love from peru. inspirations from Dad.

dearest kids, mom & family and friends,

i hope you are all well and enjoying what i hear is a stupendous september! there are moments i wish i was home... life is fast here and there is very little time that is my own and i apologize for being so far behind in journalling about what is becoming a very simple, yet busy life. life with my little boys is completely rewarding .. they are kids.. sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes nice and sometimes not so nice. good thing i don´t understand spanish that well .. but i do get when the older ones say in their thick spanish "you are crazeee" and i just smile and laugh..

thank you so much for all of the letters that you have taken the time to write.. it is absolutely the best part of my day when i hear from you.. wish you were here and living a simple life with me.. it is not anything i could have imagined and i am enlightened most days.. before i tell the stories of the day let me continue with the innocent beginnings...


i will pick up where i left off in the last letter i wrote which is now wednesday morning of last week - my second day at the orphanage.

it is wednesday and i awakened early when i heard the doctor rise. my glands are swollen and my throat is sore. our communication skills are clear and before i know it he has retreived a spoon from the drawer and is pressing it on my tongue. nodding in agreement he indicates that he had something for me. i wait in the kitchen while he runs upstairs for moment. back, he hands me a large white pill wrapped in shiny tinfoil.. amoxicillan. then he writes a prescription for me on the back of a scrap of notepaper and hands it to me... feeling better already, i go back to bed for a few more hours sleep....

after my second spanish lesson, i head to the orphanage the route is the same, the people are the same. there is the same old lady with long braids tied together at the bottom.. her skirt is at her knees and her sweater is old.. on her back is something resembling a bail of hay rolled into a tidy bundle.. vendors have their spaces, dogs are tired on the sidewalks, mothers and babies huddle into corners, nursing, comforting and resting with their wares. i am charmed by the ladies their carts of fruit, babies on their backs and toddlers playing at arms length and sometimes farther.... like yesterday and any day ahead this will be the story...

inside at the ophanage i see that gavin has one little guy painting and i hear the game they have invented. i smile remembering a time when we painted together.. eh logan? thank you honey. it is way more fun with two. not being part of the great painting event i have my own mission today.. fingernails!

little ones greet me and already the staff have left me on my own not inquisitive of my arrival or what i might be doing with the boys. they are quiet in their offices and occasionally a man that never smiles patrols the middle walkway of the courtyard. i don't give them much more of a thought collecting my little ones and taking one in tow to their version of a washroom that none of us would ever use.

it is dirty with rough, yellow, plastered walls. there is a screened window mounted near the ceiling and a corner shower beside the toilet that has no walls.. the whole room is dark and the sink in layered in old soap spatters. there is a light and it is dim.

the little guy and i walk hand in hand into the washroom. at the sink i pull out the little brush and slather it across the bar of soap that sits in a soap dish rimming with old grey lather, wet my hands and begin to scrub my nails.. the little guy watches . he is about a foot taller that the sink.. then i take his little hand, slather it with soap, rub and squeeeze and love it up, in between those little fingers and around those tiny worn out nails. then i take that soft brush and give a swish across the fingers that so trustingly have been put into my care. hmmmm... not cleaning up very well.. i hand over the brush to the little guy and intently focused he begins to work away at his tiny nails.. we rinse and scrub some more examining in between the degrees of success in our work.. then when no amount of scrubbing can do any better we rinse, dry off with the only existing dirty towel, and head out to the sunshine to clip and trim..

he loves it and fascinated we work away at one hand and then the next. his fingers are small and their tips worn out from outside play and work...carefully the ragged edges are trimmed away and tiny cuticles are gently pushed back.. he pulls himself away and i show him the beautiful moons on his fingers... he becomes ok with the whole proceedure and i show him the big clippers for his toes.. theses are another story... tough with time his feet are ages old.. swollen and thick there is no way any amount of soaking can repair or make nearly new this skin.. i take that little dirty foot and try to make some clean straight ... but impossible cuts across these toes... and then i hand over the clippers to move on to another little kid and then another. it is the event of the day and i work away at as many little ones as i can. they are all delighted and some unwilling to give up the nail brush until at least the tips of their fingers are spotless. others scrub away at skin too thick and dirty from hard life but seem delighted with the feeling of a soft brush...
it is all good. so simple.. and so happy. there are some very hard workers here and very clearly some perfectionists. these little boys will grow..

then, once around with the majority i go to the locker room. it is beside the study, with a part open wall between them some ten or so feet high. the lockers are a dirty cadmium yellow.. like sunflowers.. with some stickers and names embedded into parts of doors..each boy has a locker and i have been told that these need to be neat and tidy.. new clothes from the laundry lines that hang on a small pod of grass between the kitchen and eating quarters have arrived and three boys.. have sorted out their clothes from the pile... which is which seems very clear and there is no argument over items. they are doing a version of folding and so, working on the floor, i pull a t-shirt out of the pile... i do the simple fold ... put flat , fold in half , fold the sleeves in and fold in half for the little ones and then i show them, little and big boys, the speedy fold...... hold it in the air, whip in the sleeves, fold it in half and straighten out the collar so it looks perfecto! they like this game... and figure out an easier way to put it on the floor , fold each side in and tuck in the sleeves, then fold it in half and fix the collar. we go from this to arranging pants on one shelf, shirts and t´s on another and warm tops on another... the top shelf is for treasures... special things .. these little guys have none... but i have seen it on the shelves of the older boys... and pretty soon three of the lockers are in a nice organized state of affairs.. nice.

the day passes... a little bit of learning and little bit of happiness.. and of course, a little bit of clean.

i take a taxi home to rice, potatoes in some creamy sauce with little bits of some version of meat, flat white rolls and a pudding.. it is unusual but i eat it.. manners are extremely important..

i have a nasty dripping cold today and am whipped.. so i hit the hay.

hoping you are all happy and well with great projects and good things coming up in your lives.. again thank you for your letters. they are a wonderful lift. enjoy the sunshine for me and breathe that wonderful canadian air. everybody seems to love Canada. me too!

bless you and all my love,
mom.. me, deb...