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 jardÃn 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!
Sunday, November 18, 2007
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.
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!
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 cakeWe 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 accentOver 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...
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