Peru 2009 - Entry 7: Los Jovenes

Our second-to-last day in the barrio was another good one. A few solid plans interspersed with free time to spend with the kiddos. :)

We began the morning with about 60 kindergarteners (ages 3-5). We broke them into groups to play games, do a craft, and have a story and snack time. The craft was a coffee filter butterfly, which they all seemed to love. They colored the filters with markers and we sprayed them with water to give them a tye-dye effect. Then, we wrapped pipe cleaners around the middle to make their bodies and antennae. The story (which was the area I found myself in) was about Noah and the Ark. I had notes for a lesson Mitch had written, so I used those as an outline and basically did a lesson where I talked for a little bit and then asked questions (ie: Who was on the Ark with Noah? Have any of you ever seen a rainbow?). They were very cute. Some of them were really into listing off the animals Noah took with him on the Ark, and I was really happy there were enough that felt comfortable participating.

The Executive Director of Project New Hope arrived in Peru today for a trip, so he and several of his coworkers spent the day in the barrio with us. He and I actually had a cool conversation about U of A and campus ministry--as it turns out, he did that for over ten years!

After lunch we spent quite a while decorating and getting ready for the jovenes (the youth). We decorated the community center with balloons and streamers and set up an entire obstacle course for a relay race. The race consisted of popping balloons full of flour, confetti, or water, jumping rope, bobbing for apples, running through tires, going over and under jumpropes with a tray full of glasses of chicha morada (a popular Peruvian drink), walking over two balance beams, and eating jumbo marshmallows. At the end, everyone had to get into a two-person camping tent and zip it up... not the easiest task with seven Americans. (Peruvians are really short... they fit a lot better.) My favorite part was Tori doing a Superman dive in at the last second. It was really crazy -- and the gringos came in 3rd out of 6 teams! (Which might seem more impressive if you realized how intensely competitive these people are.)

Next, we went into the community center and did an icebreaker game and then it was my turn to talk. I gave my testimony and gave a message (in Spanish). The message was supposed to be about leadership, and I tried to write it before we left the states, but neither of those things happened. I ended up writing it in bits and pieces over the past few days and it ended up being about figuring out your strengths and passions and finding ways to use them to serve. I think it was appropriate for the group I was teaching to, and I felt good about it. Then we served them dinner and busted out some games (Twister, Uno, etc.).

My stomach finally started to bother me today, so I passed on dinner in the barrio (hot dogs--which I´m not even crazy about in the states) and got a sandwich at the hostal when we got back. Still not feeling great, but there are only a few more days of excessive grease before I can have a salad. I´m not sure how much I´ve written about the food, but it is delicious. The thing is, they have french fries and rice with almost every meal, and we can´t eat fruits and vegetables that haven´t been bleached because they´ll make us sick. So essentially, I´m craving green vegetables. Asparagus, lettuce, green beans, broccoli... yummm.....

Spanish of the Day = trustworthy is ´digno de confianza´

Please pray for our last day tomorrow to go smoothly. I´ll try and blog again before we head out. Thanks again for all of your support.

¡Chao!