Yesterday we went to Las Pamplonas with Johana.  Las Pamplonas is a very impoverished neighborhood started by people trying to eek out a place to live on the outskirts of Lima.  Certain parts have managed to get Water and Lights in the streets (though not in the houses) but other parts have not  Johana goes there at least once a week because many of the children in the sunday groups are from there.  I even saw one of the girls I´d worked with, Deisi (Daisy).  
I wasn´t exactly shocked by what I saw, since we´d passed similar neighborhoods and we´d been given a lot of preperation for what we were going to see, but the trip really made an impression on me.  As we we walked we knocked on a few of the doors of the families Johana knows.  almost all the children we encountered were part time or full time workers.  The first door we knocked on was answered by a 15-year-old who had been charged with the task of watching 5 children while her mother and older sister worked.  She answered the door with an infant in her hands and within a few minutes a little boy came tumbling out, followed by his little sister.  We spoke to her a little while, but when her sister came back for lunch we left them.  We stopped to talk to a woman selling Chicha morada on the side of the road and even though she offered us something to drink we could not take it because it was her livelyhood she was offering.  A few of the children we saw on the way knew Johana and came up to kiss her hello.  She introduced everyone by name.  It really made an impression on me how much people there love Johana.  Many of the mother´s we spoke to had a lot to say and all the children gave her big hugs; even the one´s she said were the most difficult on sundays.  
The second part we visited in the day was a lot more sparsely populated than the first.  The houses were made of scraps of everything.  We only saw the inside of one house, a house that I think was one of the biggest we´d been to with three rooms.  There are lots of dogs running around, usually owned by someone but not confined to any space.  Children play in packs where ever they can (though it´s difficult to find good places because Las Pamplonas is all one huge hill).  Although we´d been warned against the dangers of the neighborhood and the cat-calls we might receive, we heard a lot fewer than in the neighborhood in the middle of Lima where La Casa de Panchita is.  Some people remembered seeing professor Doel, though they weren´t inclined to comment, for most of the teenagers and adults we met were a little shy to talk to us.  Also in the second area we visited was Deisi, the girl I mentioned before, and her sister Flor (flower).  Her third sister, Rosa, wasn´t at home.  I learned then that Deisi and Flor sew shapes onto sweaters in order to earn money.  Each sweater takes about 1 day and they earn 2 soles (less than a dollar) for each sweater.  Rosa, at 13, just recently started working 6 days a week for a family in Lima.  I was appalled, thinking of my own sister about that age and what I would feel having her work for another family and how I would feel about a family who would hire a 13 year old.  I´ve had people tell me that you can´t compare a 13 year old here in Lima with a 13 year old in an upper-middle class neighborhood in the United States, but shouldn´t you be able to?  Shouldn´t it be appalling for all thirteen year olds to have full time jobs?  That´s what La Casa de Panchita really works for.

After visiting Las Pamplonas I understand more about the children who I work with.  I think I won´t be so quick to get frustrated with the children this sunday.  I cannot pretend to understand them, because the one´s I work with are not yet old enough to explain themselves really well, but I can be more patient.

So that´s all for today.  We´ll be back to work on sunday in La Casa.  Jess and I will put some pictures up soon, we promise!  We need to get them off the cameras though.  As soon as we do we´ll put up some good one´s.  
Have a great weekend,
Emma