Our First Full Week

Photos:  

  *Stake center in San Juan de Lorigancho--bishop's storehouse training 

  *Here we are with the director of civil defense in Ica (Moroni, Rob, DCD, Alex) 

  *Most of the landscape is desertPacific Ocean along the PanAmerican Highway (south) 

  *How/Where Rob spends lots of his day

  *They pick up our garbage here every night. This is a typical stand where you place your garbage to be collected.  Don't worry, the garbage isn't out all of the time in our neighborhood. It can only be put out an hour before pick up begins.
  *The LDS Institute of Religion across from the Lima Temple. (photo with cardboard cutout of girl with sign)

It was our first complete week here, and it was a full one. Sunday evening we assisted in a presentation in San Juan de Lurigancho to bishops, stake presidents, and Relief Society presidents (local church leaders--women & men) to introduce them to a new method of providing food for the poor in their congregations using a major supermarket chain to easily and reliably serve as our partner in delivery of that food.

Monday we were introduced to the leadership of the national rehabilitation institute (INR) which is our major partner in wheelchair deliveries here in Peru. We discussed the upcoming project which will involve delivery of wheelchairs, but also advanced repair training for technicians who live in the remote provinces where wheelchairs have been delivered previously. This will allow repairs to both extend the lifetime of the wheelchairs and also provide work for technicians in these locations who many times are prior recipients of wheelchairs. This project will be coming up in December, but there is much we need to do in preparation.

Wednesday we took our first road trip to Ica, about a five hour drive south of Lima, to discuss with officials in the governor's office there a proposal to pre-position emergency supplies to be quickly available in case of flood, earthquake or other natural disaster. We visited the proposed site where the supplies would be stored. The idea is for the LDS church to provide the materials and the local government will distribute them when the need arises. (Here it is almost always "when" not "if" due to the geography and other circumstances.) This can allow help to arrive without delay rather than wait for supplies to be gathered elsewhere and then brought to the area of need.

This year it is predicted that el Niño will be very strong and they anticipate heavy rains and flooding. We met with the director of civil defense and other officials who were very supportive of the concept. Ica is the capital of the province of the same name and is centrally located to allow quick response throughout the province in case of emergency.

The drive down and back was along the Pan-American Highway (south) which took us through a landscape that alternated between very dry desert (our Peruvian companions said it "never" rains) and widely spaced river valleys that were quite fertile and beautiful due to irrigated agriculture. The Andes Mountains wring all the moisture out of the air as it travels westward, dropping almost all the rain and snow in the Amazon River basin. What falls in the tops of the mountains runs westward and is used for agriculture in the fertile valleys along the coast.

When we arrived back in Lima, traffic was heavy and we took a taxi the rest of the way home. That drive could best be described as very similar to the Harry Potter shape-changing bus: not sure how he fit in some of those places, but no metal crashed together so all is well!

Much of the rest of the week involved getting travel arrangements made for the US and Peruvian members of a team we will accompany into the Amazon area to provide Neonatal Resuscitation training and equipment to health personnel.  The trainings will take place in Iquitos and Tarapoto with doctors and nurses from surrounding areas attending.  Our role is as coordinators of the program. Qualified medical personnel provide the training.

The week finished with a trip to the Immigration office in the center of Lima to continue the process to receive our residency cards. Last week was to Interpol (police station) to get fingerprinted for a background check. It took four hours to get to Immigration and back -- a distance of approximately 8 miles each way.