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Published: February 10th 2009
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Hello all! So I arrived eventually after about 17 hours of planes, and so far the peruvians are lovely, and everyone in the flat is very nice, though all more in tune with the whole travelling thing than I am at the moment. I'm living in a flat with about 12 other volunteers, all between 18 and 29 bar 2 Scottish ladies in their 60s! My spanish is being tested quite a bit at the school because the kids dont know how to explain things in different ways, which is funny because I thought their spanish would be so basic I'd get it straight away! I've been put in a school which is really quite far away from the centre of town, like a 35 minute bus journey. I go with another volunteer called Lorenzo who is a 30 year old French actor! As we travel you can see how the area just gets poorer and poorer the further you get away from town. The "school" we go to is like at the very end of the poor scale, the houses are all made out of the sand by the people who live there. The school is basically the front room
of some very nice person´s house who offered it to us! We have about 18 kids and lots of them are very eager to learn, others are quite difficult to get to do aything, and there's one or two who are either cheeky in a cute way or in a really annoying way. We gave out some bread and juice at the end of the morning and one boy came back to me after I'd given him his juice saying he didn't have any, and I said to him I know you've got some, you can't have any more till we´ve given it to everyone, and he tried to hit me. It's really disorganised, the lessons are taught by a teacher who works for the organisation, but she's going away for the week so me and Lorenzo basically have to teach the whole lesson! It's so hard to get them to all sit down and pay attention, and sometimes it does feel a bit fruitless. But I think that´s just because i dont fully understand how children learn when they're that young. Basically children have to take an exam (kind of, to see if they can sit still at a
desk and copy from the board type thing) before they can go to school, and that's where Bruce comes in. Because lots of poorer families just wont send their children to school and if they cant do these things for the exam then they can't go either, so obviously it is important, but sometimes it seems like volunteers are just an add on extra really, like they are with most things, all we really do is help the children with the work they´ve been given, and occasionally chip in with the lesson (Lorenzo is really keen on getting stuck in and providing exercises and stuff to do!) I haven't been given any English lessons to teach becase at the moment we have way more volunteers than students, but I think I might have to do some at some point. I'm now sleeping in the new rooms that have just been built on the roof of the apartment, with another new volunteer. It's not great because obviously its so far away from anyone else, but it is breezey! We have to walk to the Bruce centre to get food in the morning before school, for lunch and for dinner, and its
quite a nice atompshere to sit and eat wih everyone. So at the moment I have loads of free time because we dont go to school in the afteroon, but i haven't been brave enough yet to sort of go out and explore because i know I'll get lost! But I will have to buy a sim card and get my laundry done probably tomorrow so I´ll have to do it at some point!
So I think that´s all for now, hope everyone at home is well, and I'll see you soon!
x
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Iqra
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Oh it all sounds soo exciting, It's good u've got other volunteers in the same position. Im sure things will get better with time and you'll learn how to deal with the difficult kids! I think it's great you're working with children at the poor end of the scale, it makes it more rewarding! Miss you! xoxox