Adventures in Lima

Well...I've finally made it after months of waiting! Peru is a beautiful country and I am very excited to get to know more about it. We got into Cusco yesterday after spending a couple of days in Lima. Lima is a very busy city with lots os cars, buses, and pollution. We had a whirlwind couple of days. We stayed at a volunteer house in a really nice part of the city and spent most of our time seeing the different programs that the sisters have in Lima. We visited Pino, a very poor town built into the side of a mountain. There the sisters have what seemed like a hundred different things going on. They have a center up on the hill that has a library, a place for the kids to stufy, computers, a game room with a t.v., a foosball table, and a card making workshop where the kids make cards from recycled material. They also have a office at the bas eof the hill where they have a t-shirt making workshop, sewing materials, and also support groups for women, homosexuals and transexuals, and youth. I was really amazed by the card-making operation. The sisters provide the blank cards and then the kids cut out scenes and paste them on. Right now they are in Christmas mode making cards with candles, the nativity scene and gifts bags with snowmen. They turn out really beautiful. We also visted a home the sisters have for young mothers and their children call Reina de la Paz. There must have been over 30 babies and toddlers there all with mothers between the ages of 11-17. They also have a girls home for girls who have been removed from there homes due to abuse or neglect. I was really impressed with all the programs because they provided educational support and also a way for the residents to make money and be able to support themselves. That is an important philosophy of the sisters, to help the populations they serve be able to support themselves. We also got to do a little site-seeing in downtown Lima, which was nice . We saw the central plaza with the national cathedral and the president's house. Lima was a nice little stop, but Cusco is really where I wanted to get to. In Lima I felt like a tourist but Cusco will be much different.