Today is Sunday and the day I am to meet Betsy – my first female that I sponsored here in Trujillo. In fact she was the longest – since I started when she was just 8 years old. At age 18 they leave the project and I lost touch until today.
Betsy has grown up to be a beautiful well grounded young women and I am very proud to be known as her “Godfather”. Her Mum has worked hard to bring Betsy and her younger brother thru the bad times. I know the project has helped Betsy know that there is a better life available to her if she works and studies hard and puts her faith in Jesus. This she has done and now has only two more years of study at the National Uni here in Trujillo.
We meet up at the project this morning and then took Betsy and her brother back to her Casa (home) for a quick look at her bedroom – which doubles as her study room with computer etc. I do not want to say much about the houses in this area because they are very basic and in our weather conditions would be totally condenmed as unfit for humans to live in. But this is Peru. Her bedroom was the largest of the three houses I have been in this past few days and she does not have to share it with her brother. She had painted one of the walls her favourite colour – pink. I said she was a goer. She will succeed.
Because they had had an early start to get to the project the two of them had not had breakfast – so we went to a place for them to eat. I noticed that it had free WiFi – so got this tablet going and checked out each others facebook. So for all who are on my facebook – don’t be surprised if you start to see some spanish posts from Betsy. This was such a great time catching up and seeing her travels and her friends. She has been learning English so now was the time to start practicing on me. We had lots of laughs.
By the time we left the cafe and headed out the the beach at Huachai – think I have spelt it wrong – this is the beach just north of Trujillo and Chan Chan that is famous for surfing and the fishermen and their reed boats that look like round surfboards.
They took me to the highest point which gave a great view of the beach and the coast north. Again this part of Peru is desert and you can tell they do not see much rain if any. And now it is time for lunch – me and raw fish again. My driver joined us for lunch and we had a feast for five which cost me less than we would spend for two in most NZ restaurants. Again more photos and fun. We then walked along the beach for a frozen fruit “icecream”. Took me back to 2008 when everywhere we walked I had a 15 year girl holding my hand – this time is was a beautiful 23 year old. Not sure what the locals or other tourists thought – but who cares.Today she was my little girl. (By the way the hand holding continued in the taxi to their home.)
As we were about to turn into their street – the taxi driver quickly backed out as there was a huge fight going on – two drunk groups – so we went around the block and stopped the taxi out of view of the fight and quickly walked Besty to her home. I was so sad to leave her but I know that she will be a success in any thing she puts her mind to – and nobody could ask for more. I look forward to meeting with her again sometime someplace in the world.
What a wonderful three days – tomorrow I plan to do nothing – so tomorrows blog may be short.
chau