Volunteering Week Three

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It´s crazy I am already halfway done with my time here, it went by so fast! I will again just summarize each day of my week, I still had spanish every morning and I was at San Judas Chico (the girl´s orphanage) every afternoon.

Monday (Sep. 12th)
I have decided to stay at San Judas Chicofor work every day this week. We just worked on homework today and I was with the older kids again. Turns out some of the math I was helping the girls with was for an exam today... oops. But the girls were so demanding for my help and some of them had no clue what they were supposed to do so I tried to teach them a little while helping, and I made them do as much work as I could. I realized I need to get better at asking the woman in charge of the room what the plan is every day so I don´t keep helping the girls with their exams. But it was actually a good day and I like to think I helped the girls at least a little bit with their understanding of math.

Tuesday (Sep. 13th)
The bus today from our house to San Judas took forever today (they are not on any real schedule) and they it finally came it was packed. So while I was trying to get in I put my hand on the part between the back sliding-door and the front passenger door (they are like mini vans, called combis) and lucky me my finger overlaped a bit into the passenger door part. SLAM. Right on my finger. I´ve had that happen before but this one was incredibly bad. The skin right under my fingernail was vut up and half my nail was black from the blood underneath, and it hurt like crazy. I wanted to just get off and go back home, but I had to go to work. Turns out work was kind of pointless anyways. The girls were practicing for a dance performance for tomorrow at their school so Vivi and I just kind of sat around and by the time they were done it was basically time for us to leave, and my finger was killing me, so we just left a bit early.


Wednesday (Sep 14th)
Although I was supposed to stay in one place this week I still wanted to visit Ccorca again. So I met Joao at 7 am to buy more oranges and then wait again for a taxi out to the town. This one was even more packed than the last with nine people (2 in the front seat, 4 in the back seat, and 3 in the trunk), and this is just a regular sized car, not a van. At Ccorca we went again to the market for some food (we were early this time) and, thank goodness, it wasn´t more sheep head soup today, just potatoes, rice, and chicken. We visited the preschool again which was even more fun this time because the kids were learning their numbers and shapes so I got to help with that, and they were adorable. Today at the elementary school we played futbol with the 4th graders which was a lot of fun again. The taxi ride home was a lot emptier which was nice but then right when we got back to Cusco it started raining. We made it to the spanish school without getting too drenched (I had classes in the afternoon) but it wasn´t unlocked yet since we were early, so we went down the street to a restaurant to wait. While we were there it started pouring. It was some of the hardest rain I have seen in a long time and it continued until the time we had to walk back for my classes, so by the time we got there I was soaked through my rain coat. I didn´t have another jacket with me, so I was freezing during classes and we finished early. When I got home I put on every piece of clothing I own to warm up!

Thursday (Sep. 15th)
My nail was still hurting a lot this morning and the blood had spread through most of my fingernail, so I emailed my personal doctor (my dad) for advice. To my displeasure he said I need to burn a hole in my nail to let the blood out and release the preasure. So now I have to find a paperclip to do this eventually and I am kind of scared. Today at San Judas the teacher for the younger kids wasn´t there so both Vivi and I were in the younger kids room to help out. They were just supposed to read some passages in their book and then they were free to play. Eventually most of them left to go to theater class so I went back over to the older kids room to see if anyone needed help with homework. I brought with me today some blank maps of South America to give to the girls since most know almost nothing about geography. My original plan was to have them color and name the countries and then cut them apart to make a puzzle, but it was a bit disorganized since I just gave them out to girls who were done with their homework. So I just had them color and label the maps to keep, and hopefully they learned something.

Friday (Sep. 16th)
My last day of spanish classes today was bittersweet. I really liked my teacher and I think the classes helped a lot, but now I will be able to sleep a bit more in the mornings I think. To celebrate I bought two slices of cake for us to eat during break and I gave her a farewell present. Back at San Judas this afternoon and it was the last day Vivi and I were here together (next week she will be working at a school for disabled kids in the afternoons.) It was a free day for the girls today, no homework, so they were scattered around, some watching TV, some playing outside, and some working with Vivi and I on the maps and other handouts we had with us. We could have organized the girls for an activity, but they were having a good time just hanging out so we just hung out with them and helped the ones who wanted out help (the little girls especially wanted to play with us which was a lot of fun.) When I got home tonight I did the dreaded deed of burning a hole in my nail with the paperclip. And it was actually incredible! I went really slowly since I was scared to burn too deep, but when the blood started coming out of the hole my finger felt a billion times better, it was amazing! I will probably loose the fingernail eventually and it still doesn´t look too great, but it looks better than before and feels sooo much better. Thanks dad, you´re a genius!

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