July 10 Presentation

Hola.  Saturday was a big day for us.  The wheel chair/accessibility presentation was very well received. CASP is indeed a school, but don´t "graduate" kids out of the program at any specified age, like we do in the USA.  There were more adults in wheelchairs in attendance than I´d ever anticipated.  Georgia and Dwayne and Dale and Carol talked about their own challenges in raising children with different abilities.  Then Dale talked about the importance of proper seating. For example, you can take a person whose spine is bent so that they´re always looking down, and adjust with a cushion or something like that so he´ll look naturally out & up at the world.  Everyone in the question-answer period was so thankful, even emotional. They had never been fitted for their chairs, just using whatever they could get their hands on. I think ALL of them were using foam rubber cushions, which give no support. They really need gel-filled ones. Several couldn´t reach the foot rests--one mans feet rested on a cord stretched between the foot rest supports. One young woman had a youth chair, but she would benefit from putting larger wheels on it so she wouldn´t have to push as frequently to cover distances.  Her story was something else! Because of her disability, shed been left to sit at home all day.´They lived in a small village and were quite poor.  Not even a wheelchair. Never got to go to school.   She had two brothers.  One went to Lima and worked as a taxi driver.  He delivered someone one day to CASP and found out what they did here, and asked if he could bring his little brother with Downs Syndrome there. Well, she got to come too, and in a very short time got caught up in learning to read and write. Today she works at a bank in the accounting dept. As everyone left Dale´s program, they had to cheek-kiss everyone of us, of course.  We´re getting to like this type of greeting / good-bye. Earlier, the director had them sing me happy birthday, and I was so impressed that altho´ everyone had come to this presentation with their own concerns & preoccupations, as they kissed good-bye, they remembered to wish me a happy birthday with true sincerity .  Very touching. The cheek-kiss is such a part of the lifestyle here. We sat in on a class, and one boy came in quite late, but still went around the room, kissing every student and also his teacher.  I was thinking how I would have reacted if one of my students in Kansas had come in and planted a kiss on my cheek! When we went back to where we were staying, our supper was ready, and Gladys and Raul brought a Birthday Cake!   It was a chocolate layer cake with lucuma (a Peruvian fruit)  kind of gelatin-like filling and frosting.  They´d remembered that when we were shopping that I got lucuma ice cream and made a big deal out of it. Yes, I did have a good day, (we all did), altho´ even with a sweater and jacket, I´m still always chilly!
Por Rita