ROANOKE Va.
Three work-experience exchange students from Peru were supposed to spend their three-month break from college working in retail, perfecting their English and discovering a new part of the world.
That plan fell through when the students, Liz Chiquillan, Piero Unzueta and Mayra Ramirez, all 19 years old, arrived in Newport News and found themselves without work, thanks in no small part to the tanking economy. Two of them had never been out of Peru before
By the time they showed up in front of Roanoke lawyer Correy Diviney’s desk, the trio had been in the United States for a month and had applied for dozens of jobs. They slept in crowded hotel rooms because no one would rent an apartment to unemployed people.
When they called their Nashville, Tenn.-based exchange program for help, the director told them to be patient; something would open up soon.
“We were very worried,” Chiquillan said. “We called our parents every day.”
The $600 they were advised to bring was long gone, and their parents had to send more.
