally a Franciscan monastery

Toasting with the pisco sours (a traditional Peruvian drink) at dinner before the dance show (Keri, Joy from UIC, Jose from CASP, Liliana the head of CASP, and Yolanda from UIC).

Traditional dance

Another traditional dance

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Week one in Peru

Hola amigos y familia! What a first week this has been! We have packed much into a little time. On Thursday, we went to some other houses of students with disabilities to be introduced to some of the specific cases that Keri will be working on. Friday was a day of tourism with the OT profs that were here.

We first went to Pachacamac, some Incan ruins about 45 minutes away from Lima. Then we toured downtown Lima, including a cathedral and its catacombs (in which all of the bones of the people buried there were still in the catacombs and separated out into the type of bone they were to make more room since there were about 25,000 bodies found...yeah...grisly). After there, we went to the Indian markets, which are huge places filled with all kinds of artisan crafts. That night, we went to a Peruvian dance show where we danced to live music, but then took breaks to watch different traditional dances. They have these shows every night and were doing dances traditional to the North of Peru on this particular night. It was very colorful, very loud, and FUN! We went at 10:30 pm and we left early...at 1 am. The dance goes until 6am. These Peruvians know how to party!

The next morning, Saturday, we had to wake up early to go to CASP (the school we work at) because it was sibling training day. The siblings of 1/2 of the students that have developmental disabilities (the other 1/2 will be next Saturday) came for 4 hours. The first 2 hours, they were there by themselves with other siblings, and they talked together and did training and role playing in fun ways about how to best communicate and participate with their siblings with disabilities. Then, their siblings with disabilities came, and they all did fun activities together. It was a fun day! We in the US have so much to learn from this school and how they support the entire family! We got to sleep a few hours in the afternoon, and then we went with some of the administrators at CASP to ¨The Secret Garden¨( or el jardín secreto) the musical. Even though it was all in Spanish, we pretty much understood what was going on. Music is certainly a universal language! We enjoyed it a lot!

Today, we are taking a taxi alone for the first time to the house of an American teacher at CASP, because her husband surfs and she said he´d be happy to take CJ sometime! We´re just going to meet him today. We also found out that Santiago, the man of the house we´re living in, plays soccer most Sundays and Tuesdays or Thursdays. He was very happy to find out CJ plays and he´s going to take CJ with him sometime this week! We were very happy to make those connections within a week! The woman that we live with, Elena, is wonderful. We´re really enjoying getting to know her!

So we are doing well. A little bit homesick at times, but we´re mostly healthy and doing okay. We will try to put some pictures of our touring up tomorrow as a separate blog because we have dial-up at the house and that would take forever!

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

We made it!

We made it to Peru! However, not until 4am this morning. After the long wait in Ecuador (see last post), we were all bussed to the airport where we found out that they couldn´t fix our plane and had to send us a new one from Miami. We didn´t leave Ecuador until 1am. That makes almost 24 hours spent in Ecuador! Three planes for 1 flight. Crazy.

Mercifully, we had no problems in immigration, and we pushed a green light for baggage customs! (In the Lima airport, you line up with your bags and push a button which randomly turns green or red. Red means all of your luggage gets checked through by a customs agent, green means you can go!) Our taxi driver from CASP (Centro de Ann Sullivan in Peru, or the Anne Sullivan Center in Peru-where we are working), bless his heart, was waiting for us even though we were very late. We were brought to the house where we are staying (with a family) and passed out in bed from 4am to 10am.

We then went to CASP to meet everyone and get a tour. Keri was doing okay with the Spanish, CJ would like the understanding to come a little bit faster! The school we are working at is for kids with developmental disabilities and the programs it offers and their philosophy on the education of these kids is incredible. We´ll go into that more another time. Two profs from the University of Illinois Chicago Occupational Therapy school are here from now until Saturday, so we got to talk a lot with them. It was great for Keri to brainstorm with them some of the projects she might work on while we´re here. We also went with them to visit two of the poorest families that send their children to CASP, but have great success stories that were heart-warming. Keri didn´t get to see much of the slums of Lima last time she was here, so it was good for her to realize that not all of Lima is like Miraflores or San Isidro (very rich areas).

So that is today. Our heads are swimming and we are very tired, so we are going to relax tonight. We are supposed to go with the OT profs to a Peruvian dance show on Friday night, so we´re hititng the ground running with getting to know the culture! Thank you all for your prayers. We are very glad to be here safely.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Not quite there yet...

Hi. We´re in Ecuador. No, we don`t have our South American countries confused. It`s been quite the adventure, and we`re less than 48 hours in. We made it to Miami fine, but that`s where the fine ended.

Our first plane pulled back from the gate on time, but people on the ground noticed a hydraulic leak in the nose. 2 hours later, after they determined it couldn´t be fixed, we deplaned and waited another 2 hours in the airport for another plane.

We finally boarded the new, supposedly fine, plane around 9pm and took off for Peru. Part way through our flight, our pilot announced that there was an electrical problem somewhere in the plane and that we would be landing in Guayaquil, Ecuador. That was 4am this morning.

And that´s where we´ve been ever since. All 300 of us have now been in numerous hotels around the city, we´re on our second of the day. While fixing the plane, another problem was found, so we´re supposed to leave this second hotel and go back to the airport at 9pm for an 11pm flight.

If everything now goes as planned, we`ll have been travelling over 40 hours. We got to walk around a bit and took some pictures, so we hope to get those up sometime. Please pray. We`re doing okay, but ready to be where we`re supposed to be!

Friday, November 9, 2007

Back in the USA!

We made it. They were L...O...N...G days, but we successfully made it back to Grand Rapids from Halifax in TWO days!

We got up, packed the car, and left Halifax by 8am on Wednesday morning. The ferries don't run after mid-October, so we had to drive up through New Brunswick to get back into Maine. We were out in the middle of nowhere for quite a while, but we did make it back into the country after having to dig out our proof of registration for our car. One of the first things we saw when we got back into Maine was a guy walking out of his front door with a huge shotgun over his shoulder. We both got really wide eyed, but it is hunting season, and he did have an orange vest on, so we were able to stop ourselves from dialing that second 1...

A quick stop at Tim Horton's, a popular Canadian coffee place

Our final destination on day 1 was Boston. We met up with some of Keri's former classmates from grad school and went out to dinner and dessert for Keri's birthday. It was really fun to see those girls again, but we decided that we definitely preferred driving out in the middle of nowhere to the traffic in Boston--it's absolutely crazy.

Vietnamese food for dinner with Laurey, Bethany, and Anne

Dessert with Molly and Laurey

Keri's birthday pineapple upside down cake

We set out early again in the morning and first went to Arlington (a suburb of Boston) before getting back on the freeway. Keri's family lived in Boston for 6 months in 1991 while Keri's dad studied at Harvard during a sabbatical, so we stopped by the house she lived in and the school she went to for the second half of second grade. It was fun to see.

13 Thorndike Street (Keri's family lived on the top 1/2 of this duplex)

Hardy School--perfect for a Boston accent

Over 800 miles, 14 hours, two border crossings, and about $25 in tolls in one day later, we pulled into Grandma's driveway...very happy to be there. Two provinces and 5 states in two days was plenty.

We've got two days to get everything ready to go to Peru, so we're a bit stressed right now. We're glad that we get to be back in Grand Rapids and be with Keri's parents for this time, even though it's really short. Back to packing...

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Final Weekend in Nova Scotia

It is our final weekend here. That is very hard to believe! We had planned to go for a 5-hour hike yesterday out near the Bay of Fundy, but as many of you might know, what was left of Hurricane Noel struck us at about 3pm yesterday bringing with it high winds and lots of rain. Our power was out for a few hours overnight and this morning, but we got it back fairly quickly compared to others in the area. The trail we were going to hike apparently gets slippery, muddy, and dangerous after rain, so we stayed in the city for the first weekend in a while! (Sorry, Uncle Doug! That was going to be when we got your Bay of Fundy rock!!).

Yesterday we went to the Halifax farmer's market in the morning down by the harbour before the storm came and enjoyed some apple cider, crepes, and shops along the boardwalk. Last night, Lynn and Peter, the people we live with, made us a full-blown Nova Scotian meal including steamed mussels, scallops, salmon, some crazy rice stuff that we can't remember the name of, and a dessert made of Nova Scotian apples and blueberries. It was a wonderfully relaxing and enjoyable evening!

We were supposed to have dinner tonight at Cher and Laura's, two members of the Wheelchair Research Team (pictured in another post below in the Halloween costumes).. However, their power's still out, and with that comes no water for them! So we're doing some packing tonight. We're getting a little bit nervous about Peru-mostly because of the language barrier. We really haven't felt homesick here, because we can have great conversations with people, but it might get lonely in Peru. We stood in line for crepes behind two native Spanish speakers and our eyes got wide as we looked at each other and said, "We're in trouble!" Hopefully, it will come fast there! We leave on Wednesday morning to drive to Boston, and Thursday we will be attempting to drive from Boston to Grand Rapids, MI in one day. Please pray for safety!

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Happy Halloween

We are already in our final days in Halifax. It's definitely hard to believe! While most of our time has been pretty laid back, this last week we have become quite social! We have met some great people here and are enjoying hanging out with them towards the end of our time. Work has been busy in a good way lately too. Here's a picture of yesterday at the lab. Cher and Laura are sisters and work in the lab together. We've had a blast with both of them! In this picture, Laura is the princess kissing her prince charming, and Cher is part of the "fashion police." She and another OT went around the entire hospital yesterday writing up fashion violations such as socks with sandals or underwear of any kind showing. They wrote Dr. Kirby up for "impersonating a celebrity--Mr. Rogers." He was dressed normally... Keri was dressed as a Where's Waldo decoy. You know, not the actual Waldo, but the one in the picture that everyone sees and says "Hey that's...oh wait...it's not him." Yesterday we also had the privalege of handing out trick-or-treat candy while the people we live with took their two 3 year-old daugthers (dressed as little spiders) to trick or treat. Good times! By the way, C.J. was dressed as a three-hole punch version of himself with a black shirt and white dots (like Jim from The Office), but he got mistaken for a domino...