As I’m in Costa Rica now waiting for the plane to Los Angeles and then Hong Kong and then Singapore, I kept thinking, man what made Perú so special and these are my thoughts so far. For some reason I couldn’t upload photos, but here’s a slideshow for now!
1. Celebration, Gratitude and Giving without an expectation of a return.
The people here are not afraid to give and they feel blessed that you would come spend sometime with them. They just keep giving and sharing. They give because they feel they have received so much and are so grateful for any and everything they have. They rejoice and have fun in this celebration of life and each other.
2. Strength in unity and love
I had dinner last night with Felix, Andrea, Julian, Jerry and Nathy. It was the most I guess wonderful reunions because each of us had our own story to tell. Jerry and Nathy from Montenegro/ Motupe (San Juan de Lurigancho), and Felix and Andrea from Lima itself and Julian and I from very different backgrounds as well. I was describing the community and how everyone knew who was sick and needed an extra hand. If anyone needed it the community would come together and a family couldn’t really afford to buy everything for the other but maybe one family would buy fruits and the other would get the rice and support the family in any way they can. They knew each other, celebrated with each other and fought for the other. As I was recalling my experience to Julian, Felix and Andrea, Jerry and Nathy were nodding and you could feel that sense of pride of being part of the new generation of this community of love.
Julian asked, why is this? why is the unity of the community so strong, how did it get like this?
And this was Jerry’s response: Well I think it happens coz not all of us have TVs, so what do we do? We run over to the neighbor’s house to watch. The kids here don’t really have that many toys so they gather in the road and play tops of football.
3. Sharp consciousness
Ask anyone in the community what bothers them and they have an answer and are determined to change it. They are not ignorant or unrealistic about change but know so much about that challenges their communities faces and want to give back.
It’s in the need of each other that I’ve been this beauty and have been so so blessed to be a part of it for about 2 weeks and 2 days.