News

Hello everyone,
Well, we just finished our seventh month here in Peru and we can hardly believe it. April was a good month and we accomplished a lot of good things. We have been finalizing the curriculum for the Andean School, we finally finished the Water Reclamation Project at the Aldea del Rosario, we have started construction on the Aldea Fransesca Mayer Playground Project, we have designed and printed T-shirts for the Andean School as well as Tinkuy Peru and we are in the final stages of finishing the new Tinkuy Peru website. We have some really good volunteers come and help us in April and we had a lot of fun. We are starting to look forward as we are over the half way point in our work here in Huancayo. We are excited about what we have accomplished and we hope to really help to orphans in our remaining months here.

The New Andean School for English:

April was a regular month with not much news in the Andean School. Alison and I changed our schedule and are teaching 8-13 year olds in the mornings. Our classes have been going well and we seem to be getting the hang of teaching English. We are looking forward to joining are two classes for some writing and speaking projects in May.

We have been working with the new Andean School coordinator, Nilton on few projects to get the school more organized and working better. With one of the donated laptops, Nilton has put together some materials for the school including a grade cards for the students, a guide packet for the volunteers, and materials for the class rooms. We have also designed new logo for the Andean School as well as a T-shirt for the kids and staff. Please click this link to view the new shirt.

Tino and Nilton are still in negotiations for the new location for the school. They have a better location with a better owner who will be easier to work with. We hope to be in the new school in the next two months.

The Aldea del Rosario Infintil Orphanage:

April was a fun month at the Aldea del Rosario orphanage. The Aldea received a few new kids and Alison and I got the chance to help welcome them to there new home. It was a hard to see them scared at first but then it was rewarding to help them get used to their new lives.

We have started a journal and story writing class with some of the kids at the Rosario. We have asked to write a little bit about their experiences into a notebook and then we are teaching them how to type them into the computer using our newly donated laptops. The girls seem to be enjoying the activity and we are learning a lot about their lives.

We finally finished the water reclamation project that was started back in December. The cisterns were hooked up correctly to the houses. We found out after everything was connected that the Aldea had a bad connection to the main water line so the cisterns would not fill up. We did some additional fundraising with the volunteers here in Huancayo and we were able to come up with the money to make a new connection to an alternate source. With six hundred feet of pipe and a few roles of fitting tape, we were finished. We would like to thank Darren Rowland, Robin Shurtlef, Lauren Adams, Janelle Doebel, William Luzzi, Kristin Riveiro , Leoncio Tinoco, Terry McComick, and Alison Varney for their contributions to the new connection project. The completion of this project will see a new Aldea with improved hygiene, sanitation, and nutrition. Please click the link below to see some of the final images of the project:

 

The Aldea del Fransesca Mayer Orphanage:

Some of the most special times that we had in April were at the Fransesca Mayer orphanage. We spent more time at this orphanage in the month of April than we have in months past. Our afternoons at the Fransesca Mayer were filled with kickball, cooking class, a still life drawing class, knitting class, homework help, math tutoring, construction, and even traditional Easter egg coloring complete with an Easter egg hunt. We found that one of the babies was under nourished so we decided to buy her special food and milk. She is gaining weight and seems to be happy. We have also translated some of the stories from the girls. Please click the link below to see some of their stories.

Construction started on our biggest project yet in Peru, the Playground project. We did a detailed set of drawings (in Spanish) and worked with two builders to come up with a cost estimate for the materials and work. The estimate came in 100% over budget and we needed to do some reducing of the design. We were lucky to have our friends Darren Rowland and Erin Mitchell donate the other half of the money that we needed to complete the entire project. Terry worked out all of the details with the builders and went with them to buy all of the materials. So far we bought 90% of the materials including the steel and wood. Terry and Darren have been helping “Tio Aldine” and “Tio Carlos” dig holes and put up the structure. Construction is proceeding nicely and we are happy with the progress. Please click the link below to see the drawings and construction images:

 

Tinkuy Peru:

We had a full house of volunteers in April which actually seemed slow compared to March’s overflowing number of people in the house. We had people from Michigan, Utah, New York, Australia, Ireland, Belgium, and Bulgaria. We had eleven total and we all had a great time together with plenty of great stories.

We are putting the final touches on the new Tinkuy Peru website and we will be excited to finally get it finished and uploaded. We hope that the new site will clarify the goals of the organization, answer questions about its structure, and bring more people to Huancayo to help the children. Please click on the link below to check out the updated version of the page with all of the links working and some text.

We have wanted to make a new logo and T-shirt for Tinkuy since we arrived and we have done it. Click on the link below to see the fashion trend of the spring: