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Published: September 20th 2006
The trip to Huancayo on Saturday was a long one... 7 hours in total....but it was a comfortable one with Cruz del Sur and rather entertaining (watched 3 movies and played bingo). I decided to travel during the day because I thought it would be nice to watch the scenery and surely enough I wasn't let down! Although just before the bus left, I was told that usually people prefer to take the night bus so as to suffer less the symptoms of altitude sickness, which made me SO paranoid, but anyway ... 😊
Luckily the bus trip was fine. I did, however, get quite sick later that evening.... my head was spinning, I felt very nauseous and was about to faint a couple of times. I just went to bed and hoped I could sleep it off.....
Next morning, I was fine and just spent the day relaxing and getting to know the other volunteers - Karen from Scotland, and Catherine and Russell from the UK - who were so kind and immediately asked Vladi and I to join them to visit a nearby site, Wari Willka, where we got to see the remains of a pre-Inca temple
of the Huanca tribe. Later during the day we went to Huancayo's Sunday market. That evening I even went to mass to see what it would be like ... and not to my suprise it was just like being in Malta.. hehe
Despite the day's activities, it was a tough day for me, trying to adjust to my new surroundings and I felt quite disorientated. Also at the back of my mind I kept wandering what the next day with the kids would be like .... would I be up to it, would the poverty of the place overwhelm me, would my Spanish be good enough??????
Monday morning I woke up feeling positive and open to whatever was awaiting me. Basically, I was told that Vladi and I would accompany the other two volunteers and Ellie (the daughter of the program director) to the 'mountain school' where we would play and teach English to young kids in the morning and older kids in the afternoon....
What can I say... I LOVED it!!!! Most of the time I was so excited and touched by it all that I had tears in my eyes. The school was really only
a small hut which consists of 2 tiny rooms with planks of wood for the kids to sit on and there was mud all over the place as it had rained earlier. Somehow, none of it mattered. The children were so happy to see us - they ran up to us the minute they spotted us walking towards the school and were all begging for hugs and kisses from their 'profesoras' - 'hola miss, how are you miss?' And they were so eager to learn and show you what they had learnt.
It's great what Tinkuy Peru (www.tinkuyperu.com/tinkuyperu) is doing for these kids. These kids (and believe me, Huancayo's streets are full of kids) live in such poverty.... in basic dwellings, with no electricity, no water and of course no education whatsoever. Some are also orphans... it broke my heart to see, say a four-year old having to look after his two-year old sister...
I already know I'm really going to miss these kids.....
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Cora
non-member comment
wow
the pics took my breath away.. I don't have much time to write now - i just skimmed through the post and saw the pics but felt i had to write something :) I will write more later.. so glad you're having a good time guapa.