Wilfredo (Natalie)

I’ll admit it, I’m partial to Wilfredo. I love all the Sunflower kids, but Wilfredo melts my heart.

Wilfredo, like all the kids, has had a tough life. Most of the kids will come up to you and give you a hug. Some will take your hand. A few will climb on your lap. Wilfredo is shy, very shy and would never take the first step to give me a hug - until our visit last month. (The picture above is my first visit to the Sunflower in June 2006 - Wilfredo is wearing the red shirt on the very right).

On the first day of our arrival at the Sunflower last month, the kids came running to greet us. I started getting emotional as soon as I heard little voices yelling “Natalie”. But I couldn’t hold back the tears when I saw Wilfredo quietly walk towards me, heard him softly say “Hola Natalie” and hold out his arms to give me a hug.

When children come to the Sunflower, Laura always asks them what their dreams are….what they want to be when they grow up. Wilfredo always replied, “a policeman.” Since I’m Wilfredo’s sponsor, I told Laura that I wanted to help Wilfredo get an education after high school and help him towards his career of choice – especially since I was comfortable with the amount of training/schooling it would cost for him to become a policeman.

Then a couple of years ago, Laura and I were on an expedition – I think it was December 2006. Laura was working on a project and cut her finger and it was bad enough that she needed stitches. Luckily we had a doctor in the group. Wilfredo was in the clinic watching while Laura’s cut was cleaned and stitched up by the doctor. He must have been fascinated with the procedure because after they finished, Wilfredo looked at Laura and said, “that’s what I want to do.” Laura just smiled as she told me to start saving up for medical school.

I was surprised how much Wilfredo had grown since I had seen him just last July. He told me he had grown out of his shoes so Tony and I took him to town with us one day and bought him a new pair of shoes. One-on-one time with the kids is a rare treat. I loved taking Wilfredo into Urabamba, seeing Tony looking at shoes with Wilfredo and telling him to pick out whatever shoes he wanted, and afterwards, enjoying an ice cream cone in the plaza.

Did I mention what a great kid he is?

clothes for the children (natalie)

I love to open my email and see messages from people interested in helping our children. Our needs are miraculously met each month and we appreciate the generosity of so many.

The past few years we have had some generous donors send us enough money to buy new shoes for Christmas for all the kids and we had someone send money for shoes again this year. So our intern Alex will be able to take them shoe shopping. I recently received an email from our interns with a note that the kids asked for new belts and shoelaces for Christmas (what every kid wants right?).

One of our child's sponsors just emailed me and said they were sending a $50 check to buy toys for the children (in addition to their monthly sponsorship donation). When I asked if we could use their gift to buy belts and shoelaces, they replied "of course you can use the money for whatever you deem necessary." I never thought I would cry over belts and shoelaces, but today I did.

I also received an email from Marcia who is going down on our December expedition participants who is taking down THREE suitcases of clothing for our Sunflower kids. When Tony and I were at the Sunflower in November, we organized the clothing donations by size and gender. Then we brought each child in and asked them what they needed. The kids were modest in their requests - they would ask for a new pair of pants or a belt or new socks. Note the word "OR" - they rarely asked for pants AND a belt AND socks. I had to keep asking them "do you need new underwear?" "Do you have enough shirts?" One time the older girls (Nancy, Ninoska and Sonia) came in and brought Yudy and searched and searched for a new skirt and shirt for her. I love how these kids take care of each other.

Sadly, although we had a fair amount of donated clothing, I was unable to find clothes that fit all the kids. It broke my heart to tell Hilario that I didn't have a pair of pants for him. Wilfredo didn't complain at all when I didn't have dark socks that fit him. So when Marcia emailed me and said she was bringing hoodies and sweat pants and shirts I did a silent shout for joy while crossing my fingers that they will fit Hilario.
So many people have asked me for clothing sizes that I promised that I would post them on this blog...so here they are: They are in the following format: Name: Shirt Size / Waist in inches / waist to ground in inches / shoe size (they use the Euro size)

Adriel: Medium / 31" / 37" / 39

Almendra: 12 / 31" / 31" / 34

Carlos: 18 / 32" / 27" / 42

Christofer: 4 / 21" / 20" (no shoe size yet)

Darwin: 10 / 26" / 28" / 33

Dayana: 9 / 28" / 30" / 31

Edy: 9 / 27" / 27" / 32

Evelyn: 7 / 25" / 27" (no shoe size yet)

Francisco: 8 / 25" / 38" / 30

Gabriel: 4T / 23" / 23" / 29

Hilario: large / 29" / 32" 40

Hilda: 4T / 36" / 27" / 30

Jhoel Dos: 6 / 24" / 23" / 31

Joel Uno: 14 / 25" / 28" / 30

Lisbeth: 12 / 25" / 26" / 30

Maria Uno: 10 / 29" / 30" / 32

Maria Dos: 10 / 23" / 25" / no shoe size yet

Marisol: 12 / 28" / 28" / 31

Mayda: 6 / 26" / 28" / 31

Nancy: 12 / 32" / 32" / 35

Ninoska: small / 30" / 32" 35

Profeta: 8 / 28" / 23" / 30

Ronal: 10 / 26" / 31" / 35

Sila: 5 / 24" / 28" / 30

Sonia: Med / 31" / 31" / 34

Wilfredo: 12 (Med) / 30" / 36" / 38

Wini: 7 / 28" / 32" / 33

Yeison Cruz: 12 / 28" / 33" / 36

Yeison Dos: 10 / 29" / 34" / 37

Yeri: 6 / 23" / 22" / 30

Yosimar: 10 / 25" / 29" / 32

Yudi: 5 / 25" / 23" / 29

The Journey (Tony)

Dropping out of the air into Cusco is a magical landing that everyone should see; coming in over the Andes, the jet must drop into the mountain valley, carefully navigating large foothills with little houses you can pinch at the end of your fingers through the jet’s windows; and then must twist to an upwind position for a touch down that the straight-faced engineers at NASA would applaud. Truly: failure is not an option. If only I could be so enthusiastic about the taxi ride that followed. We had flown to Atlanta for four hours, only to hang out in a long lay over; then flown to Lima, only to hang out in a long lay over, (unable to sleep in the airport chapel as promised because of a jack hammer doing construction); then had leapt over the Andes in a seemingly brief one-hour jump that placed us reasonably close to the Sacred Valley 24 hours later—where our hotel in Urubamba promised a little sleep and a return to sanity. After a nap, we would go to the orphanage down the road in Huayabamba.

The ride from the airport is where the diesel fumes come in—or I should say Diesel Fumes, because they have now grown so out of proportion in my imagination that only by abridging normal English usage, cluttering it with unnecessary uppercase and italic letters, can I begin to talk about the perfume of the developing world—no, it’s not the fragrance of some high-altitude posy.

In the United States, my wife Natalie knows me as a fast driver—hinting that I’m a bit too aggressive for her taste. To that, I have tried to calm my temperament and my habits, reminding myself that we have all the time we need to get to the next destination. After a few minutes in the taxi after leaving the airport, I quit repenting my driving entirely—because it doesn’t rate on the Richter scale required to describe the drama a cab ride represents. Flying mere inches from oncoming cars through Cuzco traffic put the pilot’s magic landing on the tarmac completely to shame.

From the city center, our driver headed out on a short-cut over the mountains instead of a more conventional route. This we agreed to at the airport, not knowing the consequences, but agreeing to it because we understood that it was his requirement in exchange for the nominal fee we offered—and Natalie, I would find, is a bargain hunter.

Up the mountain we ripped, often in the wrong lane, tearing rubber off the wheels and honking at pedestrians, animals, slow cars, and slower trucks. Up and up we flew to see the same scenes we had seen from the jet, but close up. And up and up my stomach crawled into my throat as the guff and fart of aging trucks, aging busses, aging motorcycles, and unknown combinations of parts on four wheels flooded the terraced mountains and hillside slums with thick, black and blue smoke that smelled of unburned gas and diesel. Then over the mountain and down the broken road, the curves got only worse and I thought that if the car didn’t hurl itself over the next hair-pin, my stomach would certainly hurl into the front seat.

At last we began to see a green valley below. As we got closer, I thought I would kiss the ground when we came to a standstill. I hadn’t felt any such impulse when we had dropped out of the sky into Cusco. It was this cab that had been the most dangerous piece of tin—and we had taken off without oxygen, without flotation devices, and most importantly, without air-sickness bags.
Throughout our trip, diesel fumes and raw gas would haunt rides from back and forth, wherever we went, and even the trip to Machu Picchu on the train felt like sleeping next to an exhaust pipe, but that first cab ride would take the prize. I think it was my initiation into the developing world.

Now initiated, I could look around at the high peaks and the cute mountain valley we had come to visit. I could feel at home as my instincts said I should. I could look forward to meeting the children-especially those I hoped would become my own.