Finding a Family.

Friday morning we were up just after 6 AM, washed, dressed and out the door of the hostel before 7 AM.  We walked the familiar route to the Metropolitano, found the boarding area for our bus, pushed on and were soon speeding our way to Barranco.  We arrived at the station near the missionary compound, walked the few blocks to their gate and rang the buzzer, and rang it again and again, finally it was answered and we were told that the priest was not there, we were not about to give up and rang it again and in our broken Spanish tried to explain that we had an appointment, no luck.  We tried again and this time also knocked on the gate, the knock was heard by a priest walking in their garden and he came to the gate, let us in and directed us to where we could find Father Adrian.  After a few other false starts Father Adrian finally heard us talking and came out to greet us - it turns out there is a new cook who was answering the door that morning and she hadn't been well trained.  It didn't matter to us we had found our guide and he was willing to go with us to the parish in Huaycan where David's father lives and there turn us over to a parish priest who might be able to find the address in the maze of streets that is Zona J in Huaycan.

Soon Father Adrian, an Irish priest who was both good humored, determined and knowledgeable about Peru, where he has served for almost 40 years, had us in a taxi and then a series of buses as we wound our way across Lima.  We could have never figured out the buses we had to take to get there unless we had lived in Lima for a long time.  Finally, we left our last bus and switched to a minibus, and in15 minutes exited in front of the parish church compound of Huaycan.  Father Adrian led us inside and within a few minutes we were talking with a French missionary who worked there.  As soon as he made the transfer Fr. Adrian was off  to a parish where he assisted about 40 minutes back.  The French missionary, whose name unfortunately we never got or forgot, excused himself but was back in a few minutes with the parish registry which contained the name of David's father.

Minutes later we were in a combi, a van minibus, which we rode a few minutes up the hill, Huaycon is built on steep hills, really the foothills of the Andes, just outside Lima.  At a spot the priest recognized we jumped out and started walking up and down streets checking address plates on the houses, after about five minutes of this we found a plate that matched the return address on a letter David had gotten from his father.  There was nothing else to do but knock on the door.  The door opened and a teenage woman, David's half sister, Monica, opened the door and the priest began to explain why we were there. Halfway through the priests explanation she realized who David was, you could tell by the shock on her face and she said amazed "David".  David said "Si", the priest backed away with a smile on his face, and what followed was an extended series of hugs, with Monica then David's stepmother, who we have called "Mama" since that first meeting, and David's stepbrother, Jesus.  The rest of the family including David's father were away, either at work or school.  The priest left with our effusive thanks and we all went inside.  We sat around their dining table and began to try to talk to each other.  David, thank goodness, had high school Spanish which began to come back quickly, I had very little Spanish but an ability to communicate in some kind of sign language that sometimes works but cant go very deep, and David's family had bits and pieces of English.  After a half hour or so the door opened and David's father, Victor, walked in quickly.  David and he saw each other, David jumped up, they hugged, held each other at arms length to look at each other, hugged again and continued this for several minutes.  The whole room was full of people with smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes.