Family News - November

Benjamin continues to speak and sign more and more. He now joins in with his ‘Sing and Sign’ video and has a sweet way of saying ‘dee-dee-dee’ whenever he sees Bob the Builder – from the rhythm he uses he’s obviously trying to say ‘Yes we can!’.His favourite word at the moment seems to be ‘wack-wack’ which means ‘quack-quack’ – every bird he sees is a duck at present! He continues to be fascinated by books but unfortunately tends to only concentrate on each one for about 2 minutes and then leaves it wherever he has been looking at it, so we constantly have books strewn all over the house. He is still quite a mischief and his latest trick is pouring his juice on the table and smearing it into his hair. Benjamin was very excited recently Dina brought her tiny kitten to play for the morning!

Sammy learnt about plants at pre-school last month and is now learning about animals. He has learnt a little song in Spanish about a seed growing (there’s a video of a performance on ‘facebook’ if you can access that).

Recently he dressed up as a cow for the animal fancy dress day and then did his little presentation all about cows last week. He is definitely speaking more sentences now in Spanish – it’s hard for us to tell how much he really knows but when we see him with his friends we are often surprised! He still gets very tired after school and will sleep for over 2 hours many afternoons, if we let him! The trouble is, in the mornings, he then often wakes up at 5.30am! We have just had another of our parcels of books arrive from the UK so Sammy has been very excited to see stories that he has not read for 8 months. A highlight for him recently has been seeing the train coming into Cusco – it only comes in once a day from Puno, and on the other line late in the evening from Machu Picchu, so we hadn’t seen it before.

Jenny – I’ve been struggling with the 5.30am wake-ups from Sammy, a sore throat that lasted over a month, and then a cold! However, there have been some good things recently too! PE at school has been going OK, although I do find them a bit young. I haven’t had much chance to get to know the staff yet, but I have spoken to one of the English-speaking teachers and she is from Brighton! I’m starting to have some discussions with Mary, our pastor’s wife, about the format of Sunday mornings and how we do the children’s and youth work and we have some exciting possibilities for change I think.
The other week I went to a lunch and Bible study with some American missionary ladies. I was interested to meet two women I had heard about – one, Regina, is helping her husband with a little Christian school in a poor area on the edge of Cusco. The other, Laura, has nine children of her own and also cares for 20 abandoned or orphaned Peruvian children! She does have help, but still, 29 children! We visited Regina at the school last week and hope to visit Laura soon too. While I could easily fill my time twice over with helping at Sammy’s school or church, I want to be careful that I have time to do what I really came here for, which is working with the very poorest children. In Cusco itself we don’t see these children much as they tend to live in the communities outside town. Yesterday we visited the community in the hills above ‘the mountain’ (see previous blog entry – July, 2nd entry) and I feel very positive about that as the place I would like to spend a good deal of time.

Roland - I went to Huaraz in October. It was a bit of a flying visit and I didn’t get to see much of the town. I spent one day meeting the staff involved in the children’s home and the training projects they run. The second day I went with all the staff for the start of their retreat. I did some presentations (mostly in Spanish, apart from some bits I wasn’t able to prepare beforehand) on the sort of things they need to think about as they look to develop some small businesses as well as train others not only in a practical skill but also in how to use it in a business context. It was certainly a good experience for me, both for my Spanish and to see some of the challenges they are facing. I hope it was useful for them too!
I have recently started a course on micro-finance developed by the UN. The material is on-line and then there is a separate discussion forum that Peerservants (the US organisation who had the conference here in August) have set up to discuss some of the issues from a Christian perspective, with people from the projects they are linked with around the world contributing. I am also trying to get to grips with a computer programme which helps with financial projections for Micro-finance institutions. It is nice to be looking at some numbers after so long learning words!! We have a few more weeks of intensive language study and then we hope to be able to pass the Latin Link language test which means we can hopefully cut down significantly in the New Year.

House-hunting

House-hunting is very interesting here. Firstly, there are no estate agents where you can go and look at photos of houses. Secondly, in many areas, everything is behind high walls so that you have no idea if there is a one-bedroom flat behind or, as I found in one case, three or four courtyards, over 20 rooms for tourists and three houses! Thirdly, some streets are inaccessible by road and/or up rather a lot of steps. Fourthly, there are a couple of newspapers that advertise houses and flats (one is a like a small version of Friday-Ads) but it hard to tell from the advertisement exactly what is being offered – there is often no price quoted and the size can be quite vague. As a result of all this we have looked at some highly unsuitable places! However, it’s fun looking round so we don’t mind too much!

It seems quite acceptable to wander round an area that you like and ask people you see if they know anywhere for rent. Sometimes there are notices in windows, normally handwritten, saying that rooms are available, and you can knock and look. Or, it seems to be OK to knock on doors of properties that look promising and ask if any of the property is available. So far, we have found quite a few places this way.

We have been looking mainly in the area below the 'Cristo Blanco' statue that overlooks the city:

Here is a selection of places that we’ve seen on our periodic house-hunting expeditions, plus a few pictures to give you a bigger picture of Cusco:

On one occasion, we saw a lady outside her house and asked if she knew of anywhere, and she said she had two small properties inside her courtyard that were rented out. They are currently occupied but we went to see the courtyard anyway. It was a beautiful place in a lovely location near town so we might go back and ask again sometime. Encouraged by this, we knocked on the door of the property next door. This also had various rooms and flats positioned around a courtyard, again mostly rented, and the lady said we could ask again in a few weeks.

I was about to knock on another door when two women came down the street saying that they had a house available. It turned out to be a bit small and would be rather cold as all the rooms had to be accessed individually from the courtyard or balcony. It had no outside space where boys could play either.

On another occasion I saw a notice saying that there was a room to rent in a house ‘arriba’. ‘Arriba’ means higher up and that can often mean in a location in a poor area accessed by hundreds of steps! I decided to have a look as even if it says there is only one room there can often be more space that might be available later. (Probably after the main tourist season is over in September there might be more available.) The house turned out to be up quite a lot of steps but there was road access from another direction, although you would have to cross the playground opposite. The property had an amazing view across the city and a good proportion of it was being renovated. It seemed that although only one room was available at that time, it would be worth re-visiting at a later date.

I found another property undergoing renovation in a slightly more convenient location. There seemed to be about three houses on the plot, one of which would be available in a couple of months. The lady said it would have 5 bedrooms but it was hard to see how! It is also due to have a ‘chiminea’ (fire place) though so again, it’s worth another look later! This one was shown to me by a friendly security guard who saw me wandering about and said he knew the owner.

A couple of properties advertised in the paper have been worth a look but both turned out to be huge. One needed complete renovation – windows, floors, rooves - everything except new walls! It was actually for sale and we’re not planning on trying to buy something here. It had three courtyards and could be a beautiful hotel if someone has plenty of money to invest! The other was newly built but was four storeys high and had fifteen bedrooms! It was not in the area we are hoping for and was out of our price-range.

Wandering round a slightly different area, a lady I met said that the house on the corner might have a flat for rent. I knocked but the landlady was out so the girl who answered suggested I call back in a few days. I did so, but she was out again! However, the man who opened the door let me have a look inside the courtyard this time. The property turned out to consist of various rooms and two flats surrounding the big courtyard. The second floor looks as though it has amazing views over the town. The guy I met runs bicycle tours and lives in part of the building. I eventually got hold of the landlady a few days later who said she might have something in December.

The two most recent places we have looked at were advertised as suitable for running as hostels. We thought they would be too big but in actual fact they were a very suitable size. The first one was not really in the area we want but it was interesting to find a something the right size which was not much too expensive. It was snapped up by someone else the day after we saw it so we didn't get time to seriously consider it. The second place again was not in the area we are wanting but we actually like the street very much, and given the location of Sammy's school next year it would be right on a good bus route! This place has been advertised for several weeks now. Noone is taking it because the price is extortionate! We will see if the landlord eventually comes down to a realistic price.

A street we like. So far we have not found any suitable properties for rent here.

Children's Birthday Parties

I wrote this in August, when Sammy was invited to about 8 birthday parties in 3 weeks! (We didn’t go to them all.) However, I didn’t take any photos. The photos that accompany the text were taken at the 6^th birthday party of Felipe, our language teacher’s son.

Felipe's party was held in his aunty's garden.

How long does a birthday party for a 4 year old last?

The answer is, often 4-5 hours! Yesterday, Sammy and I went to the party of his friend, Victor (or, with Sammy’s fairly good Spanish pronounciation ‘big-dog’!). We have been to a couple of parties before but normally we leave before the end. This time we decided we’d stay.

The party was due to start at 4pm, but we’ve learned that it’s best to arrive at least an hour late because most other people arrive 1-2 hours late. The latest arrival yesterday was 7pm, I think. It was held at Victor’s home, about 20-30 minutes walk from here. Sometimes people hire an area in one of the restaurants as there are several round here that have small ball pools, slides and things to climb on. Not quite what you see in the UK, but more than I expected to see here.

There were about 30 children present, plus the same number of adults. Some were from Sammy and Victor’s class, but others we didn’t know. Some children came with their mums or dads, others with the family ‘empleada’ (housekeeper who sometimes also helps with the children) or nanny (mostly girls in their late teens/early twenties).

Fortunately Victor’s family have a large living-dining room but it was still a squash. It is a typical room in terms of how the better-off Peruvians here decorate. The floor was tiled (no rug or carpet), there were various religious pictures/paintings on the wall in elaborate gold or wooden frames, the light fittings were mini chandeliers, there was a glass case containing lots of glasses and various trinkets, and a vase of paper flowers in the corner. Sofas and chairs were pushed back against the wall for all the adults to sit down.

The first hour we were there not a whole lot happened. There was music for the kids to dance to and crisps, biscuits and jellies handed round.

Traditional food at a birthday party - crisps,popcorn, jellies, coca cola. Children don't sit down to eat at a set time - the food is just handed round throughout the party.

At 6pm the clown arrived. Most parents hire a clown to amuse the children at parties.

Felipe, Sammy and the clown.

He dressed up some of the kids as clowns and then got all the kids dancing to compete for prizes. Unfortunately Sammy is scared of clowns! This makes parties a bit difficult! However, he seems to be gradually overcoming his fear and joined in with the dancing having stuck to my side for the first half an hour! There then followed magic tricks, which Sammy, and all the children loved. Some involved rather too much fire for a lounge I thought! The kids’ favourite tricks seemed to be the one involving a live white dove – poor thing!

After this came the cake ‘ceremony’. Little Victor, immaculately dressed in a black suit, shirt, tie and the shiniest black shoes I’ve ever seen, stood on a chair behind the huge cake, with his mum, dad and sister. (Birthday cakes here are normally huge, professionally-made and beautifully decorated with coloured icing.) We sang Happy Birthday in English first, quite slowly, and then the Spanish version a lot faster (this seems to be the way it’s always done). Victor was then supposed to put his face in the cake and take a bite (adults usually get their faces pushed in) but he didn’t want to so he just stuck his finger in and licked it! (Sammy then thought he might do the same but fortunately the cake was taken off to be cut before he got the chance to try!)

Felipe was brave enough to take a bite of the cake.

Next came the puppet show. The clown had brought a portable puppet theatre which just about fitted in the corner of the lounge. It was not quite what I was expecting. In the upper part of the theatre appeared various animals and odd-looking monsters, one of whom knocked another’s head off. There was also a bottom section with separate curtains where we had two puppet ‘discos’ with flashing lights and loud music. One involved a dancing man (a puppet on strings) and the other involved a skeleton (again on strings), smoke, a tomb and a luminous skull and rather scary music. This seemed to frighten some of the children! Sammy wondered where the ‘proper’ puppets were! He still seemed to enjoy most of it though, minus the dancing skeleton.

After this it was time for the ‘pinata’, an essential part of every kids party here. For some reason at boy’s parties it always seems to be decorated with ‘Power Rangers’. The invitations, cake and party boxes for the kids to take home are normally ‘Power Rangers’ ones too. I think perhaps there’s not much choice here in the shops! (We’re going to a little girl’s party on Sunday and I think, judging by the invitation, everything will be ‘Winnie the Pooh’.) The ‘pinata’ involves the girls and boys getting into separate lines and taking it in turns to hit the ‘pinata’ with a big stick. When it breaks, there is a massive bundle as all the children grab the sweets and little presents that have fallen out. It’s quite rough!

The 'pinata' at Felipe's party.

After this the children ate birthday cake and the adults were given sausage and chips. It is normal here for the adults to be given hot food at the end of the party and once eaten, this seems to be the signal that it’s time to leave.

Anniversaries

It was the church's 13th anniversary last weekend. As with anniversaries for everything here, it was quite a big occasion. We had an extended service with various performances and presentations and then had a meal together afterwards. These are some pictures from the church anniversary including one of us with Pastor Americo and his wife Mary and their 3 boys.



This Saturday was the 8th anniversary of Sammy's school. There was an event in a local recreation ground, with games, music, dancing and food.

Sammy made cakes for the cake stall. One game involved guessing which box the guinea pig would run into when placed in the circle!



Barney was one of the big highlights of the afternoon. Sammy spent about 2 hours dancing!



To watch the video, it is best to pause it and wait for the loading bar to complete before viewing.

The afternoon ended with a firework display (not quite the same level of safety regulations here!)

Family News

Benjamin is 16 months old now and learning new things so quickly. He has learned various new signs and words lately, e.g. rabbit (sign plus ‘wa-wa’), fish, helicopter, please, finished, goodbye (waving plus ‘ta-ta’). He also has a very funny way of saying ‘sshh’ with one finger on his nose and his head on one side which is his way of saying that Sammy is sleeping! His first Spanish phrase, which he’s learned from Sammy, seems to be ‘a mí’ which means ‘give it to me’! He likes to wave to everybody as we say goodbye so is a big hit in all the shops. He and Sammy are very sweet in the mornings waving to each other as Sammy goes off to school. He is walking and running everywhere now and has even walked to the bread shop a few times. He is sleeping quite well, normally from 7.30 or 8pm until 6.30 in the morning. He has suddenly taken a liking to books and spends half the day bringing books to us to read. He is still very skinny but at least seems to be growing taller! The picture shows Benjamin with Dina, the lady who helps us in the house.

Sammy is still enjoying school. He even gets homework once a week! This normally involves some pre-writing activities and some sticking linked to his theme for the month. This month the theme is ‘nature’ and last week they were learning about spring. It is spring here now and he had to stick some pictures of spring on his sheet. The trouble was, what represents spring here? Things don’t change so much with the seasons in Cusco! Anyway, Dina suggested grass (as it starts to rain a bit the grass begins to grow again), flowers (there are always some but there are more now), new leaves, and birds nests – birds have babies at this time of year but I haven’t noticed other baby animals. We’ve just heard his school is going to move to a location rather a long way away so we will have to decide whether to stick with it or look at other options. His Spanish is improving all the time. If we tell him a word that he wants to know, when he repeats it his accent is definitely better than ours!



Jenny – I’ve just started doing a little bit of voluntary teaching at the primary section of Sammy’s school. The head would like me to teach in English but I’ve found I need to speak in both languages as not all the children understand English that well. So far I’m just doing a bit of PE each Friday morning. The children are only 6-7 years old, so a bit younger than I’m used to teaching, but it’s a good way to get started and I only have 12 of them. I also took a Sunday school class of five 10-14 year olds the other day. I was planning on watching the class, but the teacher didn’t turn up so I took it instead! Although I couldn’t communicate perfectly, it built my confidence that I can manage a group of children in Spanish now. House hunting continues to be partly fun and partly frustrating! We just cannot find anything big enough in the right area of town! The boys and I have all had rather persistent colds and coughs for the last two weeks but hopefully we’re nearly over them now.


This was a house we viewed recently. We thought it had 6 bedrooms, but actually was just 6 rooms, with no sign of a kitchen. It also only had water until midday. The view was good though!

Roland – We went out for a nice meal to celebrate my birthday this week. Alpaca steak is definitely one of my favourite dishes. There was also a traditional Peruvian band with dancers who gave us entertainment through the meal. I continue to spend one afternoon a week at the micro enterprise project. I’m still mainly getting to know how they operate, but am beginning to be able to give some input. It will be nice when I don’t need to do so much language study and have more time to get involved. I’m also going to start having some discussions with our Pastor about the small groups (house groups) in the church. They only have a couple at the moment and he would like to get more people involved and develop some vision for their purpose.

Ricchari Conference on Micro Enterprise Development

July 28^th – August 8^th 2007. Pisac

NB This is long! If you want to read a quick summary, just look at the introduction and last couple of paragraphs!

Pisac is the most spectacular location for a conference. The hotel is surrounded by beautiful mountains and sits just below the Inca ruins perched on the cliffs of a rocky peak. The road past the hotel, which runs alongside the river, is frequented both by the local Quechua people, llamas, pigs and cows and by the tourist taxis and buses taking visitors up to the ruins.

The diversity of the conference delegates adds to the beauty of the location with people from five continents of all colours speaking many languages. Our main speakers come from Nigeria, the Philippines, Australia, the United States and Peru. We have representatives of micro-finance projects from Peru, Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, Moldova, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, plus volunteers from the States who work to support the projects in these regions.

The conference is organised by PEER Servants, a body of volunteers in the States who want to use their business skills in serving the poor and making Jesus known. They support the above projects in the developing world by providing loan capital, training and financial advice, plus prayer support and help with discipleship.

I have already been struck by the generosity of the Americans that have come here for the conference – all with ‘normal’ day jobs but giving their time, talents, skills and resources to empower people, not in an overbearing or controlling way, but with a humble spirit and a sense that they have a responsibility before God to use what he has given them. They have a hospitality team here who do everything to look after the guests from the partner projects and many of them have spoken about how although they are materially rich they feel spiritually poor and have gained so much as they work with the projects throughout the world.

Sunday

The morning meeting was led by our own Cusco church with Mary leading worship and Americo preaching (on potatoes!). People from the church were able to come for the service, a free lunch and to use all the recreational facilities of the hotel for the day.

The evening meeting was the main opening meeting of the conference. Most people had arrived by this time although the Nigerians were delayed and the Moldovans had missed their flight and are expected on Tuesday! The theme of the conference is ‘Awakening to God’s vision for economic empowerment’ (‘Ricchari’ means ‘Awakening’ in Quechua). Our speaker for the evenings is David Cohen, now based in Australia, but previously he has worked for Tearfund and Scripture Union. He was our contact from another friend in the UK that led us to the project in Cusco so it has been nice to finally meet him!

Monday

The basic plan for the weekdays this week is devotions led by our pastor before breakfast; a main session and then two workshops (from a choice of three each time) in the morning; a choice of activity in the afternoon (e.g. visiting the ruins, visiting some businesses supported by the Cusco project, using the hotel recreational facilities); and then a final session in the evening. Today Roland went to the morning sessions so I’ll let him write about those: (In the mornings I take the boys to the playground and the pool.)

The speaker at the main session each morning was Ruth Callanta from the Philippines. She helped start a micro-finance organisation about 15 years ago (Centre for Community Transformation). It now helps over 115,000 people with their small businesses. They also have various other projects to effect social transformation. They also partner with churches to meet peoples spiritual needs too. Her sessions were very inspirational, but ‘real’ at the same time as she told of the mistakes they had made along the way and the challenges they face.

There was then a choice of workshops later in the morning, most of which were a bit more technical.
The workshops on Monday were:

Managing a loan write-off policy
Staff Training

A novelty for us this week is to be able to sing in English! The worship band has come from the US and so although they do some songs in other languages there is plenty in English. We even sang ‘In Christ Alone’ tonight so we felt very at home! The lead singer was actually English tonight too! (He’s married to an American.)

The message tonight included the encouragement not to be burdened by all the problems of your whole country. We are all working in countries with complex and multitudinous needs and difficulties and we were encouraged to find God’s focus for our ministry and reassured that God will provide the resources for what he is calling us to do.

Sammy and Benjamin have started to make friends with the other children today. Sammy went to the playground this morning with two girls adopted into the USA from Guatemala, and Benjamin’s friend is a little boy also adopted from Guatemala. The two of them are practicing their walking together which is very sweet! Sammy’s favourite place is the swimming pool. It’s under cover but rather cold! He doesn’t seem to mind shivering! He’s getting the hang of swimming with the help of his armbands. Our pastor’s eldest son, Daniel (12), is here with his mum, and he is getting very fond of the boys.

Tuesday

Workshops: Sustainability; Staff Challenges and Opportunities

In the afternoon we had the opportunity to visit the Pisac ruins, high up on the mountain above the hotel. It was a little challenging with the boys but Roland carried Benjamin in the back-carrier and Sammy walked part of it and was carried by either myself or the guide for the more difficult parts. The views from the top were amazing! The ruins are quite extensive with various sections – agricultural, domestic, religious – and the type of stones and architecture are different in each part. There are also extensive terraces which were used for growing crops.

Wednesday

Workshops: Entrepreneur Training; What does it take to be Tranformational? (I went to this one); Learning to use Microfin (a computer program)

The afternoon was the inter-continental football conference. Sadly the home continent, surprisingly lost in the final, even with the advantage of many players being used to the altitude!

Thursday

The conference delegates had the day off today to go to Machu Picchu (leaving at 5am!) We gave this a miss as we’ve been twice before and will no doubt go with other visitors a few more times. Our friends Geoff and Rachel and their boys came up to Pisac for the afternoon to see us, and to bring 4 other friends from Lima who are visiting Cusco this week. We had a nice lunch together in a café in Pisac and then I went round the huge craft market with our Lima friends while the others took the boys back to play in the recreation centre at the hotel.

In the evening we had our meal with Todd and Leslie, the couple who head up PEER servants, to talk a bit about the project in Cusco and how they think we might be involved.

Friday

I went to the morning seminar led by Ruth from the Philippines. Her other sessions had been more about how her projects run but this was more her personal story. In the afternoon delegates had the chance to see various projects around Cusco. Some went to visit clients of the Cusco project linked with our church, but I went with a group visiting a children’s home. One of the churches in the states had brought footballs and shirts for the kids.

Weekend

We came home Friday night as the delegates had time off to see Cusco and the surrounding area over the weekend. Roland helped with a short city tour on Saturday and we met up with them both days for lunch.

Monday/Tuesday

These days were specifically set aside for evaluation and planning for each project represented at the conference. Staff and board members from each project, plus one or two of the volunteers associated with these projects from the States, met together to discuss: Products and Activities; Risk Assessment and Management; Office and Systems; Governance; Resources; Entrepreneur Transformation; Staff and Management; Sustainability. Roland travelled over both days to be part of the Cusco team discussions.

I took the boys over on Monday as Sammy was keen to see his new friends and use the swimming pool again!

Although I was looking after the boys for much of the conference, I found the sessions I did go to and the people that I met very inspirational. I don’t know much about business or finance but the part of the PEER Servants vision that really interests me is the idea of ‘transformation’ in the lives of the clients. It’s not just about giving loans and business training to bring about economic transformation, but about offering prayer, Bible teaching, hope and empowerment. I also think involvement in these types of project is an excellent way for us from the materially rich West (especially those involved in business) to contribute to, and learn from, people in very different situations.

It was also great to be with such an internationally diverse group of people and also to know that many of them either have lived or are currently living away from their home country. Not only do they share our passion to see lives transformed through business training and discipleship, but they know what it is like for us personally to be living in a foreign culture far from home.

Roland’s summary:

For me it was a very inspirational week which helped me see the how lives can be transformed in many ways. It was good to hear from people with experience and also to see the potential for ways in which I can use the skills I’ve learnt over the past few years.

Kallarisunchis is only small at the moment but I believe has great potential to affect the lives on many people in and around Cusco in a positive way. I need to work out exactly how I will work with them to help them to achieve this. For the time being I need to continue to concentrate on language study, but I will begin to get a clearer picture of their current financial situation and look with them at some plans for the future.