Greetings from warm and sunny Peru!!

The top picture is of a class in "The Jan & Bob Room" that was dedicated to us in 2011 after we donated a language lab to the EIGER Colon campus.  The lower picture is of Jan and me with the English teachers at the Los Olivos campus along with recipients of scholarships made possible by Connie Pukaite and her late friend, Rudy.

Jan and I are doing very well down here in Lima.  This is our fourth “winter” down here in this, the second largest desert city in the world after Cairo.  I’ve been following your weather back home, and I can’t tell you how boring the weather has been here.  Every day is 78 – 82 degrees, and we have only seen light rain three times during the 9 months we’ve been here since 2011.   But we did experience a slight earthquake tonight!!

Our school, EIGER, was started over 20 years ago by a Rotarian named Victor Cipriani.  He started with 20 students and a belief that the only way for poor Peruvians to get ahead was through education. Victor focused on three areas to prepare his students:  Computers, Business and English.  Today, EIGER serves about 30,000 students throughout Peru and charges them tuition of only approximately $10 per month for up to three courses.  It’s still a shoe-string operation, but EIGER has proven to be sustainable and successful.  To learn more, go to www.eiger.edu.pe 

Rather than volunteer at one or two schools this year, Jan and I have been volunteering at all seven EIGER schools in the Lima area.  We’ve been running 2-3 hour seminars at most of the schools and making frequent visits to all of them.  We’ve also been helping some of our former students build the English Conversation Club that meets in a local park for two hours every Sunday afternoon.

We will wrap up our two-month stay in early March, and I look forward to seeing all of you at our meeting on the 7th.   We are on the Pacific coast, but our clocks are set for Eastern Time so jet lag won’t be an issue.