Volunteering in Cusco

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Well as you can tell by the very delayed blog update it has been a busy month volunteering in Cusco, Peru. It has been an amazing experience which has been due to several things; Jane and Selvy the founders of Peru´s Challenge, the wonderful children in the school, the fantastic volunteers that I have met and needless to say Peru and Cusco itself.

Volunteering with Peru´s Challenge meant being involved in a varied number of projects - some cleaner and less physical than others! I was lucky to arrive in time for Christmas, which meant that I had the opportunity to wrap and hand out presents to the children. They really have so little here - they come running when they hear that there are bananas being handed out. Hardly the reaction of most children I know at home! They are so appreciative of every little thing that you give them, even if it is just a hug.

Our schedule involved going up to school every morning. This involved a very bumpy half hour journey up the mountains in a mini van! Somedays some of us would walk up which was pretty though going, especially at altitude of 3300m above sea level!

Each day was different and apart from playing with the children our tasks included:
- Cooking: The children got fed a meal at school every day as they would not always receive one at home.
- Construction: Extensions to classrooms were underway, and the chicken coup was being finalised. Making mud, making mud bricks, carrying mud bricks......
- Gardening: Both the chicken coup and the garden are newish projects which it is hoped will provide much needed food for the children.
- Teaching: I primarily taught computers but I did try my hand at art and english. My days in the summer school in Celbridge came in handy at points! The computers were donated about two months ago, and its amazing to watch the children entralled at the sight of animals that they never knew existed on Encarta.
- Hygiene: Simple tasks such as cleaning and moisturising the childrens hands before eating was also part and parcel of our day.

After going to the school in the mornings, we either had Spanish lessons, went on house visits or took part in other personal projects. My Spanish has progressed somewhat but I still have a lot of practicing to do! One of the extra personal projects which I completed was sending out brochures to 100 schools in Ireland in order to encourage them to volunteer. Hopefully I will have recruited a few people!

House visits were one of my favourite activities. This involved either planting fruit trees or building chimneys. Building chimneys was so much fun! (A different side of being involved in property - a big different to my job at home!). It involved creating a hole through the mud walls over the fire, creating a chimney out of bamboo latticed together with nails, and then placing this over the hole. The most fun part was covering this with mud - mud fights ensued on occasions! This is left to dry and there you go you have a chimney! I will revolutionise the Irish Property Market yet! This simple process saves lots of familys from dying of cancer from cooking over an open fire.

All in all I found working with Peru´s Challenge wonderful. I loved the fact that we had the opportunity to work on so many different projects and to see another side to Peru. I really admire the people of Pumamarca, the village in which we worked. During my time hear I have heard some harsh life stories and saw the way in which people have to live. Yet despite this both adults and children always have a smile and a como esta?. It truely was an eye opening experience and I hope that someday I will return to work again with Peru´s Challenge.

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