Fiestas Patrias

Peru celebrates its independence day on July 28, which falls during our mid-year vacation, so we at MCS celebrated on our last day of school before vacation, July 15, with a program for our parents.  My class played a song that they have been learning in music class on their recorders.  All of the staff also dressed up in traditional Peruvian costumes.

Waiting for our turn to go on stage...

Third grade all lined up and ready to go on stage...

Their red and white ponchos formed a Peruvian flag...

Me and my co-teacher, Ivonne...

I think Natalie won the prize for most legit-looking costume of the day, complete with a baby on her back and all!

To Katy, With Love From MCS

On August 3, we had to say goodbye to Katy Mejia and her kids, Christian and Breanna, as they headed back to the States after six years in Peru.  About two weeks before she left, Natalie, Kari and I threw a surprise going away party for her to let her know how much she means to us and how much she will be missed.

When I first came to Peru in 2009, Katy is the person who made me feel at home, made sure I saw all of the important tourist traps in Lima, and let me cry on her shoulder when I was homesick.  Since then, she has been the most encouraging and genuine friend I have ever known.  Her absence leaves a hole here in Peru but I am excited to know that another school in New Jersey is gaining an invaluable treasure in her. 

Complete with American food and red, white and blue decor...

Kari - proud of her Peruvian-flag-shaped balloon artwork...

Surprise!!!

We will  be praying without ceasing for Katy's husband, Jaime, who is staying here in Peru while Katy works on his immigration case from the States. 

Katy, always the life of the party, learning a little Peruvian dancing from Natalia. 

We made this video for Katy and showed it at her going away party.   It is only 9 minutes long, but it probably would have taken 900 minutes to accurately express how much the MCS staff appreciates and loves her!

Internet Troubles

For those of you who expected more frequent updates from Lima, I have a good excuse, I promise!! Since before I arrived in Lima, the internet at our apartment has been spotty at best and non-existent at worse.  Of the 5 girls living here, we could normally only have one computer at a time online and even then only if you were sitting in the exact right spot in the house, the wind was coming from a certain direction and the planets had aligned just so. Obviously I am exaggerating...but not by much.  To top it off, for some unknown reason, of the 5 of us, my computer is the one that would not connect at all, never, not once, which left me borrowing a laptop from one of my roommates whenever I could.  Hence the severe lack of updates.  For months we have been trying to get the issue solved, but there were a couple of obstacles.  First of all, talking to the internet company or a technician were basically impossible for us; as it turns out, the words "internet service provider" and "bandwidth" are not yet part of my Spanish vocabulary.  Second, because the school pays for our internet, the account is not in our name, so we couldn't do anything about it anyway.  All that to say that after several months of polite (but persistent) nagging, our internet and my computer are both fixed!! Hopefully that will mean more consistent updates from here on out...hopefully :).  For now, I will get started on the backlog of updates from July...

August Newsletter

Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva

Just wanted all of you in the States to have an idea of what my church 

here in Peru is like...enjoy!

July Newsletter

Seeing the Need

At MCS, lined up and waiting for the bus...

     At MCS, we spend the month of June focusing on missions and outreach.  Each class has the opportunity to spend half of day on a mini missions trip.  The inicial students (preschool and kindergarten) spent the day at a daycare in a very needy part of town, the first and second graders spent the day at a school for the deaf, the 5th and 6th graders planted grass at an orphanage, and my 3rd graders, along with 4th grade, were able to spend the day at Colegio Santa Rosa de Lima, a public school in a needy part of town.

 

     The third graders started out by singing a song in English, one that we had been working on for a week or so, and then the fourth graders did a short skit, followed by another song in both Spanish and English.  

     Later, our kids each paired up with a student from Colegio Santa Rosa and taught them how to say a few phrases in English, like their name, how old they are, and their favorite color.  Some of my students were hesitant at first, but after they saw me get down on my knees and start talking, they knew they had no excuse...if Miss Ward, who doesn't speak that much Spanish, could do it, they knew they had to too! 

English 101

     After a few games, we spent awhile sharing the snack that we had brought, and then piled back into the bus for the ride home.

Snacktime...

          As we rode back to MCS, I was struck by how incredibly close we live to absolutely abject poverty.  Our bus ride was no more than 15 minutes, yet it took us from one extreme of the socioeconomic spectrum to the other and back.  When we got back to school, the kids and I talked for a few minutes about what they had seen on our trip.  They observed the lack of lighting in the classrooms, bare walls, 30 students in a room smaller than ours (which holds 20), a playground that is nothing more than a metal bar and a rusty old slide.  I tried to point out to them how incredibly blessed they are to live where they live, to go to school where they do, and to have the things that they have.  More than anything, I hope that their eyes were opened, even just a little, to the gravity of the needs that exist in their own country, in their own city, less than a 15 minute bus ride away from our comfortable, upper class neighborhood.  I know mine were.