Letters from Zapallal

Letter from Zapallal - November

October has been a pretty busy and successful month. The weather has been less predictable, often damp mornings with very warm afternoons but as the month has gone on, it has become more settled and spring-like.

8th October is a national holiday, commemorating a very brave defence by the Peruvian navy against the Chilean navy. It was a bit like Dunkirk – a defeat but the delay allowed a regrouping. The government decreed that 9th could also be a holiday but it had to be made up for. We decided to take the two holidays and make a very long weekend.

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Letter from Zapallal - October

September, the beginning of spring, is the Month of Youth here and normally we would have celebrations for the Day of Youth but this year, no. I’m not sure why but I think they want to connect it with the inauguration of inter-class sports in October. At least the weather has a feel of spring about it, though early mornings are usually damp and a bit chilly but late mornings and afternoons are sunny and warm. The mimosa has taken the hint and the school now has lots of patches of yellow. The bougainvillea is following suit. We do not have that glorious range of colour of the leaves in...

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Zapallal: Sharing the Struggle

Over 25 years ago Delia, and her husband Michael, were invited by their friend Brother Paul to visit Peru.

It was certainly not a sight-seeing trip. It was to a desert community some 40 miles from Lima, where several hundred families had fled the terrorism and despair of the city and settled in mud huts and tents.

Zapallal it was called, and it may have offered relative safety but nothing else. No rain had fallen for years. There were no basic facilities of any description. No medicines, no schooling, precious little food. Oh yes – there was a football pitch crudely marked...

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Zapallal appeal: please help...

It’s easy for us to take all sorts of things for granted: electricity, hot water, nutritious food, the possibility of finding a job, education for our children and free hospital treatment when we need it. For people in Peru – and especially Delia and Michael’s charity, Zapallal: Sharing the Struggle, which supports a school in a poor desert region north of Lima – life is hard and the things that we all enjoy in the West aren’t always within reach.

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