The Awesome people at the Parish, Santisimo Sacramento, Piura, Peru

The people on my trip that have influenced me the most aren't the people that I help everyday, but rather the people that assisted me through all my stay here at Piura, Peru. These people are kind, caring, funny, and extremely hardworking. Everyday, they stay up late to help us to plan for the next day's mission. They are always ready in the morning to serve us and bring us to our project site. They never complain about their long hours and they truly love what they do! Here are some pictures of the people that I work with and love!

Fanni, the school principal of Madre del buen Consejo

Fanni is awesome and has provided us valuable insight into the school Madre del buen Consejo! She has a great sense of humor and knows a lot about everything, really!

With Juan Carlos

Juan Carlos helps to manage the wireless networks in the parish, and also helps out the missionaries' daily activities such as purchasing supplies for people, bringing people to different places, and managing the electronics at the school.  He's a great guy to hang around with and definitely cares about his work.

With Johnny

Johnny is the multitalented electrician at the parish. He wired all the routers here. I've been working with him for the past couple of days to improve the system installed here at the parish. He learns extremely quick and has taught me many things about wiring and electronics as well! In addition to all of these talents, he also plays the guitar with great mastery and often plays it during mass!

Kitchen staff,  Fatia, and I peeling carrots

 Everyday, the kitchen staff work extremely hard to prepare enough food for 72 missionaries as well as the staff at the parish! They're really kind, and they make delicious meals! Fatia, student nurse from Marquette University is multi-talented and extremely good at cooking as well!

From left to right: Edith, Reyna, Karina and Ginet 

Edith, Reyna, and Karina are all amazing social workers that somehow remember a humongous list of families and manage groups of missionaries! They're all amazing and they love the work that they do. I'm very grateful for their dedication and hard work. They really connect the families that we provide services to us. They explain concepts very clearly, and never hesitate to help others!

Last but not least is Ginet, the mastermind of the whole operation! She call me nachito!. Ginet plans the missionaries' activities for the day. She also coordinates with the families and other places such as the school, boy's and girl's orphanages, and makes sure that everything is working smoothly. In addition to all of these responsibilities, she has to pick up missionaries from the airport and drop them off there as well! Still, she finds time to be funny, amazing, and talks to us missionaries often to make sure that we have a fulfilling experience. Ginet's the key that makes the whole missionary program run, and without her expertise, I'm sure that the parish would go into some kind of chaos!

I'm very grateful for all the work that these people have put into the parish! Without them, this trip would definitely not have been the same, and their hard work ensures that everyone has a good time and that the parish runs smoothly! I haven't covered all the people at the parish yet; I just haven't gotten their pictures! I'll update this post when I have their pictures later! (Missing: Alcira, Victor, and a whole bunch of people!)

Delivering food to villagers at San Jacinto village!

Other than working at the schools and parish, I have the opportunity to interact with the Peruvian family by delivering food to villagers. It is an amazing experience and is extremely fun! Each Peruvian family that is sponsored by a United States family will receive food monthly.  To ensure that everything is correct, the mother of the Peruvian family had to provide a picture ID and acknowledged through her signature that she had in fact received the food. One of the social worker from Santisimo Sacramento will always that photos of us making the delivery.

Typical ration: two bottles of oil,  2 lbs of beans, one bag of floor and two packages of noodles, and six packets of oat meal.

12 bowls of rice and 12 cans of milk

Delivering supplies to one of the Peruvian family with "Math teacher" , from St. Anne's, Texas.

I absolutely loved delivering supplies to all of the families. They were extremely grateful, fun loving and kind. Each of them gave us a tour of their home and expounded on how they loved having us here and how much they were grateful for having us deliver food to their houses. They also explained that because we give them food (which is worth $25 USD), they can use the money to buy other materials and improve the quality of their life!!

Unloading the supplies

Three packages of supply per family.

The packages are color coded: Blue, Orange and White

Photo op with the Peruvian family.

We were given a tour of the house and they share their stories with us.

Giving Manuel some Math hints on how to do multiplication quickly.

Mass!

As I am staying in a Catholic parish, mass obviously plays an important role in my everyday life here. Every day at 7 PM, all of the missionaries attend mass. Mass is held 4 times a day by Piura's very own enthusiastic Father Joe.  Our dinner is always after the Mass. Except, on Wednesday, we had early dinner before Mass because there is a fiesta at one of the villages. 

Me, Father Joe, and one of the dogs, Boutina. We had dinner together after Mass. 

Father Joe and the other dog, Beethoven

The people of Piura are extremely religious and every day, the church is filled with many residents from Piura. We missionaries sit on the left side from the entrance.

The church just before mass. 

Announcements: Wedding, birth, baptism,etc......

 During mass, Father Joe fills his teachings with extremely relatable anecdotes, and makes sure to translate his words into both Spanish and English so that everyone understands. I daresay that his stories are even more interesting than those we here in the States. The entire mass is filled with singing and clapping, and is a great experience.

Receiving Eucharist is also done differently here in Piura. Everyone gets bread but not wine. Although mass may seem confusing during the first day, one soon gets used to the rhythm and really understands what its all about. Its definitely a great time to reflect upon one's day and think about tomorrow!

The following are pictures taken during mass.

Father Joe quoting from the bible.

Enhancing the wifi and buying more parts

Yesterday I fixed the choke points in the parish wifi network.  Today involved more diagnostics, improving, and enhancing the deployed router configuration. Johnny and I went around the parish looking at the wifi speed at various point (router/access point) of the Wifi network.  When I previously instructed Johnny to put the routers on different channels, I did not take into account the wifi signals from other sources that would be present around the parish. Reconfiguring the parish routers to broadcast on a less busy channel would make the wifi connection to the router more optimum. 

Looking at the speed in the lounge 

Looking at the internet speeds from the secretary's office

Therefore, I downloaded the free version of inSSIDer on Johnny's computer so that I could look at the different channels that the routers broadcast on. I then told Johnny that for the routers to work more efficiently, each router should broadcast on a different channel so that it does not overlap with the signals from the other routers and become less strong. We switched the channels of the two main routers that the missionaries used so that the signals would be stronger and the internet would be more consistent. Below is a picture of the tool inSSIDer and all the wifi signals in the parish (click to enlarge)!

using inSSIDer, a tool that diagnoses the channels of surrounding wifi

 I also tested out some old routers that Johnny had. I checked to see if they are still functional, but I couldn't get them to work because they are either unresponsive to a reset toa  factory settings or they reboot itself randomly. It would be nice if these routers function so that Johnny can use them as replacement if the deployed routers failed in the future in the hot and dusty Piura weather.

Repurposing and testing out the old routers

I went with Johnny to downtown Piura to buy some new equipment for the parish. Downtown Piura was absolutely amazing. They're definitely more technology and food based, because in the 2 blocks that we walked, we passed through 6 different chinese restaurants and 5 shops selling computer equipment. While we went through every shop, I found out that the prices compared to the prices of the equipment from the US were definitely more expensive.

However, while looking through the stores, we found the cheapest prices at a store that Johnny's friend runs, which was great!

At Johnny's friend's store

Taking a taxi! One sols takes us back to the parish.

Chinese Restaurant in Piura, Peru

One of many Chinese Restaurants in downtown Piura

 One of the menu which was posted outside the restaurant.

This is the entrance of the Chinese restaurant.

Here I come.....

Wonton soup (Sopa Wanton) and roast duck (Pato Asado). Popular  Cantonese food.

It is very delicious and fresh.

Chinese restaurant are very popular in Piura, Peru. Just in a short perimeter of the town, there are more than 6 chinese restaurants called chifa. It’s name literally means eat rice in Mandarin. Even though they have the Cantonese and Hakka influence, most of the dishes are very much infused with Peruvian taste. I managed to look at some of the menu and here are some of the translations (from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chifa#Typical_chifa_dishes)
We had Chinese food on the 2nd Thursday while we were here. It is a nice treat and quite an experience to have Chinese food in Piura, Peru. The roast duck is just amazing. it is moist and succulent.

A Day at the Beach

Since the parish doesn't do work on Sundays, I went with the group from St Ann's parish, Texas, who just arrived yesterday, to spend a relaxing day at the beach. An hour's drive from Piura, the beach has a resort directly next to it and several fisherman as well. Along the beach houses were bags of sand to prevent the ocean from eroding away the house's foundation.

The beach!

Fisherman going out to sea to catch fish

 While exploring the beach, I saw tons of tiny snails in the sand. What surprised me was the lack of garbage on the beach. Usually, I can see tons of broken glass, but the beach was really clean and amazing.

Me playing in the sand 

And having fun :)

Sitting with the group from St. Ann's

We bought our lunch from the resort, and it was extremely delicious! I totally didn't expect an assortment of raw fish in lime juice to taste amazing, but I really enjoyed this dish.

Mixed Ceviche 

 At the end of the day, I got really sunburned, but I enjoyed this trip to the beach since it was a way to unwind. Since the beach is relatively close to Piura, and since some of the families from the villages visit it as well, it was nice to know that they could relax once in a while and head to the beach to unwind and forget about their troubles!

Distributing Solar Lights

Camping is our family tradition every summer. We would always bring solar lights to light up our camp site and tents. It is convenient and it is our back-up light for torchlight. Most of the time the rangers would organized some activities for the kids at their main camping site in the evening. We always managed to locate our camp site after the activities because our camp is always lighted. We would then turn them off before we go to sleep. So, I decided to bring solar lights to Piura, Peru. This is a pilot project of utilizing solar light as a source of lighting for the poor families. This green energy is very safe and Piura, Peru has abundant sunlight. My main objective is to help the poor villagers to have some source of light in the evening, so that both the children and adults can do some activities in the evening. If this pilot project works, I will start a program called Bringing Solar to Peru.

Together with Michael, we went to the outskirts of Piura, Peru to a small village called La Piedra to deliver solar lights to families that have no electricity. Many of the families are extremely poor, and all of them could not afford to pay for electricity. Although there are power lines outside all of their houses, many of the houses either utilize kerosene lamps, which are dangerous because they live in bamboo houses, or lanterns powered by batteries, which are equally dangerous because of their questionable method of disposing said batteries. In addition they have to purchase kerosene or batteries which left with little cash to spend on food and education.  In total, I visited 11 homes to deliver snacks and solar lights. 

Families have lights but cannot turn them on because  they do not have money to pay the electricity  bill.

Instructing families how to use the solar light with Michael, my awesome translator.

Teaching families the different ways the lights can be used.

The following are some pictures of me and the families that I visited. From these pictures, you can determine the conditions that they live in every day life. I am humbled that they share their stories of their life with me. Their hospitality and kindness despite their conditions are definitely extremely commendable. In fact, the lady at the last house I visited cried because she is overwhelmed with happiness.  Her house had no electricity or way to see at night.

Delivering solar lights to this family. The house is in darkness even during the day that the children have to stay outside the house for their activities.

You can see that the houses needed constant state of repair because it is made from bamboo.

Most of the families that I visited consist of parents (mom and dad) and 4 children.

Majority of the homes have mosquito netting. This is the main equipment to protect themselves against mosquitoes that causes malaria.

They are utilizing solar energy to dry their clothes.

This is the "living room" of the entire house.

T-shirts !

Michael and I handed out t-shirts from the parish to the adults. Even though we had an entire box of t-shirts, only for the adults, we handed the entire box of t-shirts in just one street of a single village.

Distributing t-shirts to all the adults of the families that we visited.

Wow, I didn't realised that there are so many adults just in one entire row of houses.

The reactions from the village clearly elucidate the fact that the villagers appreciate missionaries' help in the the village. They really touched my heart and I really want to help them as much as I can. Hopefully I can bring more and better solar lights next year so that the villagers can have light at night and be able to walk around their houses, and also give them hope that everything will improve, one step at a time.

I am very grateful to have this opportunity to experience and see for myself how these folks struggle to make a living. Reading them from books and National Geography doesn't even come close to the description of their way of life. I sincerely hope that my meagre gift will bring some happiness in their daily life. I truly belief that my solar light project will make an impact in their life.