Chiclayanos are settling in

Every day life in Chiclayo has nearly returned to normal. Trucks and buses to and from Lima are getting through, though the Pan American highway is still restricted in some stretches. Empty store shelves are being restocked with milk, bread and a host of other food items that had not been available for the last two weeks. The small bakeries are receiving flour and sugar from Lima. Normally they would get their sugar locally but the floods have brought the sugar cane processing plants to a halt.

Military planes are still flying into and out of Chiclayo's airport, though they are no longer transporting people. Instead they are transporting food, medicine and other supplies to the Piura Region north of us. I don't understand why they are stopping at Chiclayo when Piura is only another 40 airplane minutes away but there must be a good reason for it. Anyone contemplating a visit to the Piura Region would be wise to put their plans on hold. Damage has been incredible...much worse than our region. It will take many months to clean up the destruction.

Chile and Colombia came to Peru's aid, supplying food, medicine and aircraft to transport them. We saw several Colombian helicopters approach the Chiclayo airport. We assume they came direct from Columbia rather than  going out of the way to Lima. Now that Colombia is experiencing floods it may be Peru's turn to help them. There are 290 deaths so far in Colombia.

Sites where buildings have collapsed in Chiclayo are being cleaned up. All that remains of a house two doors down from ours is the front wall, and that is being held up with braces. Everything else is gone. After all the rubble has been removed I'm sure the remaining wall will be taken down. The cinema in the Real Plaza mall has reopened after being closed for three weeks because of water damage.

Schools in the Lambayeque Region officially opened today, though we suspect that parent's will take a wait and see attitude before sending their kids to classrooms. We have received five invitations to visit schools; three of them in the Mochumi District. This is one of two districts we wanted to target this year, the other being San Jose. We hope to visit the Mochumi schools on Wednesday. We expect to be very busy very soon.