I don't know why I felt like I needed to mention the above. Anyway, after breakfast we loaded up on a bus for an hour long bus ride to our first student center visit in north Lima. After navigating a few narrow streets our bus turned on the road to the church. All of the kids were waiting outside for us with balloons, posters, and other things. We were greeted with many cheers, songs and hugs. I felt like we were movie stars the way we were celebrated.
After we had been given a warm welcome from the church's pastor (through and interpreter) we began our tour of the student center. In this center one of the main highlights was the fully functioning bakery. This bakery is run by church staff and current and former students. The store front sells various baked goods to the community in the morning...not so much to make money, but as a way to teach kids cooking skills and as a ministry. While we were there we visited one of the classes and sampled each of the many desserts the kids had prepared for us. Each child took turns presenting how to make each dessert and then passed out a sample. They were all very good. The only problem was that it was right after a large lunch! We were all pretty full but didn't want to say no.
That afternoon we visited one of the student homes. We hired a tuk tuk to take us all the way to the top of one of the nearby hills where the house was located. The ride all the way up the hill and then on the bumpy dirt roads up to the house was a good experience. The houses there were essentially cement slabs laid on a hillside with some siding and tin roofs. Since I wasn't able to write the names down and it's been a couple of weeks I can't remember the names. I am terrible with names. However, this very young single mother lived with her daughter and younger sister alone. Her father had died of injuries when falling on at work. Her mother, who grew up and had family elsewhere in the country, had moved back to be with her family. The little girl in the picture is currently being sponsored by someone in the United States through Compassion and attends the church/child center we had visited earlier that morning. We spent a short amount of time there, maybe 30 minutes, asking questions and watching the little girl open the gift basket full of food we had brought with us (it was put together by someone else in country).
After the home visit we toured some more of the child center. One of the rooms/activities for the girls was cosmetology. In other words, fund girl time with hair and nails. Stacey was given a custom paint job that she wore until we started our hike about a week later. All of the kids seemed very happy, affectionate, and glad to see us. It was interesting to see how similar they were to kids in this country in a lot of ways. Kids are kids, no matter what country the are in I guess.
Towards the end of our time I met a boy who had the same name as me. I decided to give him my name tag as we were leaving for the day. He and his posse thought that was pretty cool. I wonder if he still has it. Stacey gave her name tag up too...
