Ica - Casa Girasoles

Today was a transfer day. We left Lima this morning and boarded another bus – this time heading south along the Pan American highway for 6+ hours. Our destination – the city of Ica.

Ica is a coastal community just North of the driest desert in the world. Ica is best know for a massive earthquake that decimated parts of the community in 2007. HBI has worked with our Peruvian partner Union Biblica in this area for a few years now. The city is just now recovering from the devastating effects of the earthquake.

We will be working here for two days. Once again, seeing all the boys at the Casa Girasoles is our main priority. Our goal for this project and campaign continues to be documenting the needs of the children and helping to develop a formal medical and social record keeping system. We are so fortunate to be working with Union Biblica and their fantastic team (Billy and Kate are two of the best people anyone could ever wish to meet and have the pleasure of working with).

Tonight at dinner one of the house parents was telling me that our dental team was going to be very busy. Thank goodness we have two dentists and the amazing energy and extreme talents of our team (Karen, HBI’s Director of Nursing – does the work of three people). Mike Dotten has been a real trooper acting as the dentists assistant. His poor back has got to be killing me – but Mike is never one to complain!

On our trip to Ica we took a slight divergence and visited one of Peru’s most famous winery. It was a fun filled visit to a former convent turned winery. We really enjoyed getting to see a window into the past of this ancient colonial city.