Playing, Feeding, and Diapers

This morning I was assigned to work with the youngest children at the PPA. They are kept in what are called "Boxes" but they aren't really boxes, just large play areas for each group. The smallest kids are in Box 1, and as they get older, they move to Box 2, then 3 and so on...


I was assigned to Boxes 1 and 2. At one point, I was left alone with 9 children, ages 10 months to 18 months for about 2 hours. They were so adorable, and I just kind of managed them by keeping them from crying and hitting and biting each other. After playtime, I was joined by several caregivers and we fed the children. It is amazing how much these kids eat! The philosophy appears to be that the children all have to eat what is provided. The 18 month olds do not feed themselves, they are spoon fed- first a mixture of rice, chicken, and some sort of sauce, then soup, then juice. It takes a while, but the children are required to eat everything. Luckily, I was assigned to the 2 best eaters for lunch. None of the children are overweight, and I think it is because the food is homemade and all healthy.

In the evening, a group of us decided that we wanted to try to attend synogogue. Out of the 9 of us in our group, 5 of us are Jewish. Our team leader was nice enough to find a synogogue for us to attend. This was easier said than done, because security is extremely tight for Jews here in Lima. The synogogue did not want to give out any information about their location, so our team leader had to fax over copies of our passports. When we arrived, the guard at the gate wouldn't let anyone in who wasn't Jewish. We were very upset about this, but our team leader explained that it was only for security reasons. The guard looked at the last names on our passports to determine who was Jewish. One woman who didn't have a Jewish last name said the "shema" for entry.

The service was nice and there were about 150 people there. Afterwards, we spoke with the rabbi and his wife. They were very kind and went outside to apologize to our friends who were not able to come inside. The rabbi told us that there are 2800 hundred Jews in Lima. They have 3 synogogues- 2 orthodox (sephardic and ashkenazic), and 1 conservative. The rabbi told us that there isn't a lot of anti-semitism in Peru, but that they are very fearful of Arab attacks.