May 30 Monsefu

Today was the water conference in monsefu! We got up at 5 to get to a 6am bus to 
chiclayo then to monsefu from there. The event was at the church building in monsefu. So 
I know I've explained before, but just to be clear, the outlying neighborhoods around 
monsefu did not have any water until the church dug 41 wells for the people there. The 
way these Peruvian cities are set up I've noticed, is that the poorest parts are on the 
outskirts. They are usually squatter homes built out of random pieces of wood and metal, 
all just thrown together. These are the areas that received the wells. I don't know if I 
fully understand the impact these wells will make in that area. There were about fifty 
people at the event today, mostly women and their children (Peruvian children are so 
cute!). The mayor of monsefu was there and there were a lot of speeches and plaques and 
thank you letters read and also two marinera performances, which were wonderful. Marinera 
is a Peruvian dance that basically encapsulates flirting. If you put flirting into a 
dance form, you would get marinera. It's really amazing though. 
After all the ceremony, we were finally able to do our presentations. We just taught them 
how to sanitize the water, boil it so it is drinkable, clean fruit and vegetables, and 
the importance of washing hands and brushing teeth. I'm sure they all already knew it 
all, but it was just a good reminder, since they were receiving these wells, and I guess 
you never know. 
My group taught brushing and flossing teeth. Cepillarse y usar el hilo dental. It was 
really scary, because it had to be in Spanish, and I am sure we sounded so gringo they 
couldn't even understand a word that came out of us, but they humored us anyways. Ours 
was the only group without a Spanish speaker. But I think we did ok. It was more informal 
than I was expecting, since we did it outside and everyone was on the grass. But it was 
way intimidating. 
During the speeches and everything at the beginning I was just looking around at everyone 
who came, and I just realized how much I loved them and how happy I was for them to have 
water. It was the strangest feeling ever, I started to tear up a little, especially when 
some of the ladies came up with their little children and kissed our cheeks and thanked 
us for something we didn't really have any part in. But I could just tell how happy they 
were! And it made me happy. It was a nice feeling. 
Anyways, that's about all that happened today, it was a really long day, long bus rides, 
but it was worth it to see those lives made a little bit better. 
I love you all! 
Amber 

Marinera Dancers

Cute Peruvian Children

 I really love these girls. It's crazy to think I've only known 
them for two weeks! 

May 29

Today was another busy day, although, I did get to sleep in, which was really nice. 
We didn't have anything official to do until a meeting we had at 2:30. But all morning I 
worked on our poster for our presentation about brushing teeth. The conference thing is 
tomorrow! We have to catch a bus at 6 am! It's not going to be fun. Nor pretty. 
At the meeting we had today, we met with a guy from some nonprofit her in piura. He has 
some projects he wants us to help with and they are so cool. They involve teaching 
nutrition classes for some, dental hygiene classes, health promotion classes, and a 
special project for me! All of this is happening in a town in the mountains about 5 hours 
away called las frias. It is more rural than any other place we have been so far. The 
project he has for me has to do with promoting healthy homes. Because a lot of the people 
on this town can't read, this organization has created an illustrated brochure kind of 
thing to teach women how to have clean and healthy homes. There are about 18 
illustrations within six categories. The top ones indicate the ideal home, and each below 
that are kind of like steps to get to that ideal state. Guess who gets to do those 
illustrations? Yep. Me! I'm really excited but also really nervous. I am supposed to make 
illustrations of an "ideal" home for women who have never even seen an 
airplane. Their idea of an ideal home is, I am sure, extremely different than mine. The 
guy is planning a trip for me to las frias sometime in the near future so I can go see it 
and maybe talk to some of the people there and get an idea for how they see things. It's 
going to be strange I am sure. This is a chance to gain a different perspective of life 
and of the world, one of the reasons I wanted to do this trip in the first place. 
The meeting went long, so we were almost late for our project today at the all boys 
orphanage called hogar de christo. Today we were only supposed to teach the older boys, 
but the younger ones didn't have school. So we taught both groups. This was difficult 
because the two age groups are at very different levels of English. We ended up splitting 
into to groups. The older boys just wanted to learn more verbs and we taught the younger 
boys more numbers. I am impressed by these boys. They are so eager to learn and to 
participate. They wrote everything down we put on the board. I really love all of them. 
They just remind me of David and Steven. Just silly boys, they are the same in every 
country. There is one actually that is so much like David, he could be his Latino 
doppelganger. What I like the most about that place is how they act so much like a 
family. They are just a giant family of boys and one little girl,the jefe's daughter. I 
am really glad we found them and that I get to work with them. Also, it's helping my 
Spanish so much! 
Anyways, that's all I have for tonight. We have a long day tomorrow! But it will be good, 
I hope. I love you! 
Amber 

This is the group and a couple more at the dinner last night.  The government guy is in 
blue plaid at the front. 

May 28

Hello again! Today was a crazy day. We spent the morning preparing an English lesson to teach the boys at the orphanage. We also worked on our presentation for the hygiene conference in monsefu on Friday and I worked on some sketches for the murals. I am really excited for this project. I hope it works out the way I am envisioning! Teaching English is a lot harder than I thought it would be. These boys know next to nothing in English, so all we got to today in an hour was good morning, afternoon, and evening, what is your name, how old are you, and numbers 1-12 (which included all their ages). It was really hard. I think next time we will just do vocabulary words. Something simple like fruits and vegetables or colors or something. They are all really awesome though, the little boys are. After struggling with the chalkboard and repeating those phrases over and over again, we played escondidas again. They had to count in English to practice the numbers we taught them. We ended up making paper airplanes. Not sure how that happened! I really love them all and I am sad because I realized that I don't have very long with them.
Later we were invited to go to dinner at a really fancy restaurant with some government official we have been working with to start up projects. It was so much food, but it was sooo good. It was nice to eat and not worry about what I was possibly putting into myself. I did try blood sausage...it was nasty. But I did try it!
Anyways, that is all I have to report for today! Love you!
Amber

May 27

So today was hard. We went to the Paul Harris school for special needs children again, and I usually go with the littles, the youngest class in the school. But today I decided to switch things up, so I went to the middle class. They are elementary school and middle school aged children and it was so hard. Their poor teacher, they need an adult with each child and it would probably still be chaotic. They are all very wild and don't listen to the teacher hardly at all. A couple of them are very aggressive as well in how they interact with others, so that made things interesting as well. I felt a little bit helpless in there because I didn't really know how to handle the kids, I don't really know anything about it besides what I've seen in the schools I've attended. And that is just second hand. If you or anyone else has any tips for me, that would be wonderful. Maybe some basic guidelines on handling rowdy special needs children. I know it's specific to each child's needs, but I am not completely sure what each child needs, not as well as their teacher, so I was just trying to help keep them all busy. I am so impressed by the teachers there. There are not very many of them and they have a really hard time a lot of the time they are at the school. The fact that they keep doing it, even though it's so difficult, is really amazing. And the school doesn't have very many resources, so that makes things hard as well. We are talking wheelchairs made out of patio chairs and bike tires. But it's awesome what they do with what they have. And the kids are all really sweet, even though they can be difficult. Most of them can't help the way they act, so of course it's going to be hard, but their innocence and sincerity is more real than any other person I've ever met.
Later on in the day, we just worked on the presentations we will be giving on Friday at the church in monsefu. 

That's about it for today! 

Love ya! 

Amber

May 26

Um, so today we just went to the Paul Harris school again, the special needs school here. I got scratched by a little Down syndrome boy named Francisco. It's good he is so darn cute. Other than that, we didn't really do very much. Just hung around the apartment. After a while, a couple of us walked around the city. We exchanged money, then got ice cream and just people watched. It was fun. There are some really interesting people here. We are working on getting more projects to do. Hanging around the apartment should not be normal. But the projects we have right now only go halfday, so right now we don't have a choice. But there are some options E and B are working on starting us in. 

I love you!! Have a good week!

Amber  

May 25

Look! I did laundry the cool way!

May 24

Today wasn't very exciting. It was our last day in Chiclayo and we went to Monsefu 
for a little bit. We will be doing some hygiene workshops with the church there next 
weekend and E wanted us to get familiar with it. There, we walked around a cool 
market where we watched a lady weaving a poncho. That was really cool to see. Other than 
that, we did a lot of walking in Chiclayo again, and then we got on a bus to come back to 
Piura. A lot of traveling, which wasn't as fun or interesting. 
Oh something else cool, there are dogs everywhere here. They live on the streets and are 
so mangy and dirty, but it's kind of cool. There is a hairless breed of dog that is 
native to peru and is known as the Peruvian dog. It's kind of cool looking. I will have 
to try and get a picture of it sometime. 
Anyways, I love you guys!! Can't wait to talk to you tomorrow!
Amber

May 23

Hello everyone! So today we spent the time being tourists. We spent the night in 
Lambayeque with E's cousin. It was nice to spend time in a real home. We went to an 
Incan museum called museo tumbas reales de sipan. It was really cool! It was all about 
the local natives from this area called the machicas. They had the bones of an incan 
priest and of The Lord of the Incan city that was here, called sipan. Later we spent the 
day in downtown Chiclayo and just walked around all day. We saw a group practicing 
marinera dancing, It's a kind if Peruvian dance and it was so cool! Last big detail from 
today, a girl in our group got her purse stolen while we were at dinner. The thief 
followed us into the restaurant and just took it while we were busy talking and E 
had left to get something. Unfortunately it had her phone and wallet in it. Fortunately, 
she had left her passport at home. That is honestly the most important thing to keep 
track of. I let her use my phone to call her dad and have him start canceling cards and 
stuff. I hope that's ok. 
Well that's about all we did today. I love you guys! 
Dad, I probably won't be able to visit the family this weekend, but we will be back next 
weekend. Also, E told me that it is a very poor area, and kind of dangerous. But she 
said she would take me. (Kelly baptized a family in Chiclayo while he served there on his mission)

Love Amber
At the museum

May 22

Sorry I couldn't write last night! We took a bus to Chiclayo and we are staying at 
E's cousin's house. Yesterday we went to the all boys orphanage and played with them 
while E figured out what we are going to do with them. We are going to help brighten 
up the complex and get the kids to help us paint murals! I'm so excited because this is 
MY project!! Also we are going to teach The younger boys English then help the older boys 
with their English homework from school. I'm really excited! The older boys were all at 
school when we went yesterday so I only met the younger ones. They are about 8-13 and 

are all so silly. There are 6 of them. Even though we had a difficult time understanding each 
other (little kid Spanish sounds really different and is a lot more difficult to 
understand for me. I don't know why, maybe because they don't speak as clearly...) we 
still had a lot of fun playing games together. We all got pretty good at charades. We 
played Rock Paper Scissors (piedra, Papel, y Tijeras) hide and seek (they called it 
escondidas) and had a cartwheel competition. I think I am really going to enjoy working 
with them. Afterward we went to the mercado. When we left, I found the small pocket in my 
backpack was open! Thankfully I am not stupid enough to keep anything valuable in there. 
I guess whoever was going through my bag didn't want hand sanitizer or Chapstick :)
Oh and I am feeling much better. Thankfully it didn't last very long. 
Love you all!!
Amber

May 20

Today's activities: T and I and two other girls from our group, went back to the school for

special needs kids and helped out there. Basically what we do there is help watch the kids, we help with their physical therapy, feed them lunch, play with them, help them with their school work, etc. They are pretty cool kids. Really sweet and just so excited to make new friends. It was fun to go back. We will be going there every Monday and Tuesday morning. Tomorrow we will be making lesson plans to teach various hygiene things like brushing teeth and washing hands and such. The church in Chiclayo is building wells and this will be the first time these people will have running water and we are going there to teach them what to do with it. We may end up going there a couple times while we are here. Other than that, we are planning some other projects and talking with some other organizations to get some things started up. Oh we had a dance lesson from some boys from the YSA ward here tonight. We learned salsa the Peruvian way (it is a little different from the one I know) and bachata and some other dances that are native to Peru. That was pretty fun, I miss dancing! Oh one more thing, I bought a plane ticket from Lima to Cuzco the weekend before I come home. Two other girls and I want to go to Macchu Pichu before we leave Peru and we are making it happen. We will take a bus from Piura to Lima the night before. It is going to happen! And I am so excited that I 

get to go because I 
didn't think it was going to happen! 
Anyways, I love you guys! I miss you but I am having a really great time here. 
Amber

May 19

Today, we started our projects. All the volunteers went to different schools today. 
T and I went to a school  for special needs children. We basically just helped 
babysit. The kids all were pretty severely handicapped, so the workers needed a lot of 
help. It was really fun. The kids were all really sweet and silly and I made some new 
friends. T speaks less Spanish than I do so I had to do the communication, so that 
was stressful  and really hard but I think I did ok. We are going back tomorrow. The 
school was only a half day so we came home around 1. It is the same here with normal 
schools too. It's way too hot to do anything in the afternoon! 
Later we got ice cream and then just hung around the house, dying from the heat. All week 
we will just be doing evaluations of the possible projects and the needs that we can fill 
while we are here. I will let you know what else we end up doing! I love you all!
Amber 

May 18

Hello everyone! I am really enjoying my time here in Peru. It's very hot and dusty 
but the people are so nice and welcoming. It still feels like a dream, and like I have 
been here for weeks already, even though it has been only three full days. In that time I 
have been to the beach, toured the city of piura, tried a lot of really good food, rode 
on countless mototaxis, realized I know a lot more Spanish than I thought and kissed a 
ton of cheeks! I really love it here and I can't wait to start working on the projects 
our country directors have set up for us. I live in a little apartment in the city with 
eight other people, seven of which are other college students. It's cramped and we only 
have one working toilet and shower, but I figure it is all a part of the experience and 
of life here. Plus, we are really only home to sleep and sometimes eat. 
I am doing well, I have not gotten sick yet, and I am so far really enjoying myself and I 
am learning so much already.
Have a good week! Love you all! 
Amber

Pic from the roof with 2 mototaxis 

Our house. This was today after church

May 17

Day two! 
We went to a beach today! In Colan. It was wonderful! And warm! It took two bus rides and 
all nine of us squeezed into a five seater taxi to get us there, so it was definitely an 
adventure! 
I tried ceviche too! I actually liked it. Honestly. Mostly raw fish drenched in lime 
juice and onions. And it was delicious. Really hard to get past the thought of what i was 
eating exactly. But besides that, I liked it. 
Oh the food here is so good. Did I mention that yesterday? Well it is still true and I 
also haven't gotten sick yet! No one has! Either we are just lucky or we really won't get 
sick adjusting to the food here. My favorite so far has been the lomo saltado which is 
beef cooked with onions and other vegetables in this delicious sauce with rice and 
potatoes. Then we had avena for breakfast yesterday and I really liked that too. It's a 
drink made of oats and honey, blended together. I guess its like their oatmeal here. 
I love the people I am with. They are really cool and all very different. I can't believe 
it's only been two days with them. I feel like I've known them a lot longer! It's 
incredible what sharing a new and very different experience with people can do for your 
relationships. 
I especially love my country director E. She is amazing. She is Peruvian and grew up 
in chiclayo basically in poverty. She knows what that is like. And the fact that she 
realizes how special her opportunity to live in the US is and get an education where she 
can come back and help her people is really inspiring.  Also, she is just a wonderful 
person. Always trying to make sure we are ok and comfortable and getting the best price 
for what we are buying...people like to charge the gringos more just because they are 
generally clueless, which we are. Luckily, we have E :)
I love you guys! I hope I can talk to you all tomorrow! Let me know what time you want to 
do that!
Amber

May 16

My first full day: we ate really good food for breakfast, went to the mercado, which was 
smelly and dirty and crowded, but really cool in its authenticity, tried some interesting 
food, met with the government and some other groups we will be working with, walked 
around Piura, rode in mototaxis (three wheeled motorcycles with a canvas covering on the 
back to sit under), walked around some more, ate more really good food, went to a talent 
show for a YSA ward, then came back and played card games and now we are heading to bed. 
I love it here. I feel tall and very conspicuous, people stare at us openly wherever we 
go, but they are very friendly and the culture and language is not as unfamiliar as I 
expected it would be. I've been able to follow most conversations and it feels just like 
home, the home with the Latinas :) (my roommates at BYU)
Just so you know, the wifi here doesn't work super well, but I should be able to skype 
you on Sunday as usual. 
I love you! I hope everyone is doing well! 
Love, Amber 

The pictures are on the plaza in Piura.

May 15 in Piura, Peru

Hey mom! I made it safely! The city is so cool! everything is so different but it's so amazing. I am so glad I decided to do this. It's really hot here, hot and humid. And everyone is really friendly. The language isn't scaring me as much as I thought it would, and sounds just like the Spanish I have been learning all my life. I love you and just wanted to check in, just to make sure you knew I made it