A Couple of Photos

I am now in LA taking a nice break before returning to the reality of everyday life. 2 photos are attached here. The left one is a picture of the three people who drove me to the airport in the morning yesterday - Manuel, Laura and Oscar. The right one is a picture of the people who join me regularly for a time of Bible study on Sundays, together with the youths who usually meet up together on Saturdays. Edgar and his family were late that day, German and his family were not around as they had to take care of Germancito at a therapy session, and several kids from Rosa's family, as well as the photographer for the day Lydia are not in the picture as well. But it is about as complete a picture as I can get, as our adults do not come together very often with the youths for the informal bible study sessions.

A Week Passes By So Fast!

It is amazing how quickly time passes by! Today, as we went jogging with Oscar in the evening, it transpired that a week had passed by so quickly.

The earlier part of the week was spent trying to confirm my air tickets and Aili's air tickets back to Singapore. I finally managed to confirm mine at a reasonable price. As Aili's ticket is for travel during the festive season, the prices are generally steep, and so I decided to say a little prayer before I started to check on the internet. Surprisingly, I found a ticket with a relatively good airlines that was very reasonable priced for a festive season travel. What was even more amazing was that the next day, when I called the ticketing office, I was told that I had booked a route combination that is not allowed according to the rules, but the ticketing system had gone crazy for a short while, and had actually accepted my "illegal" reservation! I was simply lost for words when the lady told me over the phone that this was the first time that their system had gone bonkers for this year, but naturally, they agreed to honor the price in my "illegal" reservation!

On Friday, our professionals came over for our meeting as usual. Oscar came to our house very early in the morning, had breakfast with me, and then cooked a Peruvian dish called "picante de cuy" (it means hot and spicy guinea pig) together with me, although we substituted guinea pig with chicken. We then celebrated the birthday of one of the youths, Kiara, in the afternoon, together with Laura and a few other youths in our core committee, as well as Karen, a professional who dropped by during her lunch hours. In the evening, we served this dish to the professionals as well. They enjoyed this dish very much. Amazingly, the professionals came again on Saturday, and at least 2 new professionals volunteered to teach English and other subjects to our youths in our youth club, and to help out in other projects. One of them even came and joined us for our Sunday morning get-togethers!

I was amazed by the transformation that we have seen in some of our young professionals. On Saturday evening, Oscar travelled an hour to visit a youth, Danny, who had not been coming to join us for a while, and he spent time with the youth until almost 1am, past midnight. The youth was so touched that he came back to join us for our Sunday morning get-together this week!

We had quite a big turn-out for our Sunday morning get-together this week. But it was even more heartening to see not just the numbers, but also the involvement of our regulars. People like Oscar, Karen and Laura were automatically going to talk to the newcomers and making them feel at home! They even started to share about their personal life stories to the newcomers! The older folks have also started to gel together to a large extent. Being Christians, they are calling one another over the week and praying for one another. They are also working together to organize events, including the logistics and the cooking, to serve the younger people around. It is a truly touching sight to see people serving one another and helping one another.

Over the week, a friend German called me up. He called to thank us for our prayers for him, and he was also very grateful that some of the people in our older group have been calling him up from time to time to cheer him up, and some of the youths have been calling up his son regularly. His son Germancito has improved tremendously since suffering the bad accident last year, and he currently has cognitive control of his mind again, although he needs to go through therapy to recover control over his muscular and motor movements. Nevertheless German is looking forward to the day that his family can join us regularly for our Sunday gatherings once again!

A week may have passed by quite quickly, but the heartwarming memories that have come to pass over the week will stay with me for a long time to come.

Meeting with Professionals

This was my article yesterday. Wonder why it got self-deleted from my blog!

Today, we had our Friday meeting for young professionals again. It was a good time, as many of the people who came had come for previous sessions. We had altogether 8 professionals today (including Karen and Oscar), and all of them have committed themselves to coming back again next Friday, and to set aside Friday evenings for a get-together session of snacks and discussions. Oscar helped me to cook the Szechuan chicken wings today, while Karen helped us with the washing up of some of the plates after the meeting was over. They are both coming again tomorrow to help us with a sex education seminar for our youths, and then on Sunday again to join us for our Sunday morning gatherings. It is quite amazing how busy young professionals can still find time to be committed to something outside of their work! There must be something about what we are doing here in Peru that is giving them a sense of fulfillment that their work cannot give them.

The good thing about meeting up with a group of professionals is that they can all speak English, and there is much less of a cultural gap between professionals in Peru and professionals in Singapore. We now have to plan out a series of discussion themes for our Friday get-togethers.We were all a little tired at the end of everything, but nonetheless somewhat excited about how our professional group is finally beginning to take shape.

This week has been a little bit packed with its highs and lows for us. We had a holiday on Wednesday, and so we enjoyed ourselves with some nice crispy crab-claws and lychee agar-agar. However, Thursday was a nightmare for me, as I had to send out my laptop for repair as it encountered some bugs. Fortunately, none of my data was lost, and I only had to re-install some programs again. As a result of my laptop problems, I had to cancel my lunch appointment on Thursday.I have also been busy trying to confirm my air ticket back to Singapore. It is always a hassle trying to book your flight back. It seems like the most probable route will take me via Los Angeles and Hong Kong.

Sexual Education Seminar for the Youths

Today we held a seminar on sexual education for the youths. The mum of one of our youths is a professional in the health sector, and she kindly offered herself to give a short talk to our youths, who listened rather attentively to the talk and had many questions to ask. Karen also invited one of her friends, Miriam, to come and help us out. Oscar contributed as one of the panelists as well, and spoke from the perspective of a guy.

Another lady Giselle also visited us in the afternoon today. She is a young professional who works as an accountant with the Accountant-General Office in Peru. Aili and I spoke with her for almost an hour, while the sexual education talk was going on. She expressed her interest to volunteer with us and to learn English with us. We told her that our NGO is a non-religious and non-political organization, and the activities are non-religious in nature, and the members included both Christians and non-Christians. However, we told her that Aili and myself, as well as Delia, Julian and Serene, are Christians and we believe that many good values to guide our lives can be found in the Bible. Upon hearing that we are Christians, she started to get rather excited, and told us about how she received Jesus Christ 8 years ago. We told her that we usually gather together with a few friends on Sunday mornings to study the Bible together and fellowship together. It is a South American culture to have parties or get-togethers in the weekends to take a break from your work. For us, our weekend "get-together" takes place on Sunday mornings, where we sing some songs together, share about our lives with one another, help one another to find out more about the Bible, and even celebrate birthdays together. Well, she heard enough about the fun we have on Sunday mornings to decide to come and join us tomorrow morning!

The past couple of weeks have been a little tiring. I think it is about time we go out for another great celebration together! Celebrations form an integral part of South American life. When things are going well, we celebrate the success. When things are not going so well, we celebrate so as to encourage ourselves!

A Visit to Jockey Plaza

Our domestic helper and gardener came to our house today for their once-a-week touch-up of our house. We also signed the renewal of the lease for our house today, and also met up with a NGO that is a potential partner for our ImpACTS project next year.

Tomorrow is a public holiday in Peru. So, we decided to go out tonight with our friends Karen and Oscar, and Jose, a Christian psychologist who is a friend of Karen. We had dinner at a chicken outlet in Jockey Plaza, the largest shopping mall in Peru, before adjourning to a cafe for some coffee and fruit juice. We were hoping to catch a movie show as well, but none of the movies appealed to us, so we just went into a bookshop after our time at the cafe, where I bought a couple of magazines to read over the holiday.

In one of the magazines "Business in Peru - October edition", there was a special report on the profile of managers in Peru. Some statistics based on a survey of 1,537 Peruvian managers in 2006 include the following:

• The typical Peruvian manager stays in a company for 4.1 years on average
• The typical Peruvian manager works on average 11 hours a day
• 18.4% of the Peruvian managers feel a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction in their jobs, while 69.3% feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled

It is a rather telling sign that the majority of the managers feel a sense of lack of fulfillment. Clearly, remuneration and status alone cannot bring about a sense of fulfillment to a person's work. I am quite certain that laziness will lead to a man's ruin eventually, but addiction to work is the opposite extreme that many people in this postmodern age often swing to. Many people jump into the heat of the rat race and begin running without taking a moment to reflect on whether they are running on the right track, only to discover at the end of the journey that they are no closer to the finishing line, and have instead wandered into some limbo that is both eeriely lonely as well as devastatingly devoid of meaning.

Before we join the hordes of modern work addicts who have aimlessly run off the main running tracks of life, we should take a moment to step out of the cauldron of activities, and reflect on the course that we are taking in our lives. What is the defining purpose of our lives, and is it a purpose that takes on an eternal and timeless perspective that is bigger than our personal ambitions? Is our work moving along in parallel with the advance of this purpose, or is it merely touching the purpose from a tangential perspective? Socrates once said, "The unreflected life is not worth living." Perhaps it is time for all of us to take stock of our lives once again.

World Challenge 2006

This is a view of the nice beaches that we can find in Lima. Peru is famous for its beaches. This is a view of one of the less beautiful beaches, a shot that I captured from the Larcomar shopping mall in Miraflores about a month ago.

Today I had a chance to briefly browse through last week's Newsweek Magazine. I chanced upon an interesting article about 2 finalists in the World Challenge contest that is organized by the Shell company. The contest is about organizations that are making maximum social impact in global communities through innovative entrepreneurial means. The winner would receive a grant of USD 20,000. So far, 12 finalists have been chosen, and the Newsweek magazine would be highlighting 2 every week. One of the finalists is the company "Cards from Africa", started by a Bristish expatriate and a Rwandan artist in 2004. The company markets greeting cards made by a poor Rwandan community to shops around the world, and it now provides a steady income for 40 young Rwandans. Apart from providing employment, profits from the company are also channeled towards helping orphans in social projects in Rwanda.

As I read the article, my mind shifted to our current scene in Peru. The "Cards from Africa" program seems very similar in concept to our "YES to Education" project for the youths. Here we are also teaching the youths entrepreneurial skills in order to enable them to raise funds for their education. Unfortunately, we are not a finalist in the contest, but if we had submitted our project earlier, we might have been one of the finalists!

Starting Project "Healthy Lifestyle"

We finally had a chance to re-start our project "Healthy Lifestyle" again today. We went for a jog around the park near to our house in the evening, and our friend Oscar joined us as well. This morning, Oscar brought his mum to join us for our regular Sunday morning meetings. She got the chance to try our "sweet potato" soup dessert. She enjoyed her time with us and would be inviting her other sons to join us for our Sunday morning get-togethers.

Still on the theme of a healthy lifestyle, I realize that I have not been eating too much grilled red meat of late. Most of the food that I eat consists of either fish or chicken. Lunch consisted of fish soup and a Chinese cucumber dish cooked with some beef slices, cooked for us by the owner of a Chinese restaurant himself, a 50-something Chinese whom we have come to establish a rather good relationship with over the past few months. In the evening, Aili and I had a bowl of fish porridge each for dinner, while Delia has a bowl of fruits as her stomach was not feeling that well. We also took some time to prepare some crab mayonaisse for breakfast tomorrow morning. We also took the chance to watch a DVD together - a comedy called "Super Nacho".

This coming Wednesday will be a public holiday in Peru. I think they are celebrating Halloween. It will be a nice break, and we are planning to go out for a movie together with 2 of our friends Karen and Oscar on Tuesday night.

Launch of our youth project

Laura is talking to our neighbor who is keen on organising a jewelery party for her well-heeled friends in support of the project to raise funds for the education of the youths.

Some of the professionals who came for the presentation by the youths. Next to Aili is my friend Luis, a business consultant with one of the biggest consulting firms in Peru and who has worked for several years in Mexico and the United States. Next to Luis is Karen, a marketing manager with a multinational company in Peru, and who has been very committed in working with us to fulfill the same vision. Next to Karen is Manuel, a consultant who has just returned from his work in Korea. On the other side of the chairs are some of our other friends, including a journalist, an accountant and a businessman. Delia and Oscar are standing behind. As you can see from the picture, Oscar is almost like one of us now, and he looks more like one of the hosts than one of the guests!

Some of the cars today. There was no more parking space left in front of our house! A good problem indeed!

These are the 5 members of our youth committee who are spearheading the project: (from left to right: Johnnie, Carolina, Sonia, Laura, and Wilmer - some people have commented that Wilmer looks a little like me).

Some of our youths who came today. We are thinking of getting the girl on the far right, Kiara, to be a model for some of the jeweleries that the youths would be selling to raise funds for their education.

Today, we launched our youth project where the youths would be selling products to raise funds for their education. Several professionals turned up as well, including almost all the professionals who turned up for our last talk on Chinese culture, as well as Oscar, Karen and Luis, whom we had dinner with last Monday. The 5 youths from our youth committee did an excellent job in presenting the project, and responding to the questions of the professionals. One of our friends commented that he was pleasantly surprised by the level of professionalism that these youths were able to demonstrate despite their relatively young age. All the professionals were also very keen to share some tips with the youths, and to contribute their contacts for direct sales or indirect publicity by the youths. In fact, including Karen, Oscar and Luis, altogether 8 professionals have pledged their support for this project, and plan to meet up regularly, perhaps once a fortnight, to chat regarding the progress of this project. Our youths will be preparing a weekly progress report that will be presented at these meetings. The first meet-up will be next Friday, and to kick things off on a high, they have all requested for me to cook a Chinese dish for everyone to savour! So next Friday, I will be preparing one of my signature dish, the Szechuan chicken wings, together with the help of Oscar and our 2 guys from the youth committee. Guys in charge of food? Well, times have changed - modern guys are now the masters of the kitchen.

I think we are finally having some breakthroughs in our drive to connect to more young professionals. In fact, I will be having lunch with a lawyer in his late thirties next week, and he too has expressed interest in helping us with our personal matters as well as our projects. It's interesting how people recognize my penchant for food almost immediately. This lawyer was asking me if I liked seafood, but without waiting for my reply, said: "I am sure you like seafood." Haha...... a belly speaks a thousand words!