The Folks from Alto Peru Thank You

This morning we arrived at the pronoei Los Niños Y Su Mundo in the village of Alto Peru with chairs and tables, storage shelves, a whiteboard and a few toys.

The classroom is cramped. The things we delivered this morning absolutely fill it. When we were there 13 days ago the teacher, Karina Chaponan had 14 students. Now she has 16. That presented a minor problem because we had bought only 14 toys. Karina quickly resolved the issue by saying the toys would be school property to be played with by all.

We haven’t often seen villagers so excited and appreciative about school equipment. We heard comments such as, “…now it is a place to learn.” Something even rarer – a man from the village appeared with tools and began drilling to mount the whiteboard. As we were about to leave an older woman who seems to be one of the leaders insisted that everyone assemble outside for more photos, but not before giving us three bags of food including a freshly killed duck.

We were asked about the possibility of a chocolatada in December. As I mentioned in my post on June 17, Alto Peru is the kind of situation we look for. They are the first village this year to ask for a chocolatada. We make those decisions in September-October but right now we’re thinking Alto Peru is a prime candidate.

The cost for this project was:

4 tables & chairs - $205.28

2 storage shelves – 52.76

1 whiteboard – 48.45

14 toys – 14.79

Transport – 36.42

Total - $357.70

From the people of Alto Peru and from us, thank you to Chris Raupe, Jim Glen, Clif Brown and the Alice Cool Foundation.