Lima

Adela Huaman needed only one word to describe all that was here when she came to this pocket of Lima called Villa El Salvador 10 years ago: Desert. For the Huaman family - living in a home made of straw, shivering against the winds that blew from the foothills each night - there was nothing else except an endless vista of sand. The family had no electricity, no running water. "We suffered very much at the beginning," said the 31-year-old mother of eight. "Sometimes I thought I could not stand it. I thought of leaving.

A Brookhaven woman who knows her 14-year-old daughter is experimenting with alcohol and marijuana on Friday nights asked what a parent can do to break the cycle. "We went to high school in the '70s and drugs and alcohol were rampant," said the woman, who identified herself as Mary. "We know what our kids are up against. " "It's rougher today," said another parent. "It's MTV, sex and drugs," he said. "Today, when you're 14, you're 17. " In an effort to help their children, the parents attended a program on "Teenagers, Drugs and Alcohol" at the Mirmont CareUnit in Lima on Wednesday night to learn about the warning signs of drug use and what to do if their suspicions are confirmed.

Backyard vegetable gardens are scattered all over the lush, green, Philadelphia suburbs, but who would have thought that the tiny hamlet of Bryn Athyn, in eastern Montgomery County, could vie for lima bean capital of Pennsylvania? Well, perhaps not officially, but that is not due to a lack of trying on Tom Redmile's part. Like a regular Johnny Appleseed, this 84-year-old lima bean advocate has sown lima beans throughout Bryn Athyn's community gardens, and as far afield as Michigan, California, South Africa and Australia.

John Young of Lima, perhaps himself a budding horticulturist, gazes admiringly at one of the many exhibits that were entered in the Media Flower Show, held this week at the First United Methodist Church.

Finding a wrecked car isn't as easy as you might think. Ask Maria Lima. She's asked just about everyone she knows in her quest to find just the right wrecked car. Any old wreck won't do. Lima needs one that's twisted and mangled by an accident. Ideally, it should be one of those 3-foot-long pedal-operated toy cars. "I'll probably end up making it," the 16-year-old sighed after listing all the friends, relatives and schoolmates she had asked. The sophomore is the chairwoman of the Riverside High School chapter of Students Against Driving Drunk (SADD)

Sticks of dynamite thrown by terrorists exploded outside at least six embassies last night, including that of the United States, and police blamed the attacks on leftist guerrillas. The U.S. State Department said that no Americans were injured and that the embassy building was not damaged. There were no other confirmed reports of deaths or injuries. Police said rebels in speeding cars hurled sticks of dynamite at the embassies of the United States, West Germany, Spain, China, India and Argentina.

Syed Kamal was pistol-whipped and robbed as he walked to his Upper Darby home after work. Dennis Smith was jumped as he tried to pull groceries from his car. Jagjit Singh was thrown to the ground in an attempted robbery as he walked along Market Street. Yesterday, Michael J. Chitwood, Upper Darby's police superintendent, said the three were victims last week of "wolf pack" robberies - assaults by a number of attackers. Over three days, Chitwood said, his department arrested nine juveniles he thinks are responsible for the crimes.

LIMA MAOIST REBELS CAUSE BLACKOUT A 120-mile swarth of Peru was plunged into darkness after Maoist guerillas bombed power pylons. The Shining Path also marked the New Year by setting off car bombs under cover of darkness, one near an elegant restaurant packed with holiday revelers. One person died in a gunfight. A spectacular fire burned down a marketplace a block from the presidential palace, injuiring 10 people, including firefighters. Tito Huaman, a vendor, told reporters that merchants saw several incendary devices of the type often used by the Shinning Path.

The Delaware County District Attorney's Office is considering whether to seek a retrial of an Upper Providence man convicted in 1981 of murdering his wife and her friend. John M. Larkins Jr., 53, won the right to a new trial recently when the state Supreme Court upheld a ruling by the trial judge that he had erred while instructing the jury. Larkins was convicted of third-degree murder in the shotgun slaying of Gail Larkins, 31, and first-degree murder in the killing of Alfred Huweart, 63, of Concord.

Through the fog that enshrouds this teeming city of 6.5 million in dank grayness from June until October, the cross atop the hill of St. Christopher is still visible far in the distance. It is a stirring, peaceful sight in a city where the clatter of Volkswagen engines and the chants of street vendors make any tranquility seem inconceivable. "The silence is ominous," says a lifelong resident about another sort of tranquility - the unusual political quiet that has descended over the city this week, days before Monday's 162d independence celebration and anniversary of President Alan Garcia's first year in office.

LOS ANGELES - Jose Lima lived over the top on and off the baseball field. The free-spirited pitcher could deliver a song as well as a fastball, leaving a trail of fun and laughter known as "Lima Time" wherever he went. The All-Star righthander who spent 13 years in the major leagues died yesterday, according to the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was 37. Lima, who pitched the Dodgers to their first playoff win in 16 years in 2004, was in full cardiac arrest when paramedics arrived at his Pasadena home early yesterday morning, police said in a statement.

Syed Kamal was pistol-whipped and robbed as he walked to his Upper Darby home after work. Dennis Smith was jumped as he tried to pull groceries from his car. Jagjit Singh was thrown to the ground in an attempted robbery as he walked along Market Street. Yesterday, Michael J. Chitwood, Upper Darby's police superintendent, said the three were victims last week of "wolf pack" robberies - assaults by a number of attackers. Over three days, Chitwood said, his department arrested nine juveniles he thinks are responsible for the crimes.

As a driven young chef in my first major job 30 years ago, I did some crazy things in my search for authenticity. Perhaps my most notorious act was choosing to serve fresh, green fava beans for the opening of the restaurant, an event to which several hundred guests had been invited. I joined the staff in cleaning six bushels of favas, which involved opening the large, tough outer pods, removing the inner beans, blanching them, and then individually removing the skin from each bean.

If you are craving predictability on the restaurant row (Eastern Division) that is the 700 block of Chestnut Street, you might want to walk right on past Chifa, the newest Jose Garces contender: The prime steaks are next door at the vaulted-ceilinged Union Trust; the comfort food is at Jones across the street, where "Thanksgiving Dinner," should you have missed it (or have an off-season hankering for it), is on the menu every night. At the Peruvian-Chinese hybrid called Chifa you will find, instead, bowls of chaufa rice, a stir-fry dotted with chorizo and topped with sweetly tender soy-glazed scallops, and diminutive ceviches far more complex (and the flavors far more balanced)

Before moving into Lima Estates, Len Orlando shot a couple of videos of his grandkids, but did no editing or anything else too complex. But now, as a member of the Lima Estates Channel 11 television team, he has produced a step-by-step video record of the $4 million construction occurring at the 42-acre Lima Estates campus in Middletown Township, as well as DVDs of classical music concerts, volunteer luncheons and other special events. He plans to add about 25 minutes of footage to a walking tour he created of the retirement community.

I am in Peru, somewhere I never thought I'd be, and I love it. I am in Peru, on a tour, and I'm not a happy traveler. Honest, I never tell a lie. Confused? Me, too. Join me on a mildly schizophrenic, far too hurried, and ultimately satisfying South American trip - 16 days, 11 planes, and too many orders to "get on the bus. " My wife, Libby, and I were never on a vacation tour before. For us, travel was about not always knowing what comes next. But last spring, Libby's brother, Barry, and his bride, Louise, told us they would be traveling on their own in South America from mid-October to mid-December.

When my sister Gina's friend, Terry Saetta, headed to Peru for missionary work, going to visit her seemed unlikely. But when our plane landed smoothly on a runway in Lima, my sister and I embarked on an adventure of a lifetime. The noises, colors and flavors were energizing, and Lima was captivating. It varies from poor communities to upscale Miraflores. Each neighborhood is connected by a chaotic transportation system. Taxi drivers attract fares by merely sticking a sign on the windshield and honking the horn.

Once again, hearts in this Midwestern city have been ripped open. Lima Company, the Marine Reserve unit based here, left for Iraq only in March. Roughly 150 men, they wound up in the western part of the country, near Syria, with the difficult task of rooting out insurgents, cutting off what some call the "rat line" of outsiders infiltrating across the border. Now they have suffered losses that are staggering the city back home. Five were killed in May, two more in July.

The Kansas City Royals yesterday bought the contract of Jose Lima, who won 21 games for the Houston Astros in 1999 and spent the last two months with the Newark Bears of the independent Atlantic League. The Royals assigned the righthander to triple-A Omaha of the Pacific Coast League. Terms were not announced. Lima, 30, was a National League all-star in 1999, when he finished 21-10. In the next three years, he was 17-34 in the majors. Paul McCartney's music company, MPL Communications Inc., signed New York Yankees all-star outfielder Bernie Williams to a contract as a composer and guitarist.

For years, something was missing outside St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church in Haddon Heights. Now that omission has been rectified with the installation of a life-size marble statue of St. Rose of Lima, commissioned as a gift to the parish by Msgr. Richard Callahan, a former rector there. Msgr. Callahan had the statue carved in Italy in honor of his 50th year in the priesthood. It arrived this summer, and was placed near the front door of the Kings Highway church. "The people of this parish have been so good to me, and I just wanted in some way to give a gift to them," said Msgr.