What have we been up to?

When we started getting emails asking if we are still alive, we realized it was time to update this blog! We hope this update gives you a glimpse into our summer.

The boys finished up school in December and had until March 9th for summer break. We were able to spend lots of time with them. They went to swim lessons and Solan spent time reading in English. We had great plans to use a 'hooked on phonics' program with Aidan but....

(Solan at his swim competition).




The boys also spent many days playing outside with their friends. Unfortunately, by the end of January we started to see a change in our kids vocabulary and attitudes and realized that we needed to reel them in a bit. They had spent a month playing with kids who are pretty much abandoned (I am ashamed to refer to them as the boys from the Lord of the Flies). So February was spent looking for fun things to do outside our neighborhood. Since Chicago is saturated with kids events all summer, we had to make due with the McDonald's playland. Luckily, we also have the beach. We did get a really cool jungle trip in, which Solan is planning to write about.

Bart has been the busy beaver or, since we are in Peru, I should say the busy guinea pig, this summer. We received a grant from the Comboni's (our mission community) to help renovate our building. There were structural issues with our place, like water pipes that leak into the walls and toilets that didn't work. Our building needed a face lift as it has not been maintained since it was built 11 years ago. Bart has a vision to make this building a community center so he has been working with the youth from our church and some neighbors to paint it, make small repairs, and plant a few gardens in the front. Bart is great at getting lots of people involved in projects. He had people I never even met dropping off plants for the community garden and every child in the neighborhood has helped paint our chapel. Bart spent a few nights going over their work as 8 year olds and paint brushes don't always make the best finished project. Here are some pictures of our gardens and painting the chapel.

Dump truck drop of soil for our gardens.


Painting the iron work around one of the gardens.

Working on the garden.

Carlos, Aidan, Davi, and MariCarmen are in charge of filling up the water buckets.

Carlos and Solan after a long day of working on the garden.

One of the youth helping paint the chapel.


Our neighbors, Josué and Walter, painting the chapel.

We also are having some tables and chairs made for a study center. The building we live at has our apartment, a chapel, and 6 classrooms. Currently, a preschool is run out of 4 rooms, leaving us with two free rooms. One of those rooms is used for the school Bart set up with an organization. The other is being renovated for a study center. Our hopes are to have a place that the neighborhood children can use to do their homework. Bart is working with our church youth group to start a library too, but that is just in the talking stage.

So as you can see, lots of things on the burners but what would a summer in Trujillo be without beach trips?

We had our first annual beach trip with our church. It is only 30 minutes away, but sadly, some children in our neighborhood have never been to the beach. So we rented a bus and went with 40 people to the beach. Every family brought food and a neighbor let us borrow her volleyball net. It was a great time, especially when some of the older moms got in the water. Here are some photos of that day.

Under the beach umbrellas at Huanchaco Beach



The group having some fun in the water. I notice that I like my personal space but Peruvians have a different idea of personal space. They like to hold hands and all go in the water at once. After I resigned myself to getting dragged around in quite wavy water with little (and big) kids falling on me, I found it to be lots of fun.

Lastly, we got the boys settled into school. Solan is in third grade and Aidan is starting kindergarten. Both boys are going to the same school but it is a new school for both of them. I really loved Solan's old school but not how far it was nor the lack of quality transportation. Now the boys study at a private Catholic school about 15 minutes away by bus. We take them there and pick them up every day and I like that so much more. Unfortunately our zone isn't known for it's great academic institutions so they might get behind, but who knows, they are gaining other experiences so it should even things out in the end. Here are some pictures on their first day of school. Got to love the spiffy uniforms!
Solan in his school uniform on his first day of third grade.

Aidan in front of his school, Santa Rita de Jesus.