Week 4 at Pumamarca

Martes, 30 Septiembre
So upon return from the Inka Trail and after a good nights sleep and a shower... it was back to school the next day for some more manual labour. As we do not normally teach on tuesdays, it was a day for fencing and other random construction jobs. We're nearly finished with the garden fence, but we also took down the Kindy fence and were re-doing it again. This took up all of the morning...
In the afternoon it was spanish classes and in the evening it was the last supper with all the vols who finished their month with Peru's Challenge.

Miercoles, 1 Octubre
English class with the 5th and 6th graders. It is always very rewarding to teach these classes as the kids are very cluey. Julia, one of the other volunteers had sponsored Spanish-English, English-Spanish dictionaries. Our lesson plan for the day was to finish off the "I likes..." and then show the kids how to use the brand spanking new dictionaries for referencing. They were a little dissapointed when they found out that the dictionaries were not presents but were for the new library/ computer room that we had just finished painting.
Next was hygenie and then Phys. Ed. with the 3rd and 4th grade. As most of us were still pooped from the Inka Trail and didn't really have it in us to run around with the kids for an hour and a half... we decided to shoot hoops with the kids. As is usual with the young ones, it was a chaotic hour and half.
Being the last day up at school for 10 of the other volunteers who started in September with me... it was then time for the usual farewells and tears. The Director of the school gave a speech and then all the volunteers got cards, huge bunches of flowers, their certificates and 150 hugs and kisses each...
The mood was somber as we drove back down to the volunteer casa (being the last drive down for most) ... but the moods picked up when we got home to a house filled with Santusa cooking...

After a hearty lunch... Cathy, Mikael and me headed back up to Pumamarca for house visits. Our job for the afternoon was delivering and setting up beds for the two families of Marie-Luis and Elena who are sponsored by Project for life. Both girls are about 15 years of age and have about 4-5 siblings and each have to share their beds. So we set about carrying the beds and them together. After about an hour we done and finishing up when we were invited back to Louis' house.

Peru's Challenge had donated roof tiles to Louis so that he could build a better house for his family and in exchange he was helping Peru's Challenge with some construction work around the community. So, as a thank you.. Louis invited us all back to his house to see the progress on the house and for some thank you Chicha. So we all sat around and took happy snaps with the children of the casa and about 10 mins later we were brought big bowls of food. Unfortunately, the three of us volunteers had to politely decline as we had just had the huge Santusa lunch. When we were finally permitted to leave.... we were greeted at the entrance by about 20 people. Unknown to us... Louis and family had decided to have an impromptu inaugration of the house. Cathy and Mikael got to cut the ribbon.. and Mark broke the bottle of beer as is the tradition. They then announced that we were now the "GodParents" of the house. So Cathy, Mikael and myself are now proud "GodParents" of a house in Pumamarca.....

Click here for more photos from week 4 at Pumamarca...

El Segundo Semana al Pumamarca

... the second week at Pumamarca

Martes, 16 Septiembre
So after a long night on the bus and returning home from Lake Titicaca at 4am, all of us were up bright and early again to go up to the school.
On tuesdays, the volunteers do not have any classes with the kids.. so we just made ourselves busy. I helped Hannah, Jes and Cathy with painting the computer/ library room. This room was previously used as storage, but Peru's Challenge have been able to source about 11 computers which we will have by of the end of the year. So all of us set to work getting our hands dirty with different shades of green. It took us all morning to do and I've still got green fingernails from last week...

Miercoles, 17 Septiembre
Wednesdays is english class with the 5th and 6th graders. Cilla, Lyn (the other Lyn) and myself prepared a lesson plan of the "who, what, when, where" to go through with the kids. But we found out that this was actually too advanced for them. So we had to improvise and come decided to only go through the names and numbers of the kids. We broke up into smaller groups and spent the better part of the 45 minute lesson with the 5th graders going through "My name is xxx .. I am xx years old". Next we had the 6th graders, but they were busy dying wool and preparing for the "fiesta" on friday. So we had to can that lesson plan and find other ways to make ourselves useful.
I decided to help with the fencing as I hadn't helped with that before. We had to chip off the ends of the poles and then drill and nail them on to the poles that had been rooted into the ground. Wasn't easy with one drill, one hammer, one chipper thingy and about 8 volunteers.. but now, two weeks later.. the fence is almost finished. All that is left is to hang the gate. Yay for us!!

In the afternoon, I was rostered for house visits again. We visited the same family as last time who were meant to get the bamboo sticks for the walls. They hadn't done it yet as they did not have access to the stuff when Peru's Challenge were not around. So, we went up to the school, got all the bamboo out from the yard... and then proceeded to carry it across fields and down into a valley and out again to the family. It took us a good half hour of lugging around bamboo on our shoulders as we were following one of the young boys and suddenly lost him. So, we were following Mark (the volunteer Manager) who was following a puppy. And of course, we got to the edge of the hill and didn't know where to go. After some backtracking and shouting across the valley, we had the young boy come back to show us the way. I kept walking into the trees with the bamboos as there were twice as tall as I am. But we eventually made it and Syliva (not Jessica as I previously thought) and her family should have some walls pretty soon.
After all that manual labour, we only had one more stop and that was to drop off the hairdressing course completion certificate for one of the mums. She is part of the project for life programme and the money from her sponsors helped her to enrol in and complete a hair dressing course. She will be practicing next week on the kids up at school.

Jueves, 18 Septiembre
No classes up at the school... so I didn't do much for most of the morning. Just bummed around at home and then sat on the couch with Hannah and watched 6 hours of Srubs in the evening.

Viernes, 19 Septiembre
The day of the fiesta ....... as part of some festival, the kids were putting on a dress rehersal for all the volunteers on the dances they were doing. The actual day of the festivities was on saturday in the Plaza de Armas in Cuzco centre, but we were not going to be around.
When we got up to the school, we knew there wasn't even going to be the 1 hour of classes that we had planned for. The kids were running about everywhere in their colourful costumes and getting their hair braided and having their photos taken. So we sat around for a bit, took lots of photos and the show started at 11am. All the grades from 1st to 6th put on a different dance. They were absolutely adorable as usual and very entertaining.

A BIG thank you to all my Aussie friends who contributed money as some of this was used to rent costumes for the kids. While this may seem like a small thing, it actually means a lot to the children. As I understand it, some of them have costumes made by their parents, but those who are not living with their parents for whatever reason would have had to go without.
Thanks for your contributions....
Vikram
Frank Moore
Anh T.
Kim Trang
Bosco, Ginette, Nathan
Judy, Chris, Hayley
Siew Gin
There is lots of money leftover from the donations and we are still deciding what to put it to.

Rest of the photos from our second week at school can be found here...
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040457&l=e0365&id=212900300


...and photos from the fiesta are here...
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040618&l=f620f&id=212900300

8th September- El día uno con los niños de Pumamarca

... and for those that don't know Español... that translates to- Day one with the kids of Pumamarca

What an absolutely amazing day!

We went up to the school and while the other volunteers got orientated, I got straight into the classes with Tracey and Julia. We were teaching Inglés to the 1st and 2nd graders. Tracey is quite fluent in Spanish and was able to communicate effectively with the kids and their usual teacher. Our lesson plan for the day was the Alphabet. We proceeded to go through the alphabet in english and get the kids to draw words that started with the corresponding letters. All the spanish that I learnt 5 years ago was slowly coming back to me.. and while they were learning English from me... I picked up a fair bit of Spanish from them too. I think we only got upto the letter 'E' though before class was adjourned for hygiene and the festivities of the community.

Because the sun is so harsh here, the children all have really sun burnt cheeks. And whilst this is really cute, as they grow up, this stays and marks them as having come from poverty. So one of the initiatives that Peru's Challenge has taken is to get their health and hygiene up. Beth, had done the round of the classes in the morning handing out vitamins to all. It is now routine that when the volunteers are up at the school, at about 11am all the kids line up to wash their hands. The next step is, we dish out some sorbelene cream. This is rather funny to watch though, as they quite happily take a lot and plaster it on to their faces and come out looking very white. After this, they are given a banana each. Some are even made to blow their noses as they are really snotty.

Next, it was on down to the local community church. This church was apparently built in about 1 week. As it is the Church of the Virgin Mary and 8th of September is the feast day, the community had rushed to have it ready in time so that the church could be inaugarated. We all walked down to the church which is about 10 mins from the school.. and I made a new friend along the way. One of the little girls from Kindie whos name is Ebony. Absolutely adorable! She held my hand and we walked down to the church. Of course as soon as we walked there, she proceeded to march me straight up past the other volunteers and I thought she was going to take me right up the front of the church. But no, she walked straight up to the ice cream lady and stopped there. And yes, me being the sucker that I am, I ended up buying her an ice-cream. So we hung around outside the church for a bit and heard some of the Spanish Sermon before returning back to the school.

Another initiative that Peru's Challenge have taken is to feed the children of the school one meal a day. As it happens, a lot of the childeren get little or close to no food at all at home. Initially, Peru's Challenge identified 60 kids who were most in need of the food but, yesterdays portions ended up being enough for all. I think there about 150 children in the school all up. So, yesterday was the first day of many as part of a long term plan to feed the children lunch. Once we got back to the school from the festivities, some of us stood around and watched one of the local ladies prepare the lunch over a wooden fire outside. It was Chifa (Chinese) meal of chicken fried rice and it looked and smelled very very yummy. After all the children were fed and washed, all the volunteers jumped back in the van and headed back to the share house for lunchies.

After lunch, some of the volunteers had spanish classes and the rest of us headed back up to the school for Talleres. Talleres is another initiative of Peru's Challenge where the mums of the community make hand made goods like scarves and bags and clothes and they are sold to tourists. Peregrin tours who are partnered with Peru's Challenge take tours up to the school once or twice a week and show them around.
So while some of the volunteers helped with getting the mums organised and doing the accounting, the rest of us kept the kids entertained. This is part of Camp Puma in the afternoons. We divided them into two groups and brushed up on their Inglés skills. Bec and myself went through their names, ages, counting, days of the week, months, seasons, parts of the body and pets. Again, I got a chance to brush up on my Spanish skills... while we were teaching them the English words, we were also learning the Spanish equivalent. After about a half hour of English lessons, we took them out for a play. Ana, Julia, Bec and Hannah played "Whats the time mister wolf" and soccer with them whilst I stood on the side and kept score and cheered (haha,.. catch me doing any form of physcial exersition). I was quite happy to stand in the cold and be the cheering squad and take photos.

The people of the community are so friendly, the kids are so loving and they appreciate every little thing that Perus's Challenge and the volunteers do for them.

All in all... a fantastic day which we ended with Pisco Sours (thanks Tracey!) which put me straight to bed... :o)

And the rest of the photos are here...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040103&l=63b1b&id=212900300