Stories:
First and Last Peruvian Concert
Huancayo had its annual rock concert this past month and we decided to go. There were six Peruvian bands, the headliner was a group named “Libido” (yes, it means the same thing in Spanish as it does in English). The concert was seven hours long and there were two seating sections, VIP and general. We were in the VIP section only because the ticket vender lied to us by saying that was all there was available. Apparently, in Peru, it’s normal for the crowd to break down the fences and dangerously rush into the VIP section. At this concert, they stopped this by allowing the security guards to beat the crap out of people with batons. We were a bit shocked by this but it worked.

Chicken Sandwich
Our newest good friends from New York, Billy and Kristen, came to volunteer for a few weeks but weren’t too crazy about the food in the house. We have never been too crazy about the food either but we have done little about it. Billy and Kristen decided to try a one of the small sandwich restaurants that we have been told to stay away from. It was like finding $100 in your couch cushion, the food was really good. After having their favorite chicken sandwich and fries, they would pass on lunch almost every day to get their favorite snack.

Black Eye
A couple of volunteers, who I will keep anonymous but one’s name was Darren and the other Janelle, loved to play basketball every morning after their time at the orphanage. They invited Terry to play with them everyday but he never could find the time. One day Terry was able to make it to the game. He re-entered the game of basketball after almost 8 years of retirement from his High School Junior Varsity team. He still had all the moves and the killer shot. On a key play of the game, Terry was had the ball and was driving to the basket. On the way, he put on some quick moves to fake out Janelle when all of a sudden he heard a crack on his right cheek. Janelle had accidentally punched him in the face. A day later he developed a nice black eye. He had to tell all of his students that he got punched out by a girl.

Boxing Charlie
There is an 18 year old boy with Down’s syndrome who lives at the Aldea Rosario named Charlie. He has lived at the orphanage since he was 8 years old and he is quite a character. Everyday he comes running out to Terry wearing a set of boxing gloves and carrying a set of gloves for Terry to use in what he calls “the boxing match of the century.” Everyday Terry puts on the gloves and starts to bounce around while Charlie starts to throw punches at him with all of his might. After about 4 minutes of missing Terry with right hooks, Charlie throws his hands up in the air and says “Winner!!!!” Terry then declares him the champion of the orphanage. Check out the photos link to see a picture of one of their boxing matches.

Billy Stories
Our good friend Billy is from Long Island New York and had tons of funny stories that kept us laughing for hours every night. One of the best ones was from one summer that Billy worked at the community pool as a life guard. There was a little boy on the diving board who Billy new would not be able to swim once he got into the water. The boy dived in and with in 30 seconds Billy was in the water pulling him out. On the side of the pool sat Billy’s favorite friend, Jacque, who is mentally disabled. Jacque came to the edge of the pool, clapped his hands 20 times and repeated the phrase “it’s O.K. !!!” This is now our favorite saying and like philosophy.

Mada’s Birthday
One of our favorite orphans, and Patrick McCormick’s pen pal, Madeleyne Soto had a birthday in April. Alison and I decided to take her out for “pollos a la brasa”, everybody’s favorite Peruvian food. After lunch, we took her back to the house for a surprise birthday cake and gift with all of the volunteers. It was a good day and we think that she had fun.

Peru Travel Mart
In the last few weeks of April, there was a conference of travel agents that came through Huancayo to see if they should promote the city as a tourist destination. We are not sure how this place could ever be considered touristy, but Tino wanted to help and that meant that we needed to help as well. We helped with the translation of a brochure and we even went to an extremely boring press conference. The big event was held on a Sunday and the plan was to go a few villages, see some traditional dancing and try some food. The last stop was a luncheon where Tino and his entire family were going to give a demonstration in traditional Peruvian weaving. We arrived at the final destination to find a snotty woman telling all eight of us that we could not enter because this was a “private event” despite the fact that Tino had all of his weavings and entire family inside. Well, the shouting match began and we decided to walk away. A little ways down the road we found a wall and decided to climb it and sneak into the event. We later found Tino’s family inside as well as the snotty woman which we gave dirty looks for at least forty five minutes. She was so embarrassed that she could not even look at us.

Adoption
At the Fransesca Mayer Orphanage, there is an 18 year old girl that has an 11 month old baby that we have been working with for a few months. It is a sad case but this mother has told us on several ocasions that she does not want her baby and she would like us to be her new parents. We decided to consider this seriously and look into what we would need to do. We found out “a Peruvian child must be abandoned in order to be eligible for international adoption. A Peruvian court must make a legal finding of abandonment before the child is assigned to prospective parents. In effect, this provision prohibits so-called "direct" adoptions, in which the birth parent gives a child directly (or via an intermediary) to prospective parents for adoption, and prohibits adoptive parents from searching for and locating a child on their own. We also discovered that the Peruvian government requires all adoptions to go through certain Peruvian adoption agencies where they put children on a list of eligibility to be adopted. We have discovered loop holes but who knows if they will really work. It is a disappointment for us to learn about how difficult this process is when we see the conditions that they live in and knowing what kind of abuse they have encountered.