Strike!

The south of Peru is on strike today to protest the country's policy of exporting gas to other countries. The exports make gas in this region more expensive, so naturally, people are mad.

All schools are closed, many businesses are closed, and some streets and bridges are also blocked off (by protesters). This, however, is not the strongest type of¨paro¨ (strike) that exists - when paros are really serious, people don´t even go out in the street. And - we have heard - if they do, they will have stones thrown at them.

Don´t worry, I went to buy laundry detergent today and nobody threw any stones at me (and our local bodega was open, which tells me this is a strike for wussies).

Anyways, in honor of said strike, let´s look at some pictures of the adorable children we have been working with in Ciudad de Dios:


Here is a picture of our friend Luis drawing. Luis is 6 years old and is very proud to be in first grade. He is very mischievous and always has something funny to say.

The day that I took this picture, we were learning about God´s protection and as a part of that, he had to draw something that he was afraid of (but from which God protected him). Problem is, Luis isn´t afraid of anything. We tried to help him think - (¨How about when your mom gets mad? How about sharks?¨) - but to no avail. Finally, a few minutes after we´d given up, he called me over and said, ¨Actually, I am afraid of spiders. Tell me what they look like so I can draw one.¨I guess Luis is more ¨theoretically¨ afraid of spiders.


Here you also see Judy (covering her face with her picture!) - another big personality in the kid´s club and also six years old. I taught her how to say ¨hello¨ and then told her, ¨Look, now you speak English!¨ She looked at me and said, ¨Don´t be silly, that´s just one word.¨

Ahhh, children. :-)