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Published: February 3rd 2013
Hello people! Long time no write I know. Well, I have a few days of holiday before starting my next job so I am taking advantage of the time to update you… So the quick version: I´ve been in Trujillo (or Tru-tru-JI-lo! as they say on the radio) , northern Peru, for the last two months volunteering as an English teacher at an ngo in a poor part of the city. It´s been great - the students were super-cute, even the older ones, and my fellow professors were equally fab - if they are reading this - I miss you!!! It was a good experience for me on the road to becoming an English teacher, and it was great to meet so many people in the area and learn about their lives. I felt part of the community. Well, as good as it was I left this last week… and am now in a new city in northern Peru – Chachapoyas, I´m here to start a new job teaching English at an institute. I'm sure it will be a different type of experience, a more professional set up – all good for the CV 😊
Ok, for those of you with more time at your disposal, the looooong versioooooon... So I arrived in Trujillo at the end of November. My first experience was a mix up with my luggage and an amorous taxi driver - hmmm. As we drove to the charity that I was going to start teaching at I wasn´t impressed with the scenery. The city lacked character, just hot and dusty with chucked up buildings, a polleria (chicken restaurant) on every corner, and scant greenery.
When we arrived at the charity (Horizon) I had a warm welcome from the team and was surprised when I met one of the other teachers, Kit, as he was from Uckfield, about 10 miles from where I grew up. Horizon is a free school teaching English, and occasionally other classes, to children and adults living in a poor part of the city - La Esperanza. When I was there, there were 8 teachers from the UK, USA, Denmark, Canada and Australia, we were teaching about 250 students at the school, where we also lived, and many more kids at the local colegio. I was dubious about living and working with the same people as I thought we might drive each other nuts, but it was all gravy and we had lots of laughs <span>😊 Oh, and I have to mention our house cat Mioaw Mioaw who is toooooo cute, and I wanted to steal him when I left.
Anyway, after a couple of days of getting to know the area I started shadowing the other teachers and then began teaching. I had 9 different classes, and taught 25 hours per week. The kids are mega cute. Peruvians kiss hello and goodbye so there was a lot of kissing and hugging going on, broody - hell yes! I had my favourite students, but really I liked them all. Luis was so smart in his glasses, Xiamena and Gianfranco were always giggling and Ederson was shy but clever. A lot of the kids were shy about speaking English, so I was always trying to extract conversation out of them. You can speak to them in English and they will understand but getting them to speak English back is another thing! I had lovely adult students too - Genaro 50, was our go to man at the market and just wanted to learn for the fun of it, Braulio 35 is a carpenter, he was learning to help his kids. Suzy and Mary were learning to help their careers, and I had them from square one which was nice because you can really see your progress with them.
I was teaching American English, which pained me. Favourite becomes favorite, trousers become pants etc, etc. Sometimes the students couldn’t understand me because I had a British accent when they were more used to an American one... I wasn´t prepared to go as far as putting on an accent! Me and Kit often joined forces against the Americans to try to get them to speak English properly - Gary from Australia, The Danes - Ellah and Thomas, and The Canadians - Sarah and Amy were sometime allies, but they couldn´t always be trusted - paaasta Gary, nooo! For a short while I taught art classes too, this was cool as I love art and I got to meet lots more of the kids. Amy and Sarah are now teaching this class and I´m jealous!!
We also taught at a local government school. With the right class it was a fun, but some classes were too much. There were two of us teaching up to 35 kids, and they could be rowdy. My favourite class was the 6 year olds - they hadn´t leant to be really naughty yet, though you could see some glints in their eyes! The kids had just one teacher for all their lessons for the entire span of colegio which is about 8 years, so if they got a bad one they were funked. The teachers can hit the kids and one had a piece of wood which he threatened them with but I never saw an actual beating. Obviously we didn’t beat any kids, but sometime when we went to talk to a kid that was misbehaving they would cower away from us as they thought they were going to get hit. Most of the kids looked like they were getting fed, but some were pretty skinny and they had bad teeth because they eat so many sweets. Their parents pack them off with sweets a plenty to rev them up for the teachers - thanks for that! There was plenty of head scratching going on too from head lice. Our Director, Tara, got lice from the kids so I tried to keep my hair away from them ... which could be hard when they were all jumping on you for a piggy back at the same time.
The area that I was living in is called La Esperanza, it´s on the edge of the city abutting the desert. A 10 minute walk from our school and you were in the desert proper. The area has a bad rep for crime; there are regularly news reports of murders, so we took care. But apart from some possible gunshots in the night I didn´t see anything. In fact the people were super friendly. One morning profesora Hannah and me took a walk up to the top of the sand dunes behind our school. It was eye opening. The people that live in this area are poor, they have no sanitation, we saw a guy just taking a crap in the wasteland, and a lot of the homes are just shacks. I was a bit wary of going up there but dunes are there to be climbed! and we had a great view of the city out to the sea at the top. On the way back we were offered a lift from some locals which was kind. The not so great side of La Esperanza is that there´s no night life, I was told by Genaro that this was because nightlife attracts trouble. In the evenings we would hang out in the house, turn the downstairs classroom area into a gym and work out to Insanity!, or go to a local restaurant (usually a polleria, where I´d eat chips Connor). And at the weekends we generally went to the nearby beach town of Huanchaco.
Having Christmas and New Year in the sun was a novelty for me. On Christmas Eve we went to a club in Trujillo, where profesors Gary and Sebastian met some Columbian ladies and fell in love <span>😊 We were all rather hung over the next day but attempted to make a Christmas BBQ, though we forgot to buy more charcoal so we mainly ended up using the oven - doh! We bought presents for each other and had a Christmas tree decorated by the kids, so we were plenty festive. Also, one thing to note about Christmas in Peru is pantone, half of the supermarket was given over to it and we were all thoroughly sick of the stuff by Christmas. Trujillo´s Plaza de Armas is a colorful place with all it´s buildings painted in different colours, but for Christmas it went psychedelic. There were more than 10 Christmas trees in the square each decorated differently - from Peter Pan to flying snowmen. For New Years Eve we went to Huanchaco, along with another 10,000 people. We danced on the beach, did some limbo and watched fireworks. We had a few days of holiday after New Year and so we had some fun in the area. We went sand boarding at Conache Dunes, and to the archaeological sites of Huaca del Sol and Luna and Chan Chan to find out about the Mochi and Chimu civilizations. They worshipped the mountains and the sea, and when the weather was bad they weren’t shy about employing a bit of human sacrifice as a remedy. Chan Chan is the largest adobe (mud brick) site in the world, and you can see the tomb of a king there. As they believed in the afterlife, the king was buried with his wife, his 50 concubines, and enough food to feed them all for years... bit excessive?
So Huanchaco was our weekend haunt. It´s a fishing town, famous for its caballito de totoro fishing boats made from totoro reeds – the original surfboards it´s said. It also has a big surf scene as the waves there are good. I had a few gos at surfing and in my lessons I stood up each time – whoo! This was down to good instructors at Muchik surf school and to the fact that I was using the biggest boards every built! We had lessons in the small waves and I was keen to try out the bigger waves, though when I did I realized I wasn´t ready for them and got battered! There are lots of pelicans in Huanchaco, and it as cool being in the sea with them, watching them skirt across the waves in a line. Half of the fun of going to Huanchaco was the taxi rides there and back. First we´d try to haggle for a low price, then we´d squeeze in with two of us in the front sitting on laps and four in the back. The taxi drivers always played loud reggaeton, and were usually up for a laugh. We´d have conversations in our bad Spanish and try to teach them English.
So the area really grew on me. It does have character but you need to spend a bit of time there to find it and appreciate it´s sunny laid back disposition. I was sad to leave and I still miss everyone there. But now I´m in Chachapoyas so I need to suck it up and make the best of what´s here. First impressions are – by the power of three – pretty, conservative and green. As well as teaching here I´m also taking more Spanish lessons. So my bag is full of books, and I´m just off to the library now...
Muchas besos to everyone who is not with me now, miss you and take care, Jen 😊 xxx
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as usual nothing much has changed as opposed to your adventures. i hope all is ok with you, no need to be in a hurry to get there but retirement is great although i have to have my pneumonia jab tomorrow thats what old people do these days anyway time for my horlicks and an early night love dad xx