The track up to Pompinchu’s house before the staircase.
Pompinchu’s house was located at the top of a slippery dirt track making it very difficult if he ever wanted to leave his house. Over the past week MEDLIFE, with the help of some community members from the Laderas community, has been constructing the staircase up to Pompinchu’s house. On Friday, a group of interns and nurses went with Carlos Benavides, director of MED Programs Peru, to paint and inaugurate the staircase.
MEDLIFE interns painting the staircase with Pompinchu and his family.
Whilst we were at the project site, we also decided to help Pompinchu with a few other changes he wanted to his house, redoing the paint, replacing the walls to his bathroom and decorating the side of his house with a character who is very important to Pompinchu.
Pompinchu asked for an image of Pokemon’s Pikachu, a key feature of his TV show.
As well as interns and nurses, some of Pompinchu’s family members who live near by also came to help us with the final stages of staircase construction, including his young niece who was particularly excited to see all the bright paints we were using to decorate her uncle’s house!
Pompinchu with his niece at the inaugeration.
After completing the work on the staircase and other parts of the house, we were lucky enough to partake in a private viewing of Pompinchu’s once famous show ‘Comicos Ambulates’. Pompinchu explained “much of the show is based on satirical political humour but as Spanish is not your first language I’m going to stick to something more simple” before showing us a series of slight of hand magic tricks and engaging in some friendly banter with his co star ‘monstro’.
Pompinchu even invited some interns up to join in the show!
We finished the inaugeration with the traditional smashing of a champagne bottle over the staircase and a few speeches. It was a delight inaugerating this staircase for Pompinchu who was incredibly entertaining all day and had us all joking around with him as we worked.
MEDLIFE Staff with Pompinchu and his family at the inaugeration.
We will be continuing to work with Pompinchu and support him with his treatment and hope that having this staircase will make accesing his home easier and allow him to get out of the house more to continue entertaining.