Photos by Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

Peruvian work-exchange students Mayra Ramirez (left) and Liz Chiquillan found jobs at the Kroger store at Towers Shopping Center.

Photos by Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

Kristia Shrader (right) takes a ticket to a concert at the Unity of Roanoke Valley from Art Strickland as his wife, Diane Strickland (from left), Liz Chiquillan and Mayra Ramirez accompany him.

ERIC BRADY The Roanoke Times

Liz Chiquillan (from left), Mayra Ramirez and Piero Unzueta clean the apartment they moved into in January. The students from Lima, Peru, found a network of friends and helpers while in Roanoke.

They painted offices, waited tables, ran Kroger cash registers and learned the English words for kale and turnips.

They became devotees of "Lost," cheerleaders for middle school basketball games and regular attendees of Unity of Roanoke Valley church.

Before happenstance brought them to Roanoke in mid-January, the 19-year-old Peruvians were stuck in Virginia's Hampton Roads area -- on the student work-exchange trip from hell.

The jobs they had been promised had evaporated, thanks to the tanking economy and bad planning on the part of the business that organized their exchange.

The money they brought to tide them over until their first paychecks came had long since run out. And their families back in Lima could ill afford to keep sending cash for hotel lodging and food.

The teenagers were alternately scared and bored and just about to chuck it all to fly back home. But their travails, documented in a Jan. 16 story in The Roanoke Times, took a fairy tale turn after they landed in front of Spanish-speaking Roanoke lawyer Correy Diviney, who helped get some of the money they spent on the program returned.

More importantly, he introduced them to his law partner, Art Strickland, and even more importantly, to Strickland's wife.

Retired judge Diane Strickland became the trio's fairy godmother, e-mailing her friends and amassing a network of support for the stranded South Americans -- essentially creating her own exchange program from scratch.

Before long, all three had jobs, complimentary YMCA memberships, reduced-price housing and plenty of things to do. Roanoke ad agency president Todd Marcum and his wife, Rhonda, stepped forward to provide the American family experience, inviting them for dinners, "Lost"-viewing marathons and their son's eighth grade basketball games.

Oh, and Internet access. "They can't shop on the Internet in Peru, so they'd order stuff and have it sent to our house. It was like Christmas for them when the packages came," Marcum said.

Eric Williams, store manager of the Towers Kroger, gave them part-time work as cashiers and baggers. Honduran-born Jose Nery Diaz offered one of the students a second job waiting tables at his downtown Roanoke restaurant, La Finca.

Bilingual Roanoker Meg Carter took them to a Roanoke Symphony Orchestra concert and lent them bicycles, and lawyer Sharon Burnham Mott gave them furnishings for their Grandin Village apartment.

"When you consider that their arrival here was not something they had planned, or that the community had planned for, this was really an unexpected blessing for everybody involved," Marcum said.

For Liz Chiquillan, the experience has reinforced the notion of American afavle -- loose translation: good-natured affability. "Diane was just especially kind," she said, adding that Strickland made sure they got home safely from work, even when their shifts ended at midnight.

"I'm more confident," said Chiquillan, an engineering student who's considering attending graduate school in the United States.

Williams said he was touched by the students' story and offered them a spot on his payroll -- even though he couldn't initially offer many hours. "They've all three been a pleasure to work with," Williams said. "We really hate to see them go."

But go they will, in the coming week or so, after a weekend trip to Washington sponsored by Strickland's mother, Willma McQuade. Because they were able to earn money, Piero Unzueta will be able to reimburse his mother and a family friend, both of whom wired money when they were jobless in Hampton Roads.

"My mother is just so grateful" to the people in Roanoke who pulled through to help, he said.

Mayra Ramirez, who's studying hospitality management, described her time in Roanoke as the ultimate internship: Not only has she improved her English, but she's also learned to interact with all kinds of people. "I really hate to leave," she said.