Events with the Brophy group

JP and the Brophy group left yesterday after ending their time in Tacna.  They stayed on schedule with completing the first portion of constructing a house for a woman named Lidia who has two kids here at Miguel Pro.  On Saturday they worked for the morning and then had lunch before meeting up in the cafeteria here at school to watch the USA-England world cup game on Saturday afternoon with their host families.  We had a fun time eating snacks and watching the game together, and were happy that the US got away with the tie after the goalie's blunder.

On Sunday after mass they had the annual gringos vs. peruvians soccer game.  It was the boys and JP against their host brothers and dads.  Here are a few photos of the scene:

And here is a (very short) video of the gringos only goal of the game--I just got lucky with when I tried to take video:


Then, on Monday, the families held a despedida (going away party) for the boys.

You can see in the above photo the sign in English and the names of everyone on the trip. Below are some of the host brothers and sisters posing with the spread of food:

They decorated and had lots of yummy food, but first there were speeches. JP was the master of ceremonies and also translated for the boys when needed.  Here are JP and an initial group of boys giving speeches:

Each boy got up and said something to thank the families, and then the families responded by talking about how their time went with the boys.  It was very sweet and meant a lot to both the boys and the families:

At the end of the speeches, Lidia, the woman whose house they were working on, also got up to talk:

She has been living on a plot of land with a house made out of woven bamboo for the past ten years, and she was just talking about how thankful she was that the boys came and worked for her. (Even though the house is not done, Brophy left some donated money to finish the construction.)  Here is Lidia, her son Alonzo (in the middle in green) and the whole group:

While it has been busy for both of us to have the group here (more for JP than me) we hope that they enjoyed their experience and will continue to stay in touch with their peruvian families.