I am continuing to adjust to life in Peru. The actual name of the town where we are staying is Villa El Salvador and we are working in Loma de Corbina. This morning we walked around Villa El Salvador to meet people and hand out information about the church. The city blocks are packed with bare brick multi-story buildings with tin roofs. The streets are packed with moto-taxi’s and public transport vans called combi’s while the sidewalks are packed with people out to purchase and sell. As we walked we said good morning, handed out information about the church, and made our way through the streets to the local market.
The stalls of the market contained DVD’s, shoes, clothing, fruit, fish, chicken, jewelry, school supplies, and much more. The vegetable stands displayed acorn squash the size of large pumpkins; the chicken vendor split the chicken with an ax and proudly displayed its insides. As we pushed our way through the crowds the locals reached out to take information about the church. We finished our walk near the court house where we prayed for the city officials.
This afternoon we rode a bus about 15 minutes to Loma de Corbina for the first time. Loma de Corbina is built on a big sand dune. The whole city burned down about six years ago and the government rebuilt the houses for the residents. Trucks bring water to the residents who store the water in big drums in front of their houses. In order to get up to the city we walked through a neighborhood and up the deep sandy dirt. A staircase took us the last 200 yards up the mountain to the collection of houses. Some homes are made of cement with a tin roof while others are made of wooden boards. From the top of the climb I was able to look out on stretches of roads and houses. I felt very small as I looked at the thousands of houses and realized that this is one city in a world full of people. I am just coming to realize that there are so many people in this world living under tin roofs, in houses that are not totally enclosed, without running water, and rice as their main sustenance.
Our translators and some local people walked with us through the city introducing us and telling the people why we were there. Everyone was very receptive and greeted us with hugs and kisses. It is very common for women to greet one another with a kiss on the cheek. I don’t understand this practice because the cheeks here are often sweaty due to the heat. A small crowd of women, children, and a few men gathered around us so we shared again why we were in their city. The women stayed to talk while the children began to play. The boys pulled out marbles and the girls drew a hopscotch court with charcoal on the sidewalk. I love that games of marbles and hopscotch are popular here because they are the games that my mom taught me. The town makes good use of the sand with a volleyball court; a few people started up a game. The time came to leave so we said goodbye and promised to return.
After having visited Loma de Corbina I am excited to make some friends there. I am curious about their culture and style of life. It is possibility that our team will be building a church for the people there; I would love to be able to serve their community in such a tangible way. The Lord is slowly changing my heart and attitude towards the area of Lima, Peru.
The View from our home for a month:
