Eye Opening Lima, Then Heading Home

Up and packed. Out with John for the morning. First stop coffee at Harry’s (another teacher’s place) then drive to visit a potential social/ research project in Cercado. The aim here is to engage the community in a project / study, to prove that certain food supplements improve anaemia (high chance of anaemia given poor diet/poverty). The teachers spent time building rapport/explaining the idea at a small gated medical centre with their links - positive news one teacher will return tomorrow to discuss further.

Then we went up the many many stairs where the poorest have built their houses. We were shown a house where the school kids had built the panels and it is now erected into a house. These homes are hard to describe and incomparable to western homes - residents excavate the rock, dig out and flatten a small area. They are extremely basic - concrete floors, outhouse WCs, basic sanitation (giant water buts filled up if the truck can get along the bumpy track). Yet the people didn’t seem to complain, children seemed happy, and there was jaunty Spanish music playing.

We then picked up a resident from her job at the fish market, tried Chifde - yummy deep friend plantain crisps, and headed to her community. This was on a site where 35 families lost homes in a fire. They are so resilient, and working hard to slowly rebuild what they can, with some support from Johns school/ service projects set up by John and Harry for the kids to experience and contribute in a meaningful way.

After the fire, the government provided a tent initially, then a small Porto cabin which had to be moved due to disagreements over the land. The government can’t help further, as this would sanction use of the land which has been “adopted” by communities I.e homes here are not legal (but there is nowhere else for the hundreds of families to live, other than these illegal shanti towns on Lima’s outskirts). We met many lovely families with sweet children. Whilst checking on progress and enquiring how to help further, John offered the dogs de flea tablets (some reluctantly) and the rapport was really nice to see. An interesting and eye opening morning, and a lesson in resilience and appreciating what you have.

We then picked up our things from John’s flat and headed to the airport - flight at 5.30 Lima to Amsterdam (12 hours) - a 3 hour layover (hopefully enjoying this in the lounge if no delays), then a final flight Amsterdam to Manchester.

Wish us luck for no delays, especially given the recent air traffic bug affecting some EU flights!Read more