Traveller Not Tourist

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I did a search on google for volunteering with kids in Arequipa and I found a great organisation founded in the last year by an English girl, Jay and her Peruvian boyfriend, Luis. They set up the organisation getting volunteers to help out with children in a school, but now thats being fazed out and they work with children in an orphanage that Luis helped to setup a couple of years ago. They receive loads of volunteers from all over North America and Europe and its seem to be a really well organised group. They also recently started working in a small village (pueblo) on the outskirts of Arequipa. First they are working in a school but they recently bought land and are building a small building for their own use and more and more children in the area are finding out about them. So needless to say, I am very excited about these projects and being involved in the long term with them. They particularly want committment from longer term volunteers to work in the orphanage so in January I will be committing myself to that a couple of days a week.
My first meeting with the organisation was last Friday when I was invted to join them for a birthday party of one of the volunteers. There were 4 or 5 English, 1Canadian, 1 German and a Peruvian at this party. I stayed for a while (didnt want to make an ass of myself by overloading on sangria and showing my true colours too early, tho i think Im a funny drunk, which is probably a bad thing!) and was pleasantly surprised about the whole thing. They invited me to join them at a beautiful park called Selva Alegre in Arequipa close to the orphanage and the children on Saturday past and so I did!
I met up with the volunteers on Saturday afternoon and we had a great time playing with the children, walking around the park, looking at the animals, playing games... its was fantastic. The kids were just lovely and we each had to take care of one. My wee girl was called Marisol and she is 9 years old. She was a wee darling, smiling so much and all the kiddies just loveed being out and about in the park. So Im really looking forward to meeting with them again soon!

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