Hooray! Welcome to Peru (again)!
I’ve been here for about a week now, and I’m already feeling settled in which is good. It is a little strange to think about the fact that I’m going to be here for the rest of the year. I haven’t spent this much time in one place in three years! Let’s see how long it takes for me to get stir crazy. In reality, though, I don’t think I’m going to have time to start feeling that way. Once things get moving on the building project, whew! It’s going to be hectic.
So far, I’ve mostly been getting my bearings again. Last week was the final prep week before the programs started up again, and we had an incredibly long staff meeting on Friday to get everyone on the same page about how things are going to work this year. That was perfect for me because now I feel like I know exactly what’s going on!
Today was the first day for Esperanza School and Casa Esperanza. Esperanza School is mostly an after-school program, but this year they’ve added an English preschool pilot program. There are 8 kids here all day, doing whatever kids do in preschool and also hopefully learning English! Cool, right? The rest of the kids go to school in the neighborhood and come afterward for lunch, homework time, and supplemental lessons.
After Esperanza School lets out, some of the kids stay overnight as well (during the week). They eat dinner and have other planned activities until bedtime.
My workdays generally go like this:
8AM – 2:30PM – staff worship time, workday, trying not to starve because lunch isn’t until the kids get out of school at…
2:30PM – 3:30PM – lunch and recess with the Esperanza School kids
3:30PM – 6PM – work
7PM – 7:30PM – dinner with the Casa Esperanza kids
I’m attempting to exercise in the mornings and relax a bit in the evenings… I’ll keep you posted on how that’s going, but I can’t say I’m terribly optimistic. Debbie (one of the full-time missionary staff/architect) and I met today to get on the same page about the building project, and well… we have a lot of work to do! We’re hitting the ground running this week with the designs and will hopefully start construction next month. Craziness!