Kids Will Be Kids

We were walking down a street that I had never been down before… now that’s no feat since we’ve only been here three weeks and Lima is a city of 9 million people. I’m looking for the amazing pink house that Sarah told me to look for on the way and I don’t see it. The neighborhood is a little more run down than ours, but not by much. It’s a little bit busier too: there are more cars and more people walking. Just as I’m wondering how much longer we’ll be walking, we pass a half open garage door and inside are some women shuffling through what looks like empty soda bottles and other recyclables. Lidia rings the doorbell, we’re here. Bre, Lisa, and I are all trailing behind Lidia and Lucha because we have no idea what to expect. We walk into the courtyard and there is a handful of little boys playing what looked like a Peruvian game of cowboys and Indians: their hands make pretend guns and they shout “pew, pew” as the pretend bullets fly and children duck behind furniture. Then the question is whispered, “do all these kids have AIDS too?”

Last Wednesday some of us went with Lidia and Lucha to a home for women and children with AIDS. There were definitely points where it was hard to wrap my mind around the fact that these women and children were sick. A lot of them just had tons of life in them. These women were such proud mothers and wanted us to know which beautiful child was theirs… some of these women didn’t look any older than I am. Some of the kids were more timid and stuck near their moms in the knitting room and others were in and out dragging in all sorts of toys. There was one little boy who’s mom died of AIDS a couple years ago and now his aunt and grandma take turns living with him at this home because if they don’t he will be taken to an orphanage. This little boy stuck close to his grandma while we were there. His legs were so tiny and his ribcage stuck out, Lidia later told me that he is commonly in and out of the hospital… he couldn’t have been older than six. There are a couple ladies who are pregnant and a couple newborn infants at the home. One of the ladies explained to us that they’re planning to so a c-section, that way there is a chance that her baby won’t contract HIV. After singing, knitting, and doing a devotional, it was time to go. Lidia pulls candy out of her pockets and offers it to the children who were still in the room on our way out the door.

I feel like my head is still spinning a bit from that visit. I have so many questions and I can’t find anyone with the answers. How big is the AIDS problem in Peru? Do all the children there have HIV? What kind of social assistance is in place for these people? How do they pay their medical bills? Do the older kids go to school and will the younger ones go eventually? I kept asking questions and all I got was, “that would be an interesting thing to research.”