From the airport, we took a motor taxi to the Refuge of Hope School. Part motorcycle and part carriage, motor taxis are the majority of vehicles we saw in Peru. Private cars are rare outside Lima. If you need to go somewhere, you flag down a motor taxi and negotiate the fee – about $1 (3 Peruvian soles) for every 5 miles. The motor taxis swarm the roads like insects. And the drivers are very creative. Need another lane?... no problem, just pretend one exists and pass between the vehicles going in opposite directions.
This is Victor and Anna Izquierda Lara and their family. Victor is the founder of the Refuge of Hope School for disabled children. Victor has a slight limp due to polio, so he has personal experience with disabilities. Many years ago, Victor felt that God was telling him to go to Pucallpa to help others with disabilities. He didn't want to go to the jungle, but he kept feeling an insistent directive from God to go. He convinced Anna, his fiancé at the time, that they should go, and they went on faith that God would provide for them. Immediately upon arriving, he saw a man he knew with a disability. That man said, "Victor, you must come to Pucallpa to help people like us." Victor replied that God already told him the same thing. He started telling people of his vision and searching for land for a school, but he had no money. 
Then a man said the he would give him a large plot of land for his school but that he had only 1 year to show that it was succeeding or he would take his land back. Victor and Anna went from house to house asking about disabled children, who were usually hidden from view, unable to attend school. Often, parents would deny having such children. But Victor and Anna persisted and started with a tent and 6 children in the jungle. Today, the Refuge of Hope School serves over 450 children, with about 60% having some kind of disability. For more about this school and its inspiring founders, go to http://www.therefugeofhope.org.
Here are some photos of our time in the classrooms at the school. The teachers and staff are the real heroes of the school. They are tireless and amazing in their creativity in teaching – using words, sights, sounds, touch, songs, colors, body movements, competitions, and many other methods to teach. Many of the school staff also have some disability.
We saw many touching scenes of how this community cares for each other. We will never forget seeing Benjamin, a blind man, pushing the wheelchair of Giovanni, who can't walk. Together, they had the legs and eyes they needed, and their joy of life was inspiring. We heard countless stories of people without much hope finding others who loved them and showed them how much they could accomplish by working together.
People like Segundo, who lost part of his leg when it was caught in an animal trap while he was hunting for food for his family. He came to the school a few months ago and he radiated joy and hope. It was both inspiring and humbling. He always had a big smile and he told us that he has found a place where he feels at home and where he can achieve his dream of becoming an agronomist.While there, we attended the church services at the Refuge of Hope School. This is Josue, a blind man who plays guitar and sings with such an deep and authentic sense of worship that he inspires you to do the same. Joe spoke at one of the services giving a message on grace and forgiveness from Luke, Chapter 3
Besides working in the classrooms, we helped with construction and maintenance at the school. We spent a day installing wooden plank siding on the outside of one building. We spent another day mixing sand, cement, and water to make concrete for the foundation of a new bathroom. No automatic mixers… just a lot of shoveling and mixing. But that’s ok... it was only about 90 degrees and close to 100% humidity... whew! And who needs a mixing container when you can make the concrete right on the sidewalk and clean it off later?
That was about the time that David got his mystery illness. He was getting miserable itchy red bumps and swelling all over his body, so that he couldn't sleep (and curiously couldn't mix concrete either). After a 9pm house call (his house, not ours) to a fantastic Tanzanian doctor (who gave us travel advice for our time there), we learned that it was an allergic reaction. To what? Hard to tell without a lot of tests. David opted out of the hydrocortisone shot, and was determined to figure out what he was allergic to. The monkey he petted for 10 minutes at the swimming pool? 
The cat at Victor's house? The exotic jungle fruits we were eating (camu camu, maracuya)? But no... we realized that David's symptoms started two days after we started taking Malarone – the medicine to prevent malaria. After researching it, we learned that in extremely rare cases, Malarone can cause a severe allergic reaction with bumps, itching, and swelling. A day after getting off Malarone, David´s condition was cleared up. He switched to another malaria medicine and is doing just fine.
A lot of our work time was spent helping to build a new house on some property outside town that the school will use as a farm and a ranch. We worked alongside Eler, who will live there when it's completed. We hauled a lot of wood, by hand, over a long path to a building site that had been cleared out of the jungle plants and trees. Sore arms and shoulders at the end of several days, but it was rewarding to see the progress of the carpenters as they built Eler's house. And how in the world can Eler carry twice as much wood as us when he weighs less than us???
Going to the market with the cook to shop for food was one of the most interesting side trips. The market spans multiple blocks with crowded stalls vying for prime real estate. Stall owners calling out their products and prices. Fresh fish or meat butchered on the spot (not for the squeamish), aisles of fruits and vegetables, many unrecognizable to the typical supermarket shopper. Spices and sauces mixed with the quick hands and practiced measurements of merchants who spend most of their days here. Motor taxis jockeying for position trying to negotiate the streets along with pigs and oxen. The variety of sights, sounds, and smells were dizzying. It was a fantastic experience. I don't understand why the merchants wouldn't take my Safeway Club card for discounts.
We want to give special thanks to Sergio, our cook for the week. Sergio served us delicious (sabroso!) meals every day and never served the same meal twice, in between cooking for the kids at the school. Up at 4am each morning, he always greeted us with a smile and with some new food or drink we´d never had before (for example: camu camu juice or papa relleno - fried mashed potatoes stuffed with beef, onion, and hard boiled egg). I think we all gained a few pounds with Sergio as our personal chef. We were willing to try most anything he put in front of us... except the time he wanted us to put string cheese in coffee. Despite that one exception, Sergio is a kucinero maestro.
Our other side excursion was a day trip to La Jungle, an unabashed tourist spot with a "zoo" of exotic animals. We all got our "must have" photo with a live Anaconda (it is domesticated, right???) and got to see a preview of the wildlife we hoped to see in the Amazon. For lunch, we ate boa snake, alligator, and wild boar. All three were surprisingly tasty. And yes, fried alligator does taste like chicken.
After 10 days, it´s time for us to leave. We’re flying to the Amazon port city of Iquitos (the largest city in the world not accessible by road – only boat or plane) to meet a man who would gave us great travel advice and the best French Toast we've ever eaten...- Steve
