Email: Michael Sinklier

Dear Friends and Family,

Greetings from Lima Peru! I am excited to say that things here are going well, and I feel very comfortable and welcome with my host family and the new culture. I work with an NGO called “El Día del Pueblo,” which operates a radio station in one of the poorest districts of the city, Lomas de Carabayllo, located in the northern sector of Lima.

Three times weekly I travel with my host father, Nelson, to Lomas to teach English lessons and to spend time with a youth group there named JESHENI. Jesheni stands for “Juntos Estarémos Siempre Hasta Encontramos Nuestros Ideales” (We will be together forever until we reach our ideals). Nelson and I take two different buses and one combi (a hollowed out van) to make the hour-and-a-half journey to the outskirts of the city (and then, of course, we do the same thing to return home).

The poverty of Lomas is evident the moment you set foot in the neighborhood. Electricity is about the only luxury that Lomas shares with Lima. Unlike in the city, the streets in Lomas are not paved, there is no running water, and many of the homes are built with adobe instead of brick. Nevertheless, the Jesheni youth have an incredibly positive and outgoing energy and I love being around them. Currently we focus all of our time together studying English, and I am proud to say that I have seen some really great improvements in the students´ abilities to speak English.

Aside from English lessons, the Jesheni youth are committed to a mission aimed at declaring a local area, known as the Bosque Seco, as a government-protected nature preserve. It is an area near the Lomas neighborhood that has a variety of unique plant and animal life. Unfortunately, there is a clandestine operation ongoing in Lomas involving the waste industry in which trash companies bribe police officials to allow them to dump waste in the valleys surrounding Lomas. It is illegal, of course, and has a very negative effect on health of the people of Lomas. It also threatens to destroy the natural environment of the Bosque Seco, and so Jesheni is devoted to defending Lomas and the Bosque.

My time in Peru has taught me so much about how others live and how to accept different points of view. Adjusting to a different way of life has been a challenge in some ways, but a blessing in many more. I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to meet so many new and wonderful people as well as experience a different way of viewing the world.

Blessings,

Michael Sinklier