Volunteer and Help Moms and Children in Peru

It's our first morning as volunteers at Puericultoro Perez Aranibar and the three of us have each been assigned a very small child to accompany to Tonito Silva, a neurological and physical therapy center. Before stepping on the plastic floor mats everyone's shoes must come off. My eighteen-month-old Fabien beams at me with a wide smile. He's been hospitalized for three months and doesn't walk yet, but seems rather pleased with the bright colored plastic forms and has no objection to being swung by his hands and feet. Janet's Rosa Christina wiggles her feet out of high-top white sandals and charges toward the huge container of plastic balls - a tiny bundle of energy. Don's charge Mariano has started howling the minute we entered the building and wants nothing to do with any of this. For more than an hour we follow their activities, down stairs in a room full of children crawling, rolling or climbing - then to a small dark room with lights that flash. "Rojo", "amarillo", "azul" the therapists point out. Mostly I have to carry Fabien - and he's not good at holding on, more like a limp sack of very heavy potatoes - but that goofy smile has me hooked, and I watch him stand and inch around the waiting room holding on to the walls hoping hard that all this will help him and he'll become adoptable.
This morning our team leader Edith has asked us to accompany her and the home's sociologist to check up on fourteen-year-old Darwin who left PPA six months ago and is not doing well. We drive out to the dusty outskirts of Lima where little shacks are hanging on the side of the mountain - no shade, no water, no plumbing or electricity. A discouraged-looking dog scratches in the dirt in front of the shack where Darwin lives with his grandmother. She's a dessicated. wrinkled and toothless woman who explains (in Spanish that even I can understand) that Darwin's mother has decamped and Darwin is more that she can handle. The whole area seems without hope, and I'm very relieved when we take Darwin to a recycling plant where he can work and a Catholic boys home where the social worker starts the paperwork for his acceptance.
It's a warm afternoon, and I've been instructed to pull a very large plastic wading pool out onto one of the courtyards. As we fill it with the hose, the caregivers from three of the "boxes" in Nino Jesus, the unit for children under two, bring their charges out in lines of bathing-suit clad cherubs holding hands and squealing with excitement. Thirteen children are helped into the pool, splashing and slipping and yelling. Carmen lets one timid soul hold the hose, and he becomes gleeful, squirting right and left. Then Sister Concepcion notices that Fabien is missing and charges back inside, wheeling him out in a stroller and lowering him into the water. When everyone is completely wet and exhausted, one of the caregivers comes out with a stack of clothes and towels, and each toddler is lifted out, stripped, wrapped in a towel and then dressed. Sister Concepcion explains that they are learning not to be afraid of water. I shake my blouse dry and go to work jigsaw puzzles with the three-year-olds.

This was my first global experience and it was excellent. We had a very
Experienced leader who was lovely. I was very impressed with the group. They represented every age level and some of them had been global volunteers for many many years. Each day we would be taken by bus to the orphanage where we were assigned to a group if children. I am a retired early childhood special educator and I was so pleased to be working with the very youngest group which is my love. The younger the better!
We would be taken to a garden setting every day for lunch and each evening our leader arranged for dinner at a different local restaurant We had lots of opportunities to explore the area. The waterfront was particularly interesting, especially on the weekend when families would come all to.gether to try the different foods and shops and watch outdoor
Entertainment there were also wonderful markets to visit exhibiting local crafts. On the weekend we took a trip to see the penguins many many of them making a great deal of noise!
All in all a very worthwhile experience which I would recommend highly.
If you have time before or after I would recommend an overnight trip to
Manchu Pichu, one of the wonders of the world and an unforgettable experience.