Paint, holiday camps and ethical tourism - Peru part 4

Leaving Caraballyo was an emotional experience. Although some of our Spanish wasn't great we had formed bonds and built friendships with many of the people there, especially Cara and Emma who had been before as part of the UUJ team. The warmth and generosity of the people in San Martin as they welcomed 'the gringos' won't be easily forgotten.

Our next task was a spot of painting in casa AGEUP, repainting the exterior cream from its original light blue. Painting was great fun, the girls seem to get more over themselves than the walls and a few white handprints appeared on people's clothing. Its often nice to do something you see tangible results with, which was definitely the case here.

Next stop was English Encounter 2007 - and English Camp for Peruvian students. Around 25 of us headed off to a little holiday camp in a part of Lima where the sun actually shone for some intense English speaking, English lessons and English bible studies. We enjoyed not just a bit of sun but the opportunity to really get to know the students, and in many ways it would have been great to have the camp nearer the start so we could have continued to deepen those relationships and continue conversations. No camp is complete without a campfire which eventually lit with the help of a little gasoline, although we almost lost Rob in the process!


After the team holiday (in a post to come) there really was the sense of beginning to come home. we lost Jo in Cusco, as she stayed on to go visit Puno and Lake Titykaka. Before Cara flew out on the 10th we had a goodbye dinner with the guys from AGEUP. Apart from being some of the best chicken and chips i've had it was a really emotional evening with more than the odd tear shed. The AGEUP staff - Juan, Yenny, Adela (and her husband Juan) , and Jose have been incredible in how they welcomed us, loved us and looked after us. The warmth of that love was so evident that night, despite the language barriers. It has been a real privilege to be part of their family and we're really going to miss them. One of the things we did notice is that Peruvians and Irish people do seem to share a similar cheeky sense of humour, not only did we feel incredible loved but we had so much fun with them. There will be more reflections to come im sure and one definately has been how thankful, generous, affectionate and loving the christians we met in Peru are. We definitely have a lot to learn from them...
Some of the Peruvian dancing was also strangely familiar: