Monday

I felt a mixture of emotions as I awoke this morning. . .anxious about the unknown, yet excited for the opportunity to visit el Arca, the children's home today. The mama and papa of the home are Bud and Laura Lenz, and they are really mom and dad to the children here! Currently there are almost 40 children in their care. It's a great responsibility, but they have almost perfected the system to keep things running smoothly!

At 7:30am this morning, I hopped on a taxi with two other girls: Sarah (22yrs. old, just graduated in elem. ed) and Kristen (12 yrs old, loves kids!). We got the directions for el Arca and away we went! It cost us about 20 soles (about $7.30) to travel the 25 minutes across town. Our cab driver was very nice. The peruvians drive crazy here, but I loved the trill of the adventure! We even had to stop to put air in the tire on the way!

As we arrived safe and sound, we were greeted by hugs and hello's from the children. Laura invited us into la sala (the living room) for devotions before we began our day. It was a sweet time together. Then, we all split up into our various areas of interest and got to work! Sarah helped teach the children in the classroom, Kristen played outside in the courtyard with the younger ones, and I talked with Laura about recipes and spent the day in the kitchen.

We made chili for lunch, and I began chicken dumpling soup for supper. It was hillarious at times trying to communicate with the other women in the kitchen through my limited Spanish. They are all so patient and we had fun together! I had planned on staying until 5pm, but we ended up leaving earlier. Marleni was going into town and we had the opportunity to ride back to the hotel with her. So, I quickly turned over my task to the peruvian women, hoping my Spanish was enough to communicate how to put the rest of the soup together and make the dumplings so that it would turn out.

I found out the next morning that the dumplings turned out and the soup was good! However, the peruvians perfer the skin part of the chicken most. So instead of being chicken dumpling soup, it was chicken skin and dumpling soup!

Here are some random observatioins:
-many hands make light work! I wish I had that much help at home :)
-the big island in the middle of the kitchen is where most of the chopping and food prep takes place
-they use several large stainless steel pots for cooking the food
-there are few "tools" but they can make just about anything with a knife and large metal spoon!
-the food is served to the children outside the kitchen
-there's a sink just outside the kitchen for the children to wash their hands and brush their teeth
-after eating, the children each wash their own bowls under the outside faucet and bring them back to the kitchen clean
-when the dinner bell sounds, the children have 2 minutes to get their food
-Friday nights are American nights (USA-American, that is!)
-there is only cold water in the kitchen faucet
-the chicken for the soup came fresh from the market with feet and head and all!