AuthorGlennys Sabuco Archives
January 2025
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Prite5/22/2016 We all know the excitement of a child’s first steps. Or the joy in hearing the first exclamations of “Mama” or “Dada.”
But what happens when the first steps don’t come, when the first words don’t appear, when a child does not walk, does not speak? This is a challenging time for parents, in many ways. Support can be critical. And early intervention can make a tremendous difference in the life of a child. The government of Peru is expanding services for infants and toddlers with disabilities. We’re excited to have “adopted” two programs. They’re called PRITE (Programa de Intervencion Temprana), which means “early intervention program.” One is located in the San Manuelito school in San Ramon, in the central jungle, and the other is in Huancayo, high in the Andes mountains. I received an email from our friend, Edith Cossio Calderon, director of the San Ramon program, with pictures of some of the children. This program just opened last year and serves about 30 children. The children have diagnoses such as Down Syndrome, cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus, seizure disorders, and developmental delay. Edith is hoping we can help build walls to divide a large room into smaller classrooms. With teachers, parents, therapists, babies, and toddlers all in one room, it’s difficult to provide the best services. She’s also hoping we can help with materials to enhance cognitive and sensorimotor development and language stimulation. She knows exactly what she needs, exactly what the children need. She just needs some help to provide it. Sometimes progress comes in baby steps. Edith and her colleagues, Alicia, Gloria, and Elvira, are giving these precious young children the opportunity to learn and grow, and even, perhaps, to walk and talk.
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Dancing at Recess5/15/2016 Music and dance seem to be in the air that Peruvians breathe, in the oxygen that courses through their lungs. Everywhere we go, we hear music; we see dancing. We’ve seen parades in Lima with dancers in colorful costumes, with panpipes and the beat of native drums. We’ve seen street bands in Huancayo, with hand-carried harps, with the clear, haunting sound of the Andes. We’ve heard young music students in San Ramon, in Francisco’s sister’s living room, preparing, they hoped, for the music conservatory in Lima, playing ancient Quechua songs on traditional instruments - an afternoon etched forever in our hearts. Peruvians dance. They dance in their kitchens. They dance in their streets. Old people dance, young people dance, babies dance. One of our most enjoyable experiences was dancing on a rooftop at a birthday party. So it was no surprise to us two years ago to see the children of San Manuelito dancing at recess. At the time, their only playground equipment was an old rusty swing set that was rarely used. One of the teachers played music on her cell phone and the children danced. They laughed, they shouted, they jumped, and they danced. Last year we were able to put in a small playground, in memory of our grandson, Richie Jeffs, who died in 2014 while waiting for a heart transplant. The teachers had asked for a playground, for equipment where children could play, could swing, could climb. We too thought it was important. This year we hope to expand it, perhaps to purchase a swing that will be accessible to children in wheelchairs. But children, beautiful children of San Manuelito, and your teachers, our friends, our amigos, I hope there will always be somebody dancing at recess.
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Mothers day poem5/8/2016 ![]() For My Quechua Mother-in-Law, Luisa Carhuapoma Campos Sabuco (I wrote this years ago, when our boys were very young, in honor of Francisco’s mother, whom I never met. I want to wish a Happy Mother’s Day, Feliz Dia de la Madre, to her daughters, Epifania, Julia, and Maria, who have become my Peruvian sisters.) Grandmother to my sons, their abuelita, I do not know you. You live in a world where hunger clings with curled fingers, to the chests of babies, where a mother gnaws the chicken bones of her neighbor’s garbage and dies. You live in a world where old women with thin fingers weave llama wool into grass and rain and stars, where young men with fiery eyes touch the razor edge of night. I come to you with bare feet and a flower. Your son brings us together. With one arm, he reaches to your Inca fathers; with the other, he lifts a child. Grandmother to my sons, their abuelita, I want to know you. I bring you a small flower. Mamita, Mamacita, I bring to you our sons. --Glennys Sabuco
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Feed the Birds5/1/2016 ![]() This kind woman feeds pigeons every day outside the Church of San Francisco in Lima, Peru. I look at her picture and see that she is elderly, that her hair is gray and her face wrinkled. I imagine she has had a difficult life, that she has loved and lost those she loves, that she has been hurt and perhaps finds healing in feeding the pigeons of Lima. I look at her and believe she has found her mission in life. I think about my own life, about my children and grandchildren, about people I love. I think about the precious children I’ve had the privilege of teaching, the children with autism and Down syndrome, those who could not walk and those who could not speak. I think about what I feel is my mission, my calling, at this point in my life. I think of Peru. I think of children with disabilities at schools in Peru, their families, their teachers, their communities. I think about the joy on their faces as they come into their classrooms, about teachers with limited resources but limitless love, about mothers living in poverty, but laughing, carrying babies in colorful blankets on their backs. I feel called to work with these children and mothers and teachers. I feel called to learn from them, to share with them, to try to understand, just a little, their world, their reality, their dreams. I don’t know if this is a call from God or a call from within myself that I attribute to God. I do know it’s something I have to do. I do know it’s my mission. Muchas gracias, mujer de la iglesia San Francisco. |