The La Restinga family

Pascual helping Betman, who has just learned how to read.

The days fly by in Iquitos. Janne blogs about how her and Elin's life in the La Restinga family:

Elin and I usually get up around 7.30 and arrive at La Restinga around 8.30 each morning to help out at Aula Movil. This is a homework help program (most of the kids go to school in the afternoon), but there are always other workshops and projects going on. Each month they choose a new theme to work with, and for the last month we have been working up towards the World AIDS Day on December 1st with the theme Sexuality and HIV-AIDS. I'll write more about this, and our celebration of December 1st in a later post.

The homework help and workshops usually lasts up until 11.30 or noon, when we all have lunch. There's a strict rule that everyone has to finish their food, which could seem odd because the portions are huge and there are kids and youth in all different sizes and ages, but this is usually not a problem since this is the only meal some of the kids get consistently every day.

After lunch, we slowly disperse (the kids go to school and I go back to the apartment). Two days a week, I return in the middle of the day to go with the team to Belen (a poverty stricken part of the city) where we have a separate project with at-risk kids and youth. Here we work as health promoters, and our workshops are centered around the prevention of sexual abuse and explotation, HIV-AIDS, and STIs, and promotion of healthy behavior, self-esteem, and personal hygiene.

Taking part of the planning and execution of this project is definitely some of the most demanding, but also the most rewarding work here. It is so fun to plan and be part of the planning process and figure out how we can best reach the kids, but really hard to put it into practice, because of countless challenges, including lack of attention (keeping a group of hyperactive kids interested for a full 2 hours is like a mission impossible), lack of attendance, lack of place to work (when we arrived on site last week, we were surprised to find that the roof of the building had been removed, which, in 100 degree heat made it impossible to work, so we had to cancel the next two sessions until we had a roof over our heads). Needless to say, I'm learning to be flexible.

After returning from Belen, we make dinner in the apartment, which is always an adventure. Elin and I love trying new things, and with a market full of unfamiliar vegetables, fishes, and fruits, we've had lots of exotic (though not always that tasty) dinners. Then, at around 7pm we return to La Restinga to help out or particitpate in different workshops (including juggleing classes, making t-shirts, capoeira, moviemaking, danceclasses, theatre, and much much more). The workshops usually last till around 9pm, but sometimes people keep hanging around late into the night telling stories and talking.

These late night talks have made for some of my best memories so far. I especially remember one of the first nights when a group of about 10 of us, including Puchin (who is one of the founders and basically the second father to all the kids) were gathered around the table eating a late night meal. Everyone was laughing and making fun of each other in such an intimate way. In that moment I realized that La Restinga is not charity, not a project, not a center, but simply family. And I am so thankful to feel part of it.

From Janne in Perú
Read more: Elin på tur:-) (Norwegian)

Welcome to paradise

Elin and Janne have just arrived in Iquitos. They have taken a look around, and so far it feels like heaven. Janne writes:

Since Iquitos is famous for being the largest city in the world that cannot by reached by road, Elin and I had to leave Lima in a plane. After a short flight over the Amazonian jungle, we dove down to the small airport in Iquitos. I knew that the different regions in Peru (coast, highland, and jungle) were fairly distinct, both in landscape and culture, but I was still taken aback by how totally different it is up here.

[...]

Iquitos is completely surrounded by beautiful lush forests and though the river is pretty badly contaminated, the air is fresh. The landscape with the small straw huts along the roads, the houses built on stilts in the Belen neighboorhoos (more about that later), the small motocarros filling the streets (there are almost no cars here), and the bountiful open air markets is incredibly charming, and I feel almost giddy with excitement that I get to live and work here for the next six months.

Our first day was made extra special by Puri—a previous Hald student who works at La Restinga—who spent all of Saturday with us, showing us around town, helping us by some essentials for our apartmant (a fan, water, toilet paper, and other little things), and introduced us to some culinary specialties from la selva (the jungle). She also brought us to this beautiful getaway place, with a small pool, lots of hammocks, and small huts with views over the Belen neighborhood [...] What she didn't tell us, however, was that in one of the small tree huts, there is a cage with a big snake. Having inherited my dad's fear of snakes, I was not exactly thrilled about this [...] Thankfully, I now have half a year to learn to love these creatures...

Read more: Janne i Perú, Elin på tur:-) (Norwegian)