Peru - Day 3

Last open letter to Evan and Nathan.


Dear Evan and Nathan,


Today was a very interesting day.  I found a local park to run to in the morning, which was very pleasant.  My work day started by driving to the worst part of Lima to the Madre Teresa in La Victoria (The Victory) district.  This is a ministry started by Mother Teresa after a visit to Peru and run by nuns.  To this point, I have been in some severely impoverished area in Lima, but this was beyond anything I had experienced yet this week.  It was in the downtown, so it was a very busy area.  People everywhere, working in the street.  There was garbage everywhere I looked.  Unlike some of the other areas I've been in, which are poverty stricken with some crime, this area has a very high crime rate.  Up to this point, I've thought that driving in Lima (like Guatemala City, Mexico City, and Hanoi) is an act of faith, but driving in La Victoria was CRAZY!  I cannot even describe it, but am happy to have survived.  Madre Teresa is an order of nuns who house 100 children with severe cognitive and physical disabilities and 150 men with neurologic disorders.  There is one physical therapist and one speech and language therapist for all of the kids and two physical therapists for the adults.  They see 6-9 patients at a time and I can't believe how hard they must work every day. 


Next, I went on several home visits with the director of Marincitos.  The home visits are designed to check in on seniors that haven't attended lately, seniors who have known histories of being abused or neglected by their families, and seniors at risk of losing their home or belongings to neighbors or families (to let the neighbors or family know that someone is checking in on them).  We visited a young man who had a spinal cord injury from a construction accident and has very little support from his family.  The young man is homebound due to living on a hill that was so steep we could not drive up it and his home being only accessible by about 2 blocks worth of stairs.  A local donor is paying for a physical therapist to visit the home twice a week, but the man is depressed and is not participating or doing his home exercises.  Our visit was to encourage him to participate so that he can continue to get rehab.  I encouraged him to do his exercises - this is a person who, with the right resources, could live independently and support himself, but circumstances do not allow him to do so.  I also suggested an evaluation to see if an antidepressant would work for him, but I realize that the family has no ability (and possibly no family support) to purchase medication.  Sad situation.  Antonio, the director of Martincitos, has invested so much effort in trying to get this young man the support and training he needs.


I won't try to describe the homes.  We visited a couple who live in a one-room home with a patchwork roof that covers only about 3/4 of the house, and the woman was cooking over an open fire.  I have no idea how they cope when it rains.  The only furniture was a bed and makeshift table.  The poverty today I saw was astounding, but so was the apparent level of contentedness that I witnessed in the people we visited as well as others at Martinicitos yesterday, who all live in the same impoverished district.  Something to learn from.


We don't eat until 7:00, so I walked to the Pacific Ocean.  It took me an hour to get there.  I made it through the Circle of Death, frogger-style.  That is an insanely busy roundabout with eight 2-3 lane roads going in/out and no lights.  I had to cross four of them.  In Peru, you can turn right or left from any lane and pedestrians do NOT have the right of way.  The rest of the walk was less exciting.  I spent two hours sitting on the beach feeling the spray of the ocean (and getting soaked twice when I wasn't paying attention to the waves).  There were a lot of surfers that were fun to watch.  Then I walked home and survived the Circle of Death again.


See you tomorrow!
Mom