Monday 19th - Sunday 25th April

Mondaÿ 19th;

Had our last Spanish lesson this morning. Had a quiet afternoon and planned our first ever lesson for the kindergarten. We were all being indecisive about which placement to do, so Jess is sending us all to the kindergarten in the morning, and the disabled centre in the afternoon.



Tuesday 20th;

Jess came with us in the morning to the Kindergarten and helped us teach the first two classes of 3 and 4 year olds, and we did the 5 year olds by ourselves, we taught them all "my name is" and a song for learning the colours red, yellow, green and blue.

In the afternoon we went to the disabled home which was a lot harder than any of us remembered. We took the kids outside to play, and it was really hard work, because a lot of the kids in wheelchairs want to practise walking, but you end up taking all their weight so its really exhausting. Its hard aswell because a lot of them cant communicate with you, so you dont know whether they are enjoying whatever you are doing or not.



Wednesday 21st;

Taught at the kindergarten without any help from jess today. It was really good fun. The three year olds are hard, because theyre very shy and dont often respond to what you are teaching them. They´re all really sweet though, and there is this boy called Evert in the 4 year old class, who had a little plaster on his head and just grins all the time!

Were meant to go to chincherro this afternoon, but roxanna, who runs it, wasnt around so we had the afternoon off again.



We all sat in the Plaza de armas in the sun, and then these two guys tried to "subtly" take a photo of us, but we saw them and covered our faces and told them it would cost 1 dollar per picture.



Domenica had to buy a pot for a stool sample at the pharmacy and it was one of the funniest things i´ve ever seen. We were told the word for pot was "potty" but when we got there noone had a clue what we were saying. There were about three pharmacists trying to help us. Domenica drew a pot, they asked what for, she said "for the bathroom" and they came back with tampons. She ended up drawing a cartoon poo with steam lines and everything, next to the pot and they finally understood what she was saying.



Went to the spanish school for cooking this evening, made "causa rellena" which is a layer of mash potato, a layer of chicken, a layer of mash, a layer of guacamole a layer of mash and a layer of egg, peppers, chives and olives. We were given a massive slab of it, the first few mouth-fulls are actually alright, but thats it, it is then just potato overload, and the teachers put a tonne of salt in it too!

We had to drop in to McCoys to see Jess after, but then ended up playing card games for hours, everyone got very competetive and we were all screaming at each other by the end of it.



Thursday 22nd;

Had the kindergarten again this morning and were teaching the kids happy and sad, and sung "if your happy and you know it". They love it when you sing songs and always make you do it again and again, even though most of them dont join in.



We went to see another project this afternoon which is like an afterschool club for kids. There were quite a few other volunteers there too. It was in a really poor area of cusco but the centre was really nice. They do lots of crafts and volleyball, every tuesday they do a sports day, and the organiser runs groups for the mums because she thinks its good for them to be involved, when we were there they were making dolls, which they are constantly improving to one day sell.

I really liked it, but unfortunately they only had space for one volunteer and she wants someone who speaks good spanish to teach english to the older girls.



Friday 23rd ;

Went to the kindergarten this morning, knocked on the gate and this woman was suddenly there talking to us, we turned around and realised there was a coach full of all the kids. We got on and as we walked up the bus there were about 4 kids per every two seats and they were all jumping up and down. All the seats were taken so we just had to shove them along and sit next to them. We asked the teachers where we were going and they just said "to play".

After about a 40 minute journey we pulled up to some random fields and got out. We were each allocated a group, me and heather had the three year olds. We were walking along this dusty road and the teachers didnt seem to know where we were going and kept changing direction. At one point we were in the middle of a railway track when the teachers changed their minds, so we were all stood on the track.

Finally we found the right patch and after the kids had a snack we played on the field. One of the girls was crouched on the floor when a sheep came from no where and head butted her. I grabbed her and moved her out the way and then the sheep started chasing her, so me and the other teachers had to rugby tackle this sheep. Finally the owner came and took it back.
After lunch, i was playing football with Domenica and the year fives, one of the boys chased the ball over to a wall, and fell down a hidden ditch, all we could see was his arm and the top of his head! We pulled him out by his arm and thankfully all he said was his thumb hurt, although he did seem a bit dazed.
That aftrernoon we went to Chinchero where we met the kids we would be teaching. There is one seven year old, then about 7 others ages 12 to 15. We walked into the village with them and played games like I spy, and WHats the time mr wolf, just so we could see how good their english is...Its really good, which is a bit scary.
We hailed a taxi back and its another windy mountain road and laura was on a ridiculous fold down chair so was flying all over the place on each corner. The driver tried to drop is on the outskirts of Cusco but we refused to get out so he drove us right to the centre.

In the evening we went to Chi Cha, a gourmet restaurant opened by a famous peruvian chef. (the meal was on POD). I had guinue pig ravioli, which was really good, and basically tasted like duck, and then an amazing chocolate crepe for pudding, Plus some very good cocktails.
After we went to a place that played traditional peruvian music. It was a band with a guitarist, drummer, keyboard player, bassist and then someone playing pan pipes. The audience were doing this wierd stampy dance to it.
Then we went to a club with a band playing salsa, and Jess and Rafael did some salsa dancing which was really cool, but not long after it just started playing regular club music, we stayed there a bit, went somewhere else and then went home. Rafael stroked a dog before going off in his taxi and it followed us all the way back to the hostel.

Saturday 24th.

Went to the supermarket with Jess and bought loads of food for a picnic, we met Rafael who had picked up their dog and his mums dog (Sheep and Pepino) and we got the bus to this town where a big lagoon is. In the floods, the river and the lagoon joined in the middle and completely destroyed the houses in the town because they are all made from mud brick. Loads of the houses had collapsed in the middle, so all the residents are living in tents supplied by USAid.

We walked round to the lagoon and hired pedalos, me laura and jess were in one with Sheep. In the floods, one of the floating reed beds had drifted in to the shore and was blocking the entrance into the lagoon, so all these boys in swimming trunks were trying to seperate the reeds with padals. Finally we got out, and it was really wavy, there was only one person pedalling per boat (me in ours) and it was such hard work. When we got out we realised that our steering wasnt even working! The other boat was fine and they just sailed back in to shore, but we had to get back by going round and round in circles. By the time we got back the reeds had closed in again so we had to wait for the boys to clear a path for us. We had our picnic which included grenadias, which are like passion fruit, theyre really good! Then carried on round the lagoon.

We decided to get a taxi back because it was easier than finding a bus again. Laura got in the boot with some bloke and there were four of us crushed in the middle and rafael and the dogs in the front. When the guy left i got in the boot with laura and it was actually really comfy, i nearly fell asleep lying in there.

Sunday 25th April

We went white water rafting today! It was so fun! The boats held 6 people, there were us 4 girls and all the boys were being told to split between the boats. These two guys got in the front of ours, they were really wierd and kept telling us they were drunk and were pretending to be sick, thankfully they got swapped into a different boat and we got these two normal english guys instead. We had to start paddling, and then our guide made me swap with one of the blokes so i was in the front, at first i was really scared but then it turned out to be the best spot. We all managed to avoid falling in , although when we had stopped one of the guys from the other boats pulled laura in backwards. We had to do this thing, where the guide had out boat facing some rapids and we all had to jump to the front, so the nose of the boat went under, we all got absolutely drenched and i swallowed so much water!