3-8-2012

The kids were so excited on the bus even!  It's dream comes true for many of them.

How can we go to an amusement park without cotton candy!

The kids were looking seriously at some peculiar jungle animals.

And the older boys take pictures of them.

The boys that stayed with me, Gustavo and Juan Tanta, with Rafa's hand on the camera.

Lunch at the restaurant at the park.  Notice any difference between my plate and theirs?  I didn't eat the garnish ...

It was so cold in the park, and little Frank was frozen to death, so I hugged him to keep him warm.

The have so much fun at the slide too, even the older kids!

At the Parque De Las Aguas, the kids were amazed with the water fountain.

This water tunnel was so much fun that the kids went into it many many times until they got so wet!

After long plannings and complications, the outing with the children in Lima finally realized last Friday.  Thanks to Monika and Anne who were granted a lump sum of money from the German NPH office, we were able to do this.  The children were overly excited as most of them had never been to Lima, let alone the parks that we went.  We got up at 5:30a.m. to get ready for the trip.  Shortly after breakfast, we walked out to the college where our bus parked and waited for us.

After about 2 hours of bus ride where the children enjoyed a couple movies, the first stop was Parque de Las Leyendas where features zoological park of Peruvian heritage.  Before we went in while waiting for Monika to get the tickets, the children were all excited to see airplanes flying over the sky and kept taking pictures.  I saw a stall where cotton candy was sold.  Though overly priced, I thought every child should have the experience of eating cotton candy while going to a theme park.  So I bought one for each group, and they vanished within seconds.  

Actually the whole trip we were really scared that someone would have gone missing as there were 45 children and only 8 adults, although some of the kids are older.  Everywhere we were like lunatic counting where everyone was there.  When they were playing slides, they were so excited that they were laughing and jumping while we were screaming, “be careful!” or “don’t push!  Don’t stand up!”  Luckily we saw other parents there who were doing the same, so we didn’t feel so stupid!  It was really cold in Lima, and some of the kids didn’t bring enough clothes.  Franc, who came up to me and asked me if I could give him my jacket, was really cold.  So I told him to come near and I warmed him by hugging him really tight.  He stayed still the whole time and felt much better afterwards.

When we saw the animals, sometimes there are just too many people around and the children couldn’t see anything.  So I did the old trick of holding them up really high and so they could see more than anyone there!  Everytime I did that I could see a big grin of their faces.  I felt that they can live like children with family who takes care of them in every little way.

After the zoological park, we went to Parque de Las Aguas where features water fountains with laser and lights.  The children were so excited with everything, including that Alonso found it amusing to see a light under a tree!  All of them wanted to play with the water fountains, but because it was too cold in Lima, we couldn’t let them go.  But we did go into a water tunnel where we also got wet!  They loved it so much that they asked if they can go in over and over again!  They got wet at last anyway, but it was so happy to see them have so much fun.  Sadly it was time to go home, but they were also very excited and kept asking what we would do next.  I told them, “well, it’s time to go home, brush our teeth and go to bed,”  But their excitement wasn’t over and kept asking “what do we do after that?”  So cute!  After putting them on the bus, I stayed in Lima as it’s my weekend off.  Rafael, who has become one of my best buddies and stayed with me the whole time during this trip, waited for everyone to go on the bus, and gave me big hugs twice before we said goodbye again.  

This trip, though nothing extravagant or fancy, was one of the happiest trips I have ever done in my life.  Honestly I didn’t enjoy so much as most of the time I was too worried about anyone gone missing or get hurt, but I felt so happy to see them so happy.  Like Daniel said to us, “is it really we are here in Lima?  It is a dream come true for me!”  Such small thing can fulfill the dream of a little child who doesn’t even have a fraction of what we have.  I felt like a poor dad who can’t afford my children to do everything, but I feel love.  That’s the most important thing than anything else in the world