Lima from La Universidad Ricardo Palma

Villa El Salvador

On May 5th, the group visited the shanty town of Villa El Salvador on the outskirts of the municipality of Lima, Peru. In the heart of this Peruvian slum is a small school that hosts extremely poor children and teaches mothers how to read and write. To say that what we experienced there was earth-shattering is an understatement.



The city itself, in its broad reach, rests in what looks to be the far side of the moon. The earth is brown dirt. Everywhere. Not a tree in sight and the dusts rolls up onto everything that passes through it.



The school is comprised of 9 rooms. Each with minimal supplies. Teachers not only teach reading and writing but wear many other hats. They act as nurses, therapists, chefs...teaching the children how to take care of themselves, wash properly, eat properly. Meals are served in the classrooms and prepared by the teachers themselves.



Rotary Santiago de Surco took in us in a small bus to the town and we arrived as the school was preparing to celebrate Mother´s Day. Mothers who attended classes there were given roses and a raffle was held where each one was presented with a simple gift. Like a wristwatch or a picture frame.



We walked through the streets of this barren town, past nailed-together homes some of which held more than 20 kids under one tin roof. It is a town of mothers. The fathers have left, sometimes out of desperation or sometimes in search of work. We were invited into the home of one such woman who wakes at 4AM each morning in order to make milk which she then sells at 6AM from the front door of her home.



We were all brought to tears at some point by the experience. Some by the dispair, some by the optimism. There was quite a bit of silence as we all tried to process the emotions that flooded in...

GSE team enjoys another full ROTARY day

The GSE team started their second full week in Lima with a very long but fulfilling day, accompanied by their friends from the Brena Rotary Club. The day started at the local zoo, El Parque De Las Leyendas. The park, founded in 1964, is unique in that it was built around Huacas (pictured below).



The Huacas were used by pre-Inca civilizations like the Limas (0-600). El Parque is home to 2140 animals from over 260 different species, representing Peru's 3 main natural regions: Coastal Zone (Costa), Highlands (Andes o Sierra), and Eastern Lowlands/Jungle (Selva).
After another great lunch, the team visited 2 projects with the Brena Rotary Club. The first, Los Ninos de la Calle, is a program established for kids who live in the streets of Lima. The run-down, two-story building currently houses 22 children from the ages of 8-22. The children have been abandoned, dropped off there, or have parents who are drug addicts or alcoholics. They are there voluntarily and may leave if they choose to. However, if they choose to stay, the only requirement is that they attend school everyday. After school, the front of the building (pictured below) serves as a restaurant that the children run, operate, and administer with the help of their 2 adult counselors.



The children cook and serve the meals to the local customers. The Rotary Club of Brena hopes to help the program by providing them with new cooking materials and equipment, as well as uniforms for their restaurant.
The team then visited El Centro Educativo Beatriz Cisneros, a center that specializes in meeting the basic needs of children with physical, mental and emotional disabilities such as mental retardation, down-syndrome, autism, etc. The Brena Club hopes to help the center by providing equipment for teachers and therapists as they work to help the children.
The Brena Club welcomed the group at their weekly meeting, and the night ended with traditional Peruvian Chinese food called Chifa.



The team will visit the Rotary Clubs of Nuestra Senora de Gracia, Pueblo Libre, and El Rimac to close out their busy week.

Recap and Overview

The Miraflores District is one of the main tourist attractions with its stunning views, beautiful restaurants, and rocking nightlife. El Parque del Amor (Park of Love) is pictured above and El Faro(The Lighthouse) is pictured below. You can walk along the cliffs which rise out of the ocean at a height of around 300 feet giving you a beautiful 180 degree view of the coast of Lima.



We have presented to 3 different Rotary Clubs so far including Rotary Sunrise, Rotary Breña, and Rotary Santiago De Surco. Our presentations are given in Spanish with the exception of Rotary Sunrise which has members from all over the world and was presented in English at the Marriott Lima Hotel.



Our daily schedule includes trips to universities, museums, restaurants, Incan ruins, more restaurants, Rotary Clubs, and of course Rotary projects. We will be posting more on each of these excursions in the coming days. Stay tuned!

Alive and well

We’ve left you all hanging quite a bit, no? Now that we’re in week 2 of the trip, better orienting ourselves in the city, figuring out the suicide showers and tweaking our internet connections, we’re ready to give you more of a flavor for our time in Lima. Of course this entails stories and photos of what we’ve seen so far, but for now I’ll focus more literally on the flavor.

A short anecdote to begin… At the end of a packed week, we celebrated mother’s day with our host families and then moved into our second homes. My future host mother called up the first one to find out the essentials: what I ate for breakfast, any food allergies or preferences. Apparently, she was told that I was pretty easy going and would eat anything, but was warned that I would take pictures of all the food. This is true. And apparently this makes me the GSE foodie, so it’s my job to share this:

LOMO SALTADO

On Saturday we went to Pachacamac to see where the world was created. Then we ate lunch at a "restaurante campestre," which was arguably the most photogenic site on our trip so far. (And it had a petting zoo.) We watched them make these french fries as we walked in and they were the most delicious I've ever tasted.

CHUPE DE CAMARON

Sandee hadn't tasted this since 1969...

CHICHARRON DE PESCADO

It doesn't have to be pork fat, it's also delicious with fish! This is at a cebicheria on the avenida Rosa Toro. Heavenly.

PARRILLADA

Mil gracias, Rafael Paz. We also had chorizo sanguches (one bastardized spelling of sandwich), mini potatoes, salad, and palta (aka avocado). MmmMmmM...

Stay tuned for more. And, if you’re lucky, a few recipes!

Un abrazo,
Madeleine

MIRAFLORES

 

 

 

 

MIA AIRPORT

THE WHOLE CREW

 

QUINCY AND MADELEINE DOING MEXICAN HAT DANCE

 

PABLO PLAYING MP3s

 

ON THE PLANE...

 

READY TO GO!!!!