Passion

I cant wait to get back to Lima to see my kiddos! Dont get me wrong, I love Pimampiro but the faces of those kids are in my brain every day! Its amazing how small town a small town can be, I know that I grew up in a small town but I didnt walk the streets of Greenwood or frequent many places on a daily basis...here after only being here a little over a week I see the same people every day. Its amazing how much of a family one entire town can be. Last week we bought white jackets to wear to work, because all the nurses here wear white, and a lady here in town told us that she would pick them up for us on Saturday. Well, every day this week we have gone by her house to ask her for the jackets and every day she tells us first she will have them in the afternoon then later that it wont be til the next day. Yesterday afternoon we asked her again, she said she had no idea when she could get them. But, while we were having dinner we got a phone call from Romero (a man that works with the organization that we work with here but doesnt live in Pimampiro) and he told us that our jackets were ready. All night we were wondering how in the world he knew...this morning we asked her and she said that his wife is his cousin. Crazy how interconnected EVERYONE is here! I feel like we made alot of headway this week...met alot of people and have alot of opportunities. Our number one priority is assessing the area to see if an orphanage/daycare would be useful. Liz and I have both dreamed of someday having an orphanage, and we think that every day here is a day closer to achieving that. Ultimately we would like to help Clara in the orphanage in Lima by building on to the house that she currently has and by helping her feed the kids the remaining 15 days of the month that they have no food. We would also like to start an orphanage in Pimampiro. There are a few orphans here but the majority of the kids are just super poor. They have parents but they live in very terrible conditions and do not have much food. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers, we have alot of planning time to spend both here and in Lima. This planning time is coming out of our own bank accounts which is slightly stressful knowing that our time here may be cut short for something as ridiculous as money. But...we both know that we are right where we are supposed to be and things will work out just like they are supposed to! On top of our passion of the orphanages we are working to find out what health needs there are in Pimampiro. We are working together with MMRC to hopefully provide medical care such as surgeries or equipment to help better this community. These people are amazingly appreciative of the smallest things, and they always have a smile on their faces! Definitely a lesson for those of us who have everything...

How fast the days are passing

I cant believe how quickly every day passes, I feel like I have been in Pimampiro FOREVER...and its actually just been one week. Life here is great...everyone works as a community, everyone says hi to eachother in the streets, there is no crime, the views are amazing, and on and on. We feel very at home here, we feel as if we are in a place that we could stay for quite some time, a place that we would love for each and everyone of you to see! Imagine as the sun comes up and the clouds burn off seeing mountains on all sides, green lush mountains with more types of plants than you can find most anywhere else in the world. And then every block that you walk someone says goodmorning, and when you arrive at work you get a kiss on the cheek and a hug from everyone. Such a loving and welcoming culture. Thursday we arrived at the clinic as we had discussed the day before with the director, she put us right to work helping out the nurses. Nurses here play a very different role then in the states, as you will see. First we did intake, things like height, weight, and temperature after we made it through all the patients then we made some gauze. How exactly did we do that you may ask...well it comes in a box cut into squares (or what is supposed to be squares) and we must fold them exactly the same way every time to make a stack of six. After making this stack of six then they are placed into a piece of paper that is folded like oragami and then placed into the autoclave...now they are called sterile gauze. Im not exactly sure if it works like this, but that is what we do most afternoons in the clinic. At the end of the day she told us to ¨go learn Spanish¨, duh lady like we arent trying! Her attitude made us not want to return... After that first day of work, which is obviously not what we want to do while we are here, we talked to Paul (the new one). We decided not to let her get the best of us and return to the clinic in the morning but let her in on what we are trying to accomplish here. Paul went with us and we let her into our thoughts and what we could do for her and her community. Things are better...but she still tells us to go home and learn Spanish every day. Geez lady...its not like I can be fluent in 2 days...but I do wish that that was possible. Just a little tidbit about the shower water...I never feel clean! The water is barely a drip and you have to chase that one drip around the shower. When you soap your leg, you have to lift it as high as possible for the soap to even rinse off, needless to say my hair still has shampoo from last week! This past weekend, Elaina´s (our momma here) daughter came home from college. She is 23 and is in chef school in Quito. Saturday night she invited us to go for a ride with her and her friends, this riding basically is one square mile around Pimampiro. We pass the same people, honk at the same people, then when that gets old we stop in front of the plaza (town square) all pile out and turn up the ipod player. After a few hours that got old, we walked the block home and headed to bed. The past few days have been a special time around here, the man who has donated a large amount of money for alot of the projects in Pimampiro has been visiting. Sunday we (everyone that has anything to do with the projects here) hosted a dinner for this guy Ken, Sue (a lady who is from the states but teaches here) was in charge and she rounded us all up to help. We spent the day chopping vegetables and cutting up fruit and helping her make enchilades for this Mexican themed dinner. It was a great success with many of the key players here attending. There was a live band, the oldies were dancing away...and we got to talk to Ken about our potential projects. He is super excited to see what we come up with...so keep that connection in your thoughts please! Monday morning we joined the enterage and headed up to San Francisco, one of the 35 surrounding communities, to check out the biointensive gardens. Basically these people are double digging their gardens, composting, and not using pesiticides and their fruits and vegetables are turning out so much better. It truly amazing the progress that they have made. Liz and I got the priveledge to ride in the back of the truck (the bed-yes) where we could see all the sites on our way up to the sky. This small town is way up in the clouds, not sure the exact height but I do know that Pimampiro is at 10,000 feet and we drove an hour uphill to get to this village. These people were proud to show us their gardens. After the gardens we checked out the trout farm. Someone built 10 years ago a facility to grow trout and abandoned it for whatever reason. There happens to be a man in this community that is an expert in this field, he has come up with a whole plan where they can produce the eggs and grow the trout from egg to death in just 8 months. They are hoping to get this project underway very soon. By this time it is lunch time on Monday, we head to the school (where the kids have their own garden beds at the school and also will be working with the trout) and they serve us lunch. Lunch was great, with smoked trout and all! After saying goodbye we checked out the clinic, where they see about 35 patients a day and have some equipment and medications given to them by the government. It runs pretty well, but they are open to any help that we can offer. We jumped back in the back of the truck and returned to Pimampiro, ice cream was our first stop (the ice cream here is amazing) then to Paragachi. Paragachi is only afew miles downhill from Pimampiro but it is like a desert, the ground is super sandy and they have no water to water their gardens. They have running water in their houses, some people, but the government does not allow that water to be used for watering plants. Therefore they are proposing a water project to bring the water from its source about 5 miles away. Expensive, but needed since this place is so dry. While in Paragachi we decided we wanted to play the kids in a game of soccer. I have you know the gringos (white people) won! with the help of a few little local boys of course. Definitely was a site Im sure...the best part was this old Colombian man who lives there, he walks with a walking stick but he quickly threw that thing down and was headeding balls and giving us young folk a run for our money. Couldnt believe that man could move like that! Check out Liz´s pictures...Ill post some another day. One more thing that I forgot...there is a girl/lady that works at the house that we are staying at that obviously has a handicap but our ¨mom¨here has people working for her all day every day, just helping her around the house. She usually doesnt say much but just stares at us when we are in the house, well the other day when Elaina left she pulled out her wallet. She was showing us pictures in her wallet and her ID card...it read ¨47% incapacitated¨...hmm does the government really give these people a percentage or retardedness?

Our kids!

Liz and I have decided to keep this orphanage in Lima, we are going to work with Solidarity in Action to try to raise money to feed them and eventually build onto their way too small house that they live in now. There are 15 kids that live there all the time, orphans, and then 30-40 that spend their days there. They have a very small space to play with only cement floors, this space is also cleared out and tables put up so that they can eat their meals. Clara has taken these kids into her home and is a great mom to all of them. I want to introduce you to each of our kids! After a day at the beach with Liz and Jana!

The best picture that I have of Antony...for whatever reason I cant find a better one. But...I will work on that in 2 weeks when I get to see him again!

Jamie...9 years old.

Angie...12 years old.

The kid on the right is Fernando...11 years old and has lived in the orphanage for 6 years.

Yovana....the one that I want to adopt! She is such a good little girl...super helpful with the other kids. She has lived in this house for 6 years. Treated her for scabies and lice.

Valerie...2 years old...treated her for lice and a staph infection on her face.

Carlos...3 years old and very attached to Clara.

Jhackeysi...6 years old...the younger sister of Jhon and Jhael. Treated her for lice.

Jhohan...9 years old. Fernandos uncle. Cesar...4 years old.

Jhael...twin to Jhon and older brother to Jhackeysi...7 years old.

Jhon...twin brother to Jhael and older brother to Jhackeysi...7 years old.

Lucho...8 years old...super smart. Has lived in the orphanage for 6 years.

There are 2 kids missing, I will have to take pictures of them when we go back in 2 weeks. This is a start...I hope that they steal your heart just like they did mine! I cant wait to see these faces and get hugs and kisses from them in just 2 weeks!

blog post from Monday March 14

This is the blog written with no internet connection on Monday March 14. Therefore, it was written BEFORE the last blog posted and could possibly have some repeated information. It has once again been too many days since I have blogged, the days are flying by for some reason. The past week has been more uneventful than the weeks prior so I keep telling myself that I will blog as soon as I have something to write about. Apparently I have a lot to write about but just didn’t have an exact plan as to what our next step was going to be…but now I do! Upon arriving in Guayaquil we were expecting to be given some direction, unfortunately that did not happen. Last week was Carnival therefore a lot of the offices and therefore our contacts that we had made were closed, so when we arrived Paul was more than frustrated. But, as the week went on we talked to more and more people and got more and more insight into what we might be doing down here. Javier (our contact in Lima) gave us the name and number of a lady that he thought could help us, we contacted her and she is super excited to help facility everything that we want to do! We visited a few clinics, that are understaffed but running pretty well. But, the final place that we visited this past Saturday was a hospital in a rural area with about a million people in 8 square miles. The hospital used to be full, according to the administration but they have to charge a small fee ($5) since they are a private hospital. Because of this fee most of the people go to the public hospital which has absolutely no resources according to our contacts. This hospital has 3 working operating room suits with 3 working ventilators and the ability to do laparoscopic surgeries. There is one nurse for the entire hospital, they have about 20 inpatient beds and a trauma bay. While we were there there was only one patient, but apparently they get about 30 patients a day. The best part about this place is that there is an “apartment” on the top floor. They offered for us to house people up there, so we are waiting to hear back to see MMRC can live up there permanently. So, the plan is to first assess the area and find out what the needs are. Once we figure that out then we will put together teams to come down and address those needs, surgeons or orthopedist or whatever we find out will be useful. We are super excited to get these programs going and think that we have found the perfect place to facilitate our needs. In the midst of meeting with people and seeing these places in Guayaquil we ran into a man named Paul (yes, another Paul-we have deemed him ‘new’ Paul) who was staying at our hostel. It all started by him asking Liz if she knew the password for the internet. As we started to talk he started sharing all that he is involved in down here, he is teaching the people how to do organic farming, (which they have implemented in the schools) he has helped start an all girls school and clinics. He has been involved with these people for 15 years. As we were talking he was super excited to have us join him and meet the people and see what we could do to help. We mentioned that we are super interested in starting an orphanage, and he said that he doesn’t know of one around! But…that there aren’t too many orphans because someone usually takes them in. So, that is how Liz and I have ended up in Quito tonight! The five of us (MMRC) discussed the options that we had in front of us and decided that Liz and I would come up north and check out the projects that new Paul is working on and how we could be useful there and big Paul would continue organizing and finding out more information for the project in Guayaquil and Nick and Bridget will be going to work on an organic farm for a few days with a guy from Amsterdam (that we also met at the hostel). So, here we are…Liz and I sleeping in a hostel in Quito. We took yet another bus, but only 10 hours this time, north to a place much colder than anywhere that we have been lately. Its FREEZING here! Freezing compared to Guayaquil…but much warmer than most of you are at home Im sure. Here, we met Paul (who flew) at a ghetto bus station somewhere in the north of Quito where our bus just left us. This lady, who thought it necessary to sit basically on top of me, would not quit talking to me. She asked me a million questions, asked to use my phone, and told me I look like Im Chinese! Crazy lady! Fortunately Paul arrived, but he seemed to have a sad face when he met us, we instantly knew that something was wrong but since he is our new friend we gave him time to explain. Someone had stolen his laptop…and his camera…and everything that was inside of his laptop bag. So terrible, but as we talked about it we basically concluded that what comes around goes around and that guy is in for something bad! The worst part is that he lost pictures and lots of work on his computer. Plan as of now is for Liz and I to head up to Pimampiro (4 hours north of Quito) tomorrow with new Paul and check out all of his programs. We are super excited and ready to see what we can do in this village. He has told us all sorts of amazing stories, so we have high hopes for what we can do in this place. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we are trying to figure out exactly where we are supposed to be and where we may be most useful.

you know you are old when....

your ankles swell to be the size of your calves when you sit for a long period of time! and then it takes them FOREVER to go back to normal size. I remember a time, not too long ago, that i was in south america traveling and riding buses for months with no issues...now when riding for only a short time my ankles are huge! Other than that, I am so super tired...every day all day. Im not sure what the issue is but im going to just say its my age and all this packing and unpacking and carrying 60 pounds on my back and getting on and off buses just makes me feel like im suddently 85. Anyway, on to more exciting things... So, I blogged all about this past week but it is stuck on the laptop. We are in a town with no wifi, imagine that! And we tried connecting it straight to the cable and it still doesnt work...so we are in an internet cafe where we are paying 80 cents per hour. A little out of our budget, we know, but we are trying to keep you all updated! If and when I can get that off ill post it too. But, for now let me think about all the things that have occured over the past week. Let me start with how we got to Pimampiro. After a day of looking at clinics and meeting people in Guayaquil we met a man in our hostel (Paul-now deemed ´new´ Paul) who was there setting up an event for next month. He asked Liz for the password for the wifi at the hostel and it was all history from there. He started telling us all about his life here in Pimampiro, and how it is eternal spring and how beautiful and amazing the people are. We were instantly interested in his work, he has a foundation where he is teaching the people to farm organically. There is a big problem here with them using chemicals and pesticides and people are dying from working in the fields with these substances. They have also strated a girls school and are implented the organic farming into the schools. Its amazing the headway that they hvae made in 5 short years. The more we talked to new Paul, and basically told him that we were open to anything he invited us to come up here and visit. We discussed all sorts of options of other programs, including an orphanage or some sort of home/safe haven for girls that have been sexually abused. So many options, but the best part is that he already has a presence here and is willing to help us in whatever way that he can! We arrived here last night after leaving Guayaquil on Monday morning. The bus ride was a short 10 hours to Quito where we met Paul and stayed the night in Mariscola. Breakfast and a little sightseeing and then we jumped on another bus to Otavala. Otavala´s claim to fame is that it is the largest market in all of South America quite possible the world. We met Segundo there, who is a friend of Paul´s and also a man who on his own built a building behind his house where he teaches over 100 kids about their heritage and the importance of keeping it. Amazing man trying to make a difference! He invited to his families house and told us that his house is our house. After some lunch and time at the market we threw our stuff on another bus and headed up to Ibarra. Ibarra is the nearest ´city´ to where we are. Off the bus in Ibarra, Paul had to take care of some business than back on the final bus to our new location...Pimampiro. After an hour of stopping every other block to pick someone up or drop someone off we drove faster than we should have up a windy hilly road and arrived about 20 feet from Paul´s doorstep. We arrived and his friend who is working with him at the project had dinner ready for us! So thankful for such thoughtful people! Now, they set up for us a place to stay here, with a super nice lady. She lives alone, recently her husband left her and her mother died, her kids live in the states and she loves to entertain. She is like our Ecuadorian mother! We plan on staying there for at least a week, maybe two while we are getting to know the area (not that there is too much to get to know since its almost 2 square miles and only 5000 people) and then deciding if we will stay up here or go somewhere new. Today we visited the clinic here, it runs pretty well but is lacking supplies. There are so many patients and just not enough staff. We met with the director and she told us that they see quite a few traumas from things such as car accidents or just accidents in general. We walked into the ¨trauma¨room which consists of one gurney and a small metal table with 3 bottles of alcohol a box of gloves and a metal tin that was supposed to have meds in it but had none. She told us that they are lacking IV´s and oxygen...which I know are two very important things when trying to attend to a trauma patient. She informed us that they just transfer the patient to the hospital that is an hour away, apparently without doing much for them before the transport. Can you imagine if you were the patient? So, starting in the morning we will work there and try to get our foot in the door of this community and see what else we can do to help them. Im sure you are wondering what we did with everyone else, the rest of the MMRC clan...well Big Paul is in Guayaquil working on our projects there, Nick and Bridget are working on a farm, and Liz and I are here. The plan is for Paul to get everything together in Guayaquil, he is making contacts and putting together some proposals of how we can help. We are planning on partnering with an inpatient hospital in the south east of the city where they have 3 working operating rooms and a functioning clinic. We are hoping to assess the needs of the community and bring down teams of people that can address these needs. This hospital is willing to let us use their space, we are just working on the final proposal. Keep this in your thoughts and as i know more i will post, but you can also check out MMRCglobal.org where we will also be updating. Before I bore you to death I am going to say goodbye...love and miss you all!

destination...Guayaquil!

Guayaquil! We have arrived! It only took a 28 hour bus ride, some Chifa (Peruvian Chinese food), lots of random stops for the bus driver to buy things for himself, and boarder crossings. We left Lima at 3pm on Sunday, luckily we found a bus that wasnt too expensive that would take us the entire way...no dragging our bags across the boarder and finding a new bus to bring us the rest of the way. This bus was nice, air condition, blankets and pillows, and food! And the most important part...a bathroom! Now, let me enlighten you on this bathroom...imagine an airline bathroom with a window. The seat is spring loaded so you have one of two choices, sit on it (which in my case was not an option at all) or hover over the large silver hole. The issue with hovering is that the bus is moving, the roads are bumpy, there are potholes, pedestrians, oncoming cars, animals...so the chances of hitting this hole arent so great. Fortunately they give you a handle attached to the wall directly across from the toilet, if you grip it tightly, bend your knees at just the right angle, and levitate at the perfect height going to the bathroom is a possibility.

Once we got here, we met the rest of our team (Paul, Bridget, and Nick) at a hostel where they have been for a week waiting on us. This place is beautiful, overlooking Guayaquil with hammocks and a pool. Dont get too excited, we are only here for a few days. The best part is this hammock that I am laying in right now...Liz and I have been wishing for something comfortable to sit in for a very long time. We are convinced that Peru has no comfortable seating, all of the seats basically try to throw you out...no place to lounge and be comfortable. We are very grateful to be able to relax!

Tomorrow we will begin our house hunting, we are trying to find a place to live and to house volunteers while we are down here. We have a few good options, so we are hoping to secure a place in the next few days. This week is Carnival so everyone is on vacation, but we have been contacting people and getting some connections and going to get started working as soon as possible! Javier, our contact in Lima, is coming up sometime next week, he knows a lot of people and we are hoping that he gets us hooked up with some contacts. We are all anxious to get this show on the road, but as for everything in life we are trying to be patient!

The school...we ended up seeing about 700 of the 900 kids at the elementary school over 3 days. The issue apparently is that in the first week not all the kids show up, for numerous reasons. We are compiling the data, but it is ridiculous the amount of kids who have lice. We will be giving the information both to the school and the public clinic in the area so that they can send the information home with the parents and hopefully get this under control.

What do you think of when you think of lice? I would presume that most people would think only of the nits/eggs that are usually found in the hair, well here we not only find those nits but bugs. Bugs, big bugs, bugs that if I had them in my hair I would know it, i would feel them moving! But, these kids have no idea...if you ask them if they feel something moving they say no. The biggest problem here is that they do not have hot water, they must boil all of their drinking water and washing everything that they own in hot water just isnt an option. The only other way to get rid of lice from your house, clothes, stuffed animals is to put them in plastic bags for 2 weeks. Unfortunately they dont have enough clothes and things to just let them sit in plastic for all this time. We cannot come up with a good idea to eradicate these bugs, especially from the orphanage.

Speaking of the orphanage, MMRCglobal.org has decided to see what we can do as an organization for them. They need more space, Clara the lady who owns and runs it and who is the mother to 15 kids, does a great job with what they do have but they need more space. The house is small and they have one covered cement area that they eat and play in. Otherwise they have an upstairs with 7 sets of bunk beds, and a bathroom. We are trying to figure out a way to either build onto her current house or what the procedure is to build something from scratch. This is a lady who loves all her orphans and all of the kids (somewhere around 30) that she watches every day. Liz and I really think that helping her will help the community of San Genaro and help these kids to have a better future. We are uploading pictures of each of their faces to the mmrc website over the next couple of days. You will have the opportunity to see each one of them and help us to help them!

Saturday Liz and I took 10 of the orphans to the beach! They were so excited! We got two cabs, stuffed everyone in and headed to the closest beach. This beach, Vanessia, is nothing like Chorillos...we could actually see the water and play with the kids! We played in the water and the sand with them, they loved every second of it! Since they obviously have no sand toys they were playing with trash that they found, wait until you see the sand castles that they built with straws and other various objects! We cant wait to get back down there and be able to take them other places and do other things with them! It is amazing how appreciative children are over the smallest things here, I would love for every child in the US to experience one day in the life of a child in a third world country.

Now that I have taken up most of your day reading about my past week, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers and take a look at the mmrcglobal.org website!

the smiles of the orphans...

Tomorrow we begin an endeavor that seems much to large for us to accomplish...lice removal of 900 kids! Granted we are going to be given some help, two "nurses", altogether making 4 nurses and our man Javier and our friend and translator Mayra. The reason for the quotes is because nurses here, so we have been told, are different. We arent exactly sure what that means but as soon as I find out Ill fill you in! As far as Javier, he is our contact and usually sits somewhere just in eyeshot looking at his watch. That makes him sound impatient, truly he runs errands for us when we run out of things. Or if I need medications or anything really, he is the man. Mayra is so much help, we have been truly blessed to have her, she is willing to do anything and everything. She gets in there with us and picks lice and does whatever is needed to be done. We will be very sad to leave her, we might even try to take her to Ecuador with us! Mayra is 17, she is studing communications at the University. She speaks both English and Spanish and spends every day all day with us. She also volunteers her English skills and teaches 3 days a week at a school for teachers, where they are learning to speak English. They believe that if they can speak English that they can better their society and make more of a difference in their country! Yesterday we had the opportunity to go into the poorest part of Lima, they have no water, no electric, no homes, no nothing. Of course "no" is not totally true, the water truck comes 3 times a week with not drinking water but water for bathing and washing clothes, the electric is "borrowed" (wires are rigged from the electric poles into the houses) from the power lines closer to the city, and their homes are made out of scraps and trash. This place is on the side of the highest point in Lima,which makes it the hottest in the summer and the most wet in the winter. Apparently they have mudslides which wash away their "homes" so they have created barriers with old tires and rocks to try to decrease this issue. Regardless, these people are in need. Javier is trying to figure out where we start, what can we do for these people to make their lives just the tiniest bit better. He introduced us to this place so that we could help in deciding what to do. We stood in this shanty town, with the kids playing in the dusty street around us and the mothers washing their families clothes in buckets of freshly delivered water, thinking. What do we do to help these people? I am truly "at home" here. I love being here, I love working here, I love the people and the language. I am looking forward to meeting our friends in Ecuador and getting some of our own projects started, but being in South America makes me feel like I am right where I am supposed to be. I do not miss anything of the United States, except my family and my little doggers Leila of course, but I havent thought once that I am missing out on anything in the good ol US of A. Crazy, I know...but amazing nonetheless. Today, we got to play with our kids at the orphanage! I love those kids and they love us! As soon as they see us drive up they are at the gate yelling our names, when we enter they are jumping on us and kissing and hugging us! Not one second goes by while we are there that they are not in our laps or dont have their arms around our necks! They need so much love! and I want to take every single one of them and love them forever! It breaks my heart every single day when I have to close that gate behind us and tell them goodbye. Clara, the owner/teacher/mother of all of the kids gives them all lots of love...but could you imagine having 15 kids to take care of and splitting your lap and neck time? On top of the 15 that live with her she takes in somewhere around 30 more every single day as like a daycare. She is an amazing woman. Soon we will be posting the pictures of each of the orphans with their names and ages so that you can see them and see what we see in their beautiful faces! Think about us as we come in contact with 900 kids over the next few days...in a very poor area with lots of needs and even more lice!