A 10-minute walk from Casa Goshen, the home office of the SST program in Peru, we found Manos Amigas, a Christian organization that exports handicrafts on behalf of independent artists, advocating for fair prices and tracking shifts in consumer demand for crafts. Yannina Meza, who directs Manos Amigas, or “Hands…
Laura preparing to meet her host family soon after arrival in Peru Laura shares a journal entry: Bus after bus passes by, each one so impossibly full that I can’t imagine a square inch of floor space that isn’t covered by feet. Yet the people in front…
We drove away from Lima on Friday, headed north on a highway that hugs the coastline, the Pacific to our left and steeply banked sand dunes to our right. The sun came out, a welcome change from Lima, which is still nearly always covered in clouds late in the winter…
Abby shares a journal entry: Abby with her host mother, Rosa. I felt like there was something symbolic and in some ways very sacred about arriving in Peru and being with our host families for the celebration of Saint Rosa of Lima. I was struck by the…
We left our home base at the Buen Pastor church on Friday morning, taking a bus toward Cono Norte, or the northern rim of Lima, where immigrants pour in from the mountains and the jungle, eager to stake a claim to a hillside patch of rocky, sandy soil. Pastor Benjamin…
Our tour of downtown Lima began in an early colonial monastery, Convento de San Francisco, known for its religious art above ground and its history below ground. To be sure, we admired the courtyard, the carvings, and the paintings, including “The Last Supper,” by Diego de la Puente. But what…
Well, we’re off and running! The first days here in Lima have been so full it’s been hard to stop long enough to post a blog. That said, we do want to share a bit about orientation and give you a glimpse of the adventures we’ve been having as we…
Goshen students met their Lima host families on Friday after a day spent touring downtown Lima. The students prepared to meet their host parents and siblings by reviewing information about their families, including the locations of their homes, and studying (and practicing) Peruvian greetings and farewells. Celia, our study coordinator,…
The 15 students who will spend the fall semester on SST in Peru left early and arrived early. The trip started around 4 a.m. , when they left Goshen by bus to catch a flight from Chicago. They landed at the Jorge Chávez International Airport in Lima at 9:19 p.m.,…
Six years ago this month we flew from Peru back to the States, having finished our yearlong term as SST directors. In our final blog post, we wrote: “We return to Goshen with a deeper appreciation for the educational value of SST and for the gifts that Goshen College students…
