Sermana dos

I hope this update finds you well. So much has happened in the last week, each day bringing with it a new challenges, opportunities, and experiences.

Peru time, rather South American time I am told, is a novelty in itself. Coming from a first world nation where I am held accountable to being punctual, I am finding this area requiring some of the largest adjustments. If I am late for a lecture at university, no one waits for me, and I miss out. Late for work, and I am disciplined. My Spanish classes here are scheduled between 3-5 each day, and even though they always run for the full 2 hours, they usually start closer to 3:30, than the scheduled time. Usually there is no reason, though one time my teacher didn’t want to get out of bed from siesta, and another time she was enjoying her book at home, and didn’t want to put it down. Its hard not to impose my thinking or attitudes here, because this is not my country. This is part of their culture, which I have to embrace.

A couple of days ago we went to a place called Chupuka, which sounds like the creature from Star Wars, though spelt differently. We climbed to some ruins, and got up to 3500 metres at the top. We then got lunch at a little restaurant laid out on acres of open ground. I was feeling brave, so ordered the cobaya and pecho, what I thought was guinea pig and the local drink. After much laughter from the group, and some embarrassment from the waitress, it turns out I had in fact asked for guinea pig…and breast for the drink. It was then that I laughed, and changed the order to Inca Cola- a Peruvian drink owned by Coca Cola, tasting somewhat like creaming soda. Probably safer to drink, and pronounce. We catch taxis everywhere, because not many people own their own cars here, and taxis are incredibly cheap. Imagine a 1990 station wagon of some sort if you will. Now place 11 people in it. Now picture it driving over the barely existent roads between this town and Huancayo where I am living. The driver effectively had someone on his lap, I was so far out the passenger window I had to dodge oncoming trees. Obviously seat belts, and road safety for that matter are not held with the highest regard here.

I was lucky enough to be able to watch the Euro final on Sunday afternoon, which was a real treat. After the final whistle, I was feeling rather enthusiastic, so I borrowed a ball from a friend, and went out to the local field for a kick around. By field, I mean a concrete slab about 30mx15m in length with 2 large rocks at each end for goals. There is usually people playing on it, but when I got there, everyone was having a break, so I just started to play with the ball. After a couple of minutes a 10 year old boy came up and said “Gringo, quieres jugar?”. Roughly translated, “White boy, wanna play?”. That was all it took, and that’s how I spent my afternoon, playing with dozens of local kids. Was so much fun, and though I was double the age of any of them and we barely spoke during the game, I still had a ball…sorry, terrible pun.

It was only a few hours before that I had gone to the Sunday markets. Streets lined with little stalls trying to sell you everything under the sun. Prices- negotiable. Obviously being white, nothing gets offered cheap first up, but with a little know how, and acting like you know what you are doing, some things are offered at decent prices eventually. I pretty much used the morning to practice my Spanish. I got HEAPS of blank stares. Haha.

As for the orphanage work, Karen and I have decided to ask for a different placement due to a simple lack of need there. Although we have both built good relations with the children and staff, there are 25 children in total, only 9-10 who we regularly see as the older kids are at school. There are 5 full time workers, and then 2 volunteers and it has quickly become obvious that we are only expected to watch the kids in between meals, and although we have tried to implement some activities and games throughout our time there, the language barrier at the moment makes things too difficult for both the children and us. We decided together that the orphanage is already well catered for, and now with the blessing from the workers there, have been directed to a larger orphanage on the far side of town, where I will be doing construction for the next couple of weeks. Building new bedrooms for the kids, and helping Karen out feeding the babies during meals. We start tomorrow. I hope our choice makes sense. I know I don’t need to justify it, though I didn’t fly thousand of kilometers to sit around for three months, and although the existence of altruism may still be debatable, I came to make a difference, and plan to fly out with the intention of leaving Peru in a better condition than I found it.

Anywho, that’s it for today. Im off to climb a glacier on Saturday which will be primo. Will be sure to let you know how it all turns out with the new orphanage, and anything else as it unfolds.

Till then…