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Published: February 17th 2009
Hello all
So I´ve finished my first week of school and had my first weekend here, and I´m starting to settle in quite well. I know all the kids´names now! But I´m finding my Spanish inadequate in many ways at school; for instance I don´t know how to tell them off very well which makes me feel terrible if they´ve hurt someone and all I can do is console that person and not properly resolve the situation. What has struck me though is that at this age they really are just like children anywhere in the world. There are some who are bored and so misbehave, some who want to learn and some who just
are cheeky; just like all groups of children. Their outlook will start to change though when they get sightly older and realise their situation and how different it is from some people´s, but for now they are mostly unaffected by their surroundings.
The lessons consist mostly of basic literacy and numbers, though today for the first time we separated them out into ability groups which was very successful. We have a range of abilities from simply copying out the number 5 (which
even seems to prove a challenge sometimes!) to quite complicated subtraction sums. The teacher´s husband came to replace her for the week and he was absolutely fantastic. He explained to them why it was important to raise their hand when they wanted to ask a question, how they should behave towards one another and the teacher and he was just generally very good with them. To be honest I wish he wasn´t leaving because I got the impression the other teacher doesn´t really have them under control! I just learned on Friday when we had the weekly meeting with Bruce (yes, he´s a real person!) that what we´re doing now is actually the summer school, just keeping the children´s standard up for when they go back to school in about 2 weeks time. So all these children have already been to school and are choosing to have extra lessons to make sure they can keep up when they go back, from what I can gather. So either this week or next week (no one really seems to know) will be my last time with them. On the 2nd March I think we´ll start the actual school for the kids who
are too poor to go to school and have missed any learnng necessary to pass the exam. Something that confused me was to do with the children´s uniforms, because the reason they can be too poor to go to school is that their family cant afford to buy the uniform, so I was thinking what´s the point in getting them up to the standard they need to be at if they cant buy the unifrom? But apparantly the organisation also pays for their uniform, however it remains to be seen what happens when they grow and need their next one! The Scottish ladies brought some money from their friends to buy uniforms for the children and have gone to do that today, so hopefully we´ll find out soon.
So we teach between roughly 9 and 11, when one of the mothers is supposd to bring them some breakfast, (which the organisation gives them money for) which consists of bread, a banana and some juice which they´ve usually made themselves and so is still boiling hot because they´ve had to boil the water. Last week the mum was always about 20 minutes late, and we´d been having lots of
moans about going home to get some water up until she arrived. Yesterday she just didn´t bother to turn up so we had to send everyone home early, because they cant drink the water from the tap at school. Well, lots of them probably do at home but its obviously not ideal. We wash their hands in a bucket with some soap and them dry them; and most of them are so dirty that the water is black by the end of the hand washing session. Then we say grace (every lesson starts and ends with Lords´Prayer, and there signs all around the city and all over the cabs saying various things like "God is love" and "I love Jesus." But they´re not just Catholic, just in Trujillo I´ve seen a Jehovas Witnesses convention, a Mormon church, a 7th Day Adventist church and roughly 4 other Catholic churches.) After they´ve eaten its quite hard to get them to do anything so they usually just play with puzzles until 12 when we leave.
I met Bruce for the first time on Friday, and he is obviously just such a nice guy. He´s either Canadian or American, and he obviouly
has a lot of personal assets because I´m petty sure he started this thing up by himself and just pours his money into it. You can see he just cares so much and wants to do all he can. In this way I think the oragnisation is really great because you can actually see where the main passion and drive comes from, and everything hasn´t been lost is beaurocracy and hundreds of staff. It´s a reasonably small thing, but at the same time huge because he has schools all over South America.
This week they have a new project starting called the Pregnant Girls´Project, which basically aims to help out young women and girls who have falled pregnant in unhappy circumstances; giving them advice and access to a nurse and a psychiatrist as well I think. This week will be literally the very beginning of project, so we´ll be going out finding girls in such circumstances who need help. There´s lots I don´t understand about it yet, but I´m really looking forward to taking part in it.
As I´ve said, we have our meals during the week at the Bruce Cnetre, cooked for us by Eugenia
who I think lives there with her family. The food is quite nice, though is mainly variatons on the theme of chicken and rice. We have cable TV both there and in the apartment so you´ll all be glad to know I´m not missing Friends! The afternoon is free other than Spanish lessons on Tueday and Thursday, which are largely boring for people who´ve studied it at school, but I like going and it´s useful sometimes. Sad to say, I´ve taken to spending quite a lot of time in the cafe reading my book, but also in the Plaza de Armas in the sun! Also spending lots of time walking around the town, buying various essentials. The weekend was fun, we went out on Friday and Saturday which was good fun, but there isn´t really much in the way of nightlife here. Women just don´t go out, (at least not together anyway, you see the occasional couple but that´s about it), so it´s mainly men sitting around in bars. But all the places we went to had live bands playing pretty good Latin type stuff so that was nice. Speaking of which, I am now taking Salsa lessons at the
dance school across the road from the Centre! I am getting better, but I was truly awful when I first went; I could here the men sighing when it was their turn to dance with me! I´ve also started doing this thing called BalletDance in the morning at 7 (Heaven knows who persuaded me to do this), basically you lie on the floor and do all kinds of funny stretches with your legs to improve your leg and tummy muscles. I think it might prove useful in a few weeks time when we´re off on the Inca Trail, plus its only 25 soles for 15 lessons, which is roughly 8 pounds!
I was supposed to visit some nearby Moche ruins at the weekend as well, but wasn´t feeling very well so we´re going on Friday afternoon now. There´s also a beach nearby whch everyone keeps talking about, so I´m sure I´ll have to go there at some point. Apparantly its very touristy but really pretty. And on Sunday the Scottish ladies invited me out to dinner so that was nice as well.
Generally speaking the city is very nice, everything is in blocks so its actually
quite hard to get lost, though needless to say I´ve managed it a couple of times. There are lots of colonial style buildings, the Plaza de Armas (I´m still not sure why it´s not just called the Plaza Mayor) is really lovely as well. Very well kept, and there´s guards who walk around blowing a whistle if they see anyone misbehaving! I feel quite safe here, I´ve walked around a couple of times by myself when it´s dark but because we live in the centre there´s always loads of people around and the streets are absolutely full of taxis which all look legitimate so if I was ever very lost I know I could get home very quickly. The taxis make so much noise it´s unbelieveable! Worse than New York, because they all have differet tunes for their horns which is very strange. There aré hardly any nice resaurants, (whch doesnt bother me since I´m on a budget, have been buying cereal, bread, apples and pasta from the supermarket as a staple diet!) and hardly any affordable nice clothes shops. They do seem to have an abundance of opticians, hairdressers and pharmacies though, which is always good to know I
suppose!
I should say a litte about the people who live with me really shoudn´t I? Well there are Jules and Sarah, the 2 volunteer coordinators who are leaving in a couple of weeks to continue on their South American adventure, both in late 20s who got bored of their boring city jobs and wanted to see the world. Both very cool and good fun. The 2 Scottish ladies, Christine and Moira (I know!) from Perth and East Kilbride who have volunteered for Bruce before in Ecuador, and have been off travelling together many times since they are both now husbandless, also leaving in a couple of weeks. Mathilde, who went to Sevenoaks and lives in London, also having a Gap Year having applied for History. We´re getting on really well because we´re both doing similar things. She´s here for another 5 weeks I think and then off on more Suth American adventures with friends. Travis, who is 18 from America wanting to do International Business. His name is Travis, he wears a checkered shirt and works on a ranch; how cool is that!? Mikey, from America also, in the middle of his degree I think, taking time
out to do volunteering, just spent 3 months in South Africa. Lorenzo, the person I go to school with, who is very nice but does talk a lot. Foome from Japan but who has just finished her degree at NYU, very nice, the person I´ll be going to Chan Chan (the Moche ruins) with on Friday. Marie, who is in a similar situation to Mikey. Maurice is a 24 year old Pre-Med student from Miami who is a Mormon, and very sensible, happy and polite. We had a long converation about Mormonism, and not once did he mention the hat story, so I don´t know where that one came from! And then there´s Kara who I share a room with, who wants to be an Anthropologist but has to kill some time before she can do the degree she wants to do. She´s very cool, she studied Peace Studies! So her Travos and I have long talks about guns in America.
So, so much for the whole, keeping it short thing! I felt like I should do a good one now I´m feeling up to it. Sorry also about the pictures, there are more but couldn´t upload them.
I´m trying to work out the best way to get my pictures on here since nowhere has a card reader. So more to come in the way of photos!
That´s all for now, lots of love to everyone, missing you all.
x
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Iqra
non-member comment
Wow, it sounds reli gd, i had to read tht twice lol! It's cool that u get to meet the person who started it all, and good t hear its safe, and the people your with sound interesting! Salsa?? and Balletdance?? sounds great lol love and miss u sooo much!! I booked the australia trip today with megan! xoxoxoxoxoxoxooxox