News

Hola To All,

Welcome to update for February. It was the shortest month of the year but the busiest that we have yet. We had a great troop of volunteers here to help us, we finished a few of our projects, and we started a few others. We said goodbye to our good friend Miguel Arauzo as he moves to Boston USA to be with his wife Tara. Bueno Suerte amigo! We met some new friends and we even have been asked to be the God parents of an orphan as well as Tino’s oldest daughter Eli. We moved into our new location for the English school and we have finished the Aldea water project. February was truly a crazy month.

The New Andean School for English:

February was an intense month for the Andean School. We moved into our new location on the first of February and have not looked back since. We started out by having all of our volunteers clean and paint the space to prep it for classes. Then we had to move all our the furniture; 90 desks, 4 white boards, 30 educational posters, all of the doors, all of the partition walls, and glass. Nothing was left behind. We have funded the first phase of improvements and will continue to fund the renovation of this space with your donations. So far, we have fixed the bathroom, installed a steel door at the entry, and fixed the windows. Phase two of the project will begin in March and will include the remainder of the painting, installation of new lights, new cabinetry, new stairs, and a computer lab. Please click here to see the progress of the work.

 

In other news at the school, we have a new professor Janette. She is working with us to teach adult classes and help with the curriculum. Terry’s class has started a monthly news paper in both English and in Spanish. We will continue the paper each month and each of our classes will have a turn to write in it. Click here to see the February edition:

The Aldea del Rosario Infintil Orphanage:

February was also a good month at the Aldea del Rosario Orphanage. We are almost at the completion point of our water reclamation project. We designed, managed, and funded the construction of concrete columns and platforms to house 1100 Liter (300 US gallons). The cisterns need to be positioned 12 feet above the ground because they use gravity to create water pressure. We also managed and funded the plumbing improvements needed to connect the cisterns. Please click here to view the construction photos.

The director and staff workers of the Aldea recognized Terry, Alison, as well the contributors from the USA for all of their donations in the water reclamation project. We were invited to their anniversary festival on February 14 where, with a Peruvian priest, we blessed the cisterns. We also gave out the 8 boxes of donated gifts from our friends and family from the United States. Bags with 8-9 small toys where given to every single orphan. Please see this month’s photos for a closer look at all of the smiles that you have created.

 

We were busy with the project and the gift giving but we were also able to still work with the kids as well. We continued to take the orphans to the Andean School every morning at 10:30 for English classes. You can image Terry telling fourteen twelve year old girls everyday “Your hair looks fine, let’s go, we’re late!!!” Alison continued her cooking lessons and also created a beauty parlor where she painted all of the girls’ fingernails. We did face painting read and lots of books to the little one in English. We were asked by the Aldea to be the “Padrinos” or God Parents of a four year old girl named Fatima. We accepted and will be sworn in sometime in March.

The Aldea del Franseca Mayer Orphanage:

The Fransica Mayer is a very special place for us. We are in only in our second month working there and have already very close to the girls and the staff. Our co-volunteer and good friend Erin Mitchell as well Cathy Greene headed up the effort with an array of activities. English class, art class, crafts, counseling, cooking, and even a book writing project were among the highlights of the month with these orphaned girls. We had an inauguration ceremony for the Tinkuy Peru program in February where all of the girls gave a small welcome speech that had us all in tears.

Erin helped out by counseling some of the by counseling some of the girls that had babies, teaching them how to make homemade baby food, as well as donating diapers and clothes. Cathy taught a good deal of English and had the girls write their life stories that we are going to try to publish together here so the girls can all have a copy. We were also able to hand out toys and clothes that were donated from the US from our family and friends. We have decided to design and fund a playground construction project at the Fransesca because they currently have no area for the girls to play. The project should begin in March.

Tinkuy Peru:

We had a great bunch of people volunteering with us for the month of February. We had six people here besides us from all over the world. We also hired Tino’s daughter, Eli, to help the volunteers coordinate their projects at the Orphanages. She is doing a great job. The February volunteers also decided to make donations to sponsor our good friend and Spanish teacher Francisco Romero to take the TOEFL (Teaching Others English as a Foreign Language) test. A special thanks to Erin Mitchell, Will Fassett, Aisling Munnis, Gillian Casey and Terry & Alison as well for their donations. We are excited for Francisco and know that he will do well.

We have identified some other projects for Tinkuy Peru. Terry has been working on a new website that will hopefully better define and streamline the program as well as bring more volunteers in. We plan to launch the site in March. Tino is planning on building a third floor to our house to make room for all of our summer volunteers. We have also found a Peruvian lawyer to help us apply for N.G.O. status here in Peru. We have also started what we are calling the “North American Pen Pal Program” or NAPPP. Our orphans and students have written letters to our friends and family in the United States. Please let us know if you would like to participate in this program