El Niño Pez...

So yesterday looking through pictures with Tio Ismael, he showed me this picture of this little boy, Marco Antonio, that they call "El Niño Pez" (fish boy). He has Ictiosis Lamelar. A rare skin desease where the skin is like fish scales. He said that my cousin, Ceasar back in New York had heard this little boys story on TV and that he lives here in Peru and he asked him to find out more information. My uncle found out where he lived and contacted the family. He met them and helped them out a bit. He hasn´t gone to visit them in a while since he was diagnosed with cancer. He told me all about the little boy and how they are very poor. He said that they don´t have much money and sometimes they don´t even have enough for the bus fare to take him to school! I knew right away I just had to meet them and do something to help. So my uncle called and asked to see if we could come by to visit the next day. His mother said it would be great.

So we went to the market and bought him some fruit and cookies and candy. I was really looking forward to meeting him. He lives in a little town called Ventanilla. It was maybe 45 minutes away. As we got closer to the area everything was just dirt roads and the houses were small and run down. It made me so sad to think how people can live in such poor conditions. I just wish I could help everyone!

We got to the house and knocked on the door and his mom answered. (I can´t remember her name). She let us in and we walked into a large room with a kitchen table on the left infornt of a window and the fridge was in the corner next to the table. To the right was a couch and a TV against the far wall and another couch against the other wall with a teeny tiny kitten sleeping in the corner and 2 doors to the left leading to the 2 bedrooms in the house. There was a large photo of Mary and Jesus up on the wall as well. The little boy, Marco Antonio, was getting an oatmeal bath. He is supposed to have 3 oatmeal baths a day and have this special medicated body lotion applied to his skin 3times a day too. But they can´t afford it. He gets 1 bath a day and they haven´t had money for the lotions in a while so his skin has gotten worse. When I walked in and saw him sitting in this little plastic tub thing I just wanted to cry. He was so excited to see us. And I shook his hand and his skin was so rough and scaly. His mother finished bathing him and he got dressed and came out to meet me. He was the sweetest happiest little boy! It just broke my heart that he has to suffer because of this desease! He is pretty much deaf because with this desease his ears have gotten completly plugged up because to clean them out is too expensive. He communicates in sign language. We gave him the bag of goodies we got him and he was so excited! He went over to the fridge and opened it because he was trying to tell us that he wanted eggs. The fridge was completly empty! The egg carton was empty. It really really made me so sad for them. My uncle took him to the little corner store and bought him a bag of chips. He showed us all his notebooks from school and his work. He is really smart. He does very well in school his mom told us. He can write his name but I don´t think he can really read. He doesn´t speak at all he just uses sign language. He really liked my camera. He kept asking me to take pictures of him. He was so cute. He was running around everywhere smiling and laughing. He was so loving and always giving us hugs. His mom told me how everything came abot. She said that he was born only 5 months into the pregnancy. When he came out his skin was completly covered with black. The doctors thought he had just gotten burned by the placenta but then they realized it was the way his skin was. She said he didn´t have any ears when he was born, he just had holes on the sides of his head. He was in an incubator for 2 months. They diagnosed him with Ictiosis Lamelar. At first the family had alot of help and support from the state. But a few years ago they stopped helping. One of the lotions he needs is 300 soles(about $100)and the other is about 200 soles. He is supposed to take these other pills too that are about 65 soles a month. They don´t have enough for it all and that´s why his skin has gotten worse in the last year. His father works but it´s still not enough and he has an older brother that has dedicated his life to working as well to help take care of his brother. When his mom was telling me the story about everything she just started crying. It just broke my heart. I wished I could do more. I gave her the money I had in my pocket. It wasn´t much but I wanted to help a little atleast. I´m going to try to start a fund for them I just don´t really know how to go about it. Please pray for this family.


Marco getting a bath


with his kitten


Marco and his mom


he is so sweet


he wrote his name and wanted me to take a picture of it


carrying his notebook


Marco and Tio Ismael


Me and Marco - it was such a blessing to meet him


playing with his kitten


outside his house with his dog

Saying Goodbye...

Well my mom is left today early at 6 am. I am so sad. I´m really going to miss her so much. I do already! She was supposed to leave on the 4th but since that stupid hurricane is coming she had to leave a day early since she is flying into Miami. So we had to go visit people and say bye and do all this stuff in a hurry. I went to Minka a centro commercial with Tio Ruben and bought all this stuff my mom wants to take back home. Tons of spices, candy, cookies and chocolates. When we got back to Tia Mimi´s house Tio Benjamin, Tio Ismael, my cousin Becky and her kids where there and our other friend Becky, her boyfriend, her mom Ofelia and Luz where there to say good bye to my mom too. They had brought empanadas to eat, a big bag of chifles(plantain chips), olives(yuck), and they made some other stuff too. We all laughed and had such a great time hanging out.
After they all left my mom still had to finish packing, as did I. Her flight left at 6am so we had to be at the airport at 4 am. We slept maybe for an hour. I was so sad just thinking about how far away we will be from each other..Tio Ismael and Lucho took us to the airport. We all hung out until it was time to take her to board the plane. It was such a sad good bye. We both cried but I know I will be okay here. I have so much family and people that love me so much surrounding me. I´ll definately be taken care of. I am staying with Tio Ismael for a few days. I know it will be fun. Because he is so cazy and hilarious, all we do is laugh!!!

Tia Grimalda...

This morning we got to church 45 minutes late. I guess this is just how we have always been. I am usually always late for everything and my family here seems to always be too. So I´m thinking I´ll just blame it on genetics!

After church we were trying to figure out where to go for lunch. We drove by this little Peruvian Festival so we decided to just eat there. I ordered Chicharron(pork) I almost ordered Cuy(ginuea pig) they eat those here they aren´t pets. I have never tasted it before but I am curious to see what it tastes like. I´ll get that next time. My mom ordered duck with rice and everyone else ordered sopa de cornero(I don´t know how you would say that in english. Lunch was so good and cheap! I am always pretty shocked at how much we can order and how little it ends up costing.


where we ate at


our lunch, mine is the plate on the left(I dont know why the picture came out so red)


Cuy


Cornero


they cook meat in here.They cover them with stones and cook them that way.



After lunch we walked around the festival for a little while. I bought some really pretty black dangly earrings. They are made from some type of metal I don´t know. So then we headed out to go visit tia Grimalda. She lives kinda far away so it was a long ride. I was taking pictures of random things we drove by and I was´t even thinking about where we were and if it was safe. Then tio Ismael I guess saw me taking pictures and he told me to put my camera down because it was one of the sketchiest unsafe places and they will break the wiondows of your car to rob you! So that scared me and I put my camera away. If anything happens to my camera I think I would die!

Scenes from the drive:










We finally reached her house and I was so excited to see her. She is the oldest of all of them. She´s 86 years old. She is so little and cute. She is so special to me for some reason too. She was still downstairs when we got there. I looked down from the window and she was just walking around trying to get ready. She went over to the faucet and wet her hair and was trying to fix it. It was the cutest thing. When she walks she kinda drags one of her feet. She had a stroke and it caused her to lose alot of strength in her foot. She has to go up all these stairs too. But she says she is so used to it. When she saw me she even remembered me from 3 years ago when we came to visit, I was so happy! I didn´t think she would. We all sat around and ate bread and drank some tea and talked and talked. She even recited a poem for us. It was so sweet. Tio Benjamin got there later on and he ended up singing her a song. It was so good to see her again. I am definately going to go visit her alot while I am here. She is all by herself all day. She takes care of her son Miguel who has a brain injury and has been mentally disabled since he was about 18. But she is so healthy and her vision is perfect and her posture is amazing! She even lectured my uncles on sitting up straight, it was funny.


Tia Grimalda


Tio Benjamin singing her a song


Tio Ruben, Tia Grimalda, my mom, Tia Mimi








she´´s so little


even my mom is taller than her!


with Tio Ruben


with Tio Benjamin


with Tio Ismael


all of us

One last Reunion..

So my mom is leaving on Wednesday! I am getting so sad. It´s a little scary just thinking about not being close to her. And that I´m going to be in a completly different country, really far away. But I know I´ll be okay. I am surrounded by so many people that love me and will definately be taking care of me!

We all had another little reunion today at tia Nelly´s house. I had stayed with Stefani so Saturday around noon me and Tio Benjamin got on a bus and went to Tia Nelly´s house. I ended up sitting on the front seat of the bus. I slept most of the way and didnt realize my window was open. When we got there my uncle told me he could see all thses sketchy people looking in my window like they wanted to rob my stuff, I had a backpack and my purse. Ahh! Oh well. Lunch was soooooo good! It was a buffet of all kinds of Peruvian dishes! I didn´t eat too much though becauise I have been eating waaaayyyyy too much lately! We had such a great time eating and laughing and some how we always end up singing too. All my uncles sing pretty well especially tio Benjamin he usually always breaks out in song.After we all ate we sat around the table and just laughed and laughed. My uncles told jokes and some dirty ones too and we were all dieing! I have so much fun with my family. I wish I could have had more time with them growing up. We all stayed up talking until late. Then we headed home. Tomorrow we wake up early and go to church then we are going to go see tia Grimalda. She´s the oldest.


my uncles

Parque de las Leyendas

So I´m supposed to be leaving today to go back home to the states, but I am still here! yay!
So today I went to the Parque de las Leyendas (the zoo) with the kids from the school. It was pretty crazy! When I got there and my class saw me they all ran to me and gave me big hugs and kisses. They were so excited to see me. I hadn´t seen them in over a week. I was in charge of watching Nicoll. She was kinda quiet at first and U bought her an ice cream. Well i don´t know how or what happend but we got lost. I could not find our group at all! I thought they had passed us so I was trying to go faster and catch up. My mom came too and she said that they are probably ahead of us. Well I walked so fast and I still couldn´t find them. So I decided to just stop and buy something to eat. I got an empanada and a bottle of water. Well apparently our group wasn´t ahead of us. They were far behind! They had been looking for me too. I felt so dumb. Oh well. After that we had a lunch break. The kids are so crazy! they were all over the place! It was so fun though at first. After lunch we continued through the zoo. I was in charge of watching Lorena and Nicoll now. Well they would not listen to me and were running everywhere and I was really going crazy. I was so tired of walking and chasing after them. I was always relieved when they would actually stop to look at an animal. By the time we got to the end of the zoo I was exhausted! But it wasn´t over yet. They still had an hour to play on the little playground. Ahhhh!!! This whole trip seemed so disorganized and frantic! I was so ready to get home! Well I rode back with the pastor and this american missionary girl named Becky too. We stopped at Starbucks. I never thought I would be drinking coffee from there here in Peru! It was alot cheaper too.



Maria Jesus and Nicoll


Adriana


things are starting to get frantic!




eating some lunch












Adriana. She really wanted to wrap my sweater around our heads for some reason


some bears




I saw this cute little lady and I had to sneak a picture of her!




Nicoll and Lorena




they climbed on everything!


there was this section where there were rurtles, Parrots, rabbits, chickens all in one pen. It was wierd