Helping Hands Cusco

Holaaaaa!!!

This is my first official entry into "Our Experience Volunteering in Peru!" - not only that, but my debut blog post!

We have been in Peru for just over two weeks, and the experience has been rewarding, challenging, educational, fun and inspirational. I think both of our spanish-speaking (and comprehending - for me!) have rapidly improved with all of the daily practice we get being surrounded by the language.

Having a few days in the beginning of our trip to travel a bit and experience new places was wonderful - though a bit stressful at times as flying by the seat of your pants... oops I mean traveling... always is. Since arriving in Cusco, our main site for this trip, we have felt like part of the community we are living in, Los Nogales of San Sebastian, a district of Cusco.

We arrived at the bus station in Cusco to find Mario, our contact and the director of Helping Hands Cusco, waiting for us with a sign. We were pleased to find him to be a very kind man, as we had expected from our correspondence via e-mail. We took a taxi to the "volunteer house," dropped our bags, and walked two blocks to the school to meet the morning class of three- to five-year-olds. They nearly knocked us over with all of their hugs and excitement! Still acclimating to the altitude (approximately 11,000 feet), we were exhausted, short of breath and had to retreat back to our room for a siesta.

Since our arrival, we have had a pretty regular schedule with volunteering at the school during the week and living in the volunteer house. This house belongs to a very, very kind and hospitable family, the heads being Julian and Gloria. All of their three children live in either a room or apartment add-on with their own spouses and children, needless to say they are very close. In the front of the house is an Internet cafe/copy shop, which is very convenient for us(!). In addition to housing their immediate family and running a business, Julian and Gloria also rent guest rooms to volunteers from Helping Hands Cusco, and Simone and I are lucky enough to have their space. Our room is very simple with two twin beds, a night stand, a table and two chairs with one light on the ceiling. Our door opens to a courtyard of sorts that has clothes lines, a plum tree, and various pens for roosters and hens (no, we don't need an alarm clock), ducks and four dogs. All of this animal noise took a little getting used to! Gloria, Julian and their sons Estiv and Julio have been absolutely wonderful to us and have treated us like family. We feel so lucky to have their support while in their neighborhood.

We start our days at the school, Helping Hands Cusco, also Mario and his wife Rosa's house, for breakfast at about 8:30 am. The classroom is on the first floor, and the living/dining/kitchen area is on the fourth floor - I can never make it up all the stairs not short of breath with the altitude! Either Mario or Rosa's mother Nelly cooks the meals and they are usually quite delicious. My favorites have been the veggies with eggs for breakfast (Simone loves the pancakes, though more like crepes) and veggies with eggs for lunch/dinner.

At about 9:15, some of the kids in the 3- to 5-year-old age range come in to start school. I still haven't figured out exactly what time it is supposed to start - we usually get going with everyone in attendance at about 9:45. Rosa is the main teacher and Simone and I, along with some other volunteers, work with small groups of the kids on projects like coloring, workbook lessons, learning how to tie shoes, left from right, etc. Some days we take the class to the "pampa," which is a scrappy park nearby, to play outside. We taught them Red Rover, but they also love futbol and jumping rope. All of the kids are adorable and have won our hearts... they all have their own quirks and personalities and give us so much love! We have learned about each one's home life - some good, some challenging - and try to give lots of hugs and attention that some might not get at home with working or busy parents and big families. At the end of their class day, about 12 pm, the volunteers walk home with the kids to make sure they are home safely and not playing in the street with stray dogs (and humans!) nearby. It has been really wonderful to meet the parents and become familiar to them, and receive a "¡Gracias, Profe!" when we bring the kids to their homes.

After morning classes, we have lunch at Mario and Rosa's and then have until 3:30 until the 6- to 12-year-olds come. This is a place for neighborhood kids to come after school to work on homework and of course hang out with their friends, which makes it a bit challenging for volunteers to figure out what to do in this time block! There are some days where only two kids come and we work on learning english, and other days when 10 kids come and each has their own homework to do. One girl had some square root math homework that I had completely forgotten how to do, I had to refer her to Wilson, one of the other volunteers from Utah, for help! The days where we can work closely with them on learning english has been the most fun for me.

We usually eat dinner sometime after class at Mario and Rosa's and chat with them, their daughters Brenda, 10 and Andrea, 3, and the other volunteers (Wilson, mentioned above, left recently after a month of volunteering for a two week hike in Arrequipa, Matteis from Holland, Tracy from Australia and her boyfriend Coco from Peru). We can use the computer here or go back to the Internet cafe at our house and pay 1 Sol per hour (about $.35). There aren't a lot of places for us to go in walking distance at night, which is why we stick around our house or Mario and Rosa's. We are, however, just a 30 minute bus ride or 15 minute taxi ride into the center of Cusco and the beautiful Plaza de Armas.

We have been having great experiences and learning a lot in our time here so far... Thank you for reading our blog and supporting us!