Adoptions our the highlight of the month. Trish and Brady our finishing their final paper work in Lima for Paul and Yessenia. In the next two months we may have 7 more children adopted. My goal is to have the remaining 47 children in the orphanage placed in loving homes. The success of Hogar de Esperanza is not on how many kids we have but on how many adoptions we have.

In June we started remodeling the ranch. We are putting in hot showers, tile floors and painting the interior. We had two volunteers Robin and Bonnie who took on painting the dinning hall and the small auditorium and came up with a very colorful paint job. They also worked with the children in our special school at the orphanage and started planting 100 fruit trees.

The water project of getting water to the poor in Alto Salaverry is moving forward. We had a meeting of the people in the town. One person went around the town yelling “Reunion de dulce Agua”. The people started coming out of their houses and gathered on a flat sandy area. ( It was like for me going back 250 years to a town meeting in New England) The problem is that the people do not trust their present water counsel and in fact the water counsel is run by three tough guys that are opposed to me running water to the town. The people do not like the high prices these guys charge and the quality of water. So at this meeting they were forming a new water committee to challenge these three tough guys. I will keep you posted on their progress.

One thing I have learned in Peru is expect everything to take two to three times longer then normal. I was getting my Visa to stay in Peru for one year. It is not a simple matter of filling out forms but of persevering the process. The Immigration minister took my paper work and started taking is merry time. He would type a little bit and then leave the office, a friend came into the office and he stopped everything and spent 20 minutes with her. He was signaling me that he needed a little grease (bribe) to get the process going. He started with 200 dollars and my lawyer said that she would file a complaint. He then hem and hawed around and began to work. I finally got my Visa with only paying 30 soles (9 dollars). He called this fee a verification fee.

We would like to thank all the people gave special gifts to the children. The children really looked forward to these gifts and appreciate them greatly. Thanks so much.

Chau,

Dave