Three weeks ago Lima lost water due to landslides and flooding from unseasonably heavy rainfall. Though the destructive landslides happened outside of Lima, contaminated water running into the rivers and polluting the ocean caused water companies to shut of the city's water for the entire following week. A little less than two weeks ago we got our water back. However, classes had been canceled at the university because there was not enough water flow yet to run an entire campus. Most schools throughout the city had canceled classes as well. I spent a lot of time that week that we didn't have class volunteering my time to donation centers where I sorted clothes and food that were being sent to villages that had been affected by the landslides.
On Sunday of last week, I continued my volunteering with the volunteer group organized by our campus. The majority of the students from my group volunteered to go to a village outside the city to help with clean-up. However, I somehow ended up in a different group than the other students, so I went to a different location with about 30 other Catolica students. Instead of cleaning schools I shoveled mud off streets and hauled it out of flooded houses. I did not take pictures as it would have been disrespectful, but I did meet a lot of nice students and finished off the day certainly looking like I had been trudging through the mud for five hours. There is still a lot more work to do, though.
Now, I might have mentioned in the last post that my host family got a new dog. Well, we discovered that she was pregnant as the month went on. That morning when I got up early to go volunteer with clean-up I noticed that Mia was not really acting like herself. Of course, she had been more and more tired lately and had started to look like a furry bowling ball, but she seemed a bit off that morning. I had a hunch that today was the day that she would have her puppies. I hadn't even taken off my dirty clothes from volunteering when I walked into the kitchen to say hi to my family and saw the cupboard next to the washing machine ajar. Inside was Mia and her five newborn puppies. She had the puppies about three hours before I had gotten home!
Unfortunately, we can't keep all five of the puppies, but seeing as I have an entire university that I can contact we should be able to find homes for them. I know my host dad would keep them all if he could. I would bring one home, but it is expensive to relocate an animal from one country to another.
It is actually a relief that I have something to look forward to every day seeing as classes have started up again. It's even more intense now that I am officially registered for my courses. I want to continue volunteering, but it is a little hard to do when I have 300 pages of reading in Spanish to do every week. I have my work cut out for me this semester, that's for sure.
