Everyday is a surprise for us here in Peru - our humanitarian work involves something new all the time. We love what we are doing, and we can never guess what is right around the corner for us.
Donations: Organizations that Support the Needy
This week we coordinated donations of surplus items to organizations that support the needy and disabled. We worked through the office of a Peruvian congressman to locate organizations that could benefit from the donation of more than 400 items stored in our warehouse in central Lima, including washers, dryers, televisions, furniture, etc., that had been accumulating for some time.
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| More than 400 items we donated this week to help a host of charitable institutions, such as the Saint Vincent de Paul geriatric center, the Confederation of Disabled People, and the Canevaro Senior Residential Center. |
We had to catalog all of the donations, which took days to complete, then spent two half-days coordinating the pickup. We probably had 20 trucks loading up these donations for the charitable institutions we helped.
The congressman we often work through to coordinate these donations is Kenji Fujimori who is serving his second term in Peru's congress. His father, Alberto Fujimori, was the Peruvian president back in the 1980s who helped defeat the 'Sendero Luminoso' terrorists in Peru. Kenji's sister almost won the presidency last year. Meanwhile, Kenji's office has been instrumental in helping us connect with a host of organizations to make our donations of all our surplus items.
Previously, we made a donation of 10 surplus IPADs to the National School for the Blind (a host of apps on the IPAD help blind people more easily adapt to a sighted world) and to the Albert Einstein Institute of Science. The delivery ceremony (always a ceremony here in Peru) took place in the congressman's offices.
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| Donation Day. Congressman Kenji Fujimori (center) at the donation ceremony in his office. We donated 10 IPADs to the National School for the Blind and the Albert Einstein Institute of Science. |
Kenji Fujimori graduated from the University of Kansas and spent time at Utah State University, so he speaks perfect English and has been an ally for us in helping us carryout our donations.
Other Projects in the Works
We continued to work a host of other projects throughout Peru this week, including two clean-water well projects, two projects donating medical ultrasound equipment to remote clinics where they continue to lose mothers and newborns, wheelchair projects, and two vision projects. Our most recent project will be conducting training in northern Peru in a few months with US doctors who will present maternal and newborn care training to reduce mortality levels in poor regions of the country.
More about Food
Food here in Peru is excellent. Every day we find more and more good things to eat. And restaurants are so inexpensive, it costs about the same as eating at home.
Chifas - Peruvian/Chinese Fusion Restaurants
Right from the start of our mission, we have been amazed at the number of 'Chifa' restaurants throughout Peru. Over the past century, hundreds of thousands of Chinese immigrated to Peru and opened restaurants all over the country. These restaurants are called Chifas, and they aren't exactly Chinese restaurants - they are a fusion of Chinese and Peruvian cuisines. Chifas are found every where you go throughout Peru.
In Lima, there are over 6,000 Chifas. You are never more than a block or two from a Chifa!
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| One of the thousands of Chifas found throughout Peru. |
Chifas come in all shapes and sizes, and the food is good and usually inexpensive. We eat at our favorite one for about $12 total for two people, including soft drinks and tip.
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| Limon Kay (lemon chicken) from our favorite chifa: Bu Bu Gau. A powerfully sweet lemon chicken flavor that seems like it could glow in the dark, plus a large mound of fried rice molded into a half-sphere. |
There are so many Chifas, you lose track of them. There are about 10 Chifas within a few minutes walk of our apartment.
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| For lunch or dinner, Chifa's serve a lot of food for not much money. |
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| We found one Chifa where the waitress only spoke Chinese. We had to speak with her granddaughter in Spanish to get her to translate for us. |
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| Chifas are not really Chinese restaurants. Rather, they serve a fusion of Chinese and Peruvian foods. |
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| You can get Peruvian Lomo Saltado along with Chinese wanton soup in these fusion restaurants. |
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| It is hard to tell where Peru ends and China begins in these Chifas. |
Potato Land
Potatoes originally came from the Andes Mountains of Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile. They are now a staple eaten around the world. However, while the rest of the world enjoys a half dozen varieties of potatoes, there are thousands of varieties available here. Locals tell us there are 3,000 documented varieties of potatoes in Peru.
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| Just a sample of the incredible varieties of potatoes available in Peru. |
No Peruvian meal is complete without potatoes. Even if the dish includes rice, it will also include at least one and sometimes several types of potatoes. They come in all sizes and colors: white, yellow, gray, even light purple.
Peruvians even have a national holiday to celebrate the potato - Dia de la Papa. But, this is not to be confused with another national holiday which honors the Pope (Dia del Papa). The word for potato and the word for Pope are the same, only the article is different ('la papa' is a potato, 'el Papa' is the Pope).
Really Big Food
Peru has lots of really big foods in sizes we had never seen until coming here.
While Peruvians eat normal size avocados, we stumbled across this monster-size variety. The photo may not do it justice, but it seemed as big as a cantaloupe. Its flavor was the best we had ever eaten. Of course, given its size, it took us three meals to finally finish it off.
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| Gigantic Avocado - it took days to finally finish eating this one. |
Peruvians love a type of gigantic corn that the locals call 'Cancha Dulce' or sweet dried corn. They puff it up and sell it in gallon-size bags for about $0.30. You eat it like a snack, but whenever we buy a bag, we want to rush home and pour it into a bowl with milk because it reminds us of a breakfast cereal.
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| Gigantic corn turned into a snack called Cancha Dulce. |
A Real Find - Chocolate Tea
We stumbled across something interesting - chocolate tea. When producing cocoa beans, they remove the shell from the bean. While most people would think the shell is just waste, the shell actually makes a really delicious tea when you soak it in hot water. You can buy cocoa bean shells in certain markets, and they are super cheap. We bought a gallon-size bag of the cocoa bean shells for about $0.50. What a find!
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| A gallon-size bag of cocoa bean shells - we have enough to make a cup a day for years to come. |
Home Sweet Home - Inside our Apartment
We live in a very comfortable apartment on the 3rd floor of a small 4-story building. This is our cozy little home until July 2018. We, like all the senior missionaries here, pay $825/month, which includes utilities. There are about 10 other senior missionary couples who work out of the area office like us who have similar apartments.
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| A comfy living room |
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| Sandy in our small (but adequate) kitchen |
Peruvian Friends
Miguel Hurtado is a good friend at the Area Office in the Purchasing Department. He and his wife Miriam have taught us so many things about how to enjoy life in Peru. They drove us all around Lima for hours on Saturday, showing us lots of markets, paid for our lunch, and finally ended our trip in Callao on the ocean. They are our best friends here in Peru.
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| Our Peruvian friends, Miguel and Miriam Hurtado, with us near the ocean in Callao. Miguel often takes us on 'field trips' around Lima as we leave the office to go on shopping trips for our projects. |
Living in Peru is a good experience for us. We enjoy the opportunity to serve, and being immersed in this culture is such a great adventure.
Did the chocolate tea really taste like chocolate?
ReplyDeleteThe tea we make from the cacao shells tastes like dissolving a Hershey bar and sugar in hot water - it is really good!
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