Villa La Paz, Chaclacayo, Peru

It was a sad plane ride (the few minutes of it that we were awake). We slept a lot and before we knew it, 27 hours later, we were through our stops in LA and El Salvador. We landed in Lima, Peru at 14:11 and had to go through customs and immigration which was pretty simple. We managed to smuggle our sun screen through ALL the flights even though it was 237ml!!! We are rebels!
We were supposed to be picked up by a driver from the clinic but of course no one was there except the creepy taxi guys who followed us around and tried to "help". As a semi-experienced traveller, I ignored them, Tyson on the other hand wanted to share our life story. I think he learned pretty quick when thousands of them started targetting him. I dont know how they knew we were tourists with the vancouver canucks tshirts and hundreds of canada pins and patches on our baggage. Anyway we finally got some change, found the phone number and called the clinic. It was such a huge relief to speak to someone who could understand and speak English! It turned out that the driver was late to pick us up.
We drove an hour and a half from the airport to a town called Chaclacayo. It was an interesting car ride with no apparent regard for any traffic rules and everyone laying on their horns the whole way. Music was blaring and we starred wide-eyed at the dirty streets and graffitti covered shacks. definitely a shock from our beautiful streets in Vancouver.
When we got to the clinic about 7 other volunteers (all from the US) and the doctor (who runs the clinic) were just leaving for their daily coffee break. We joined them and everyone is very kind. This clinic was started in 1987 and the doctor (in his 70's now) funds and runs this clinic for poor and destitute kids. About 26 people are employed here (cooks, nurses etc) and there are just under 60 kids.
When we came back from coffee we came into the house and were immediately greeted by dozens of small kids. Kids with no arms, no legs, no fingers, badly burnt faces, disfigured bodies....all appeared happy and joyous. They helped each other with crutches, wheelchairs, translating etc. Some of them speak a few words of English but they mainly speak spanish. They all want to know our names and where we come from. We helped out with dinner time which was quite entertaining. Then we walked to the market to buy fruit and snacks for the next few days.
I don't think a week here is enough but I have a feeling we will be back.
We skyped our family which was great because we miss them tons!
We will be posting pics in the coming days.