Sun burn, "capturing" children and the dog centre

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Hello all

So since I last wrote an entry I´ve been quite busy, so this one might also be quite long. I hope you´re all keeping up!

Since the Scottish ladies left, Kara and I moved into their room in the flat, which has been a success all round really. It´s not quite as noisy, although the people next door seem to think that just because we´re young it gives them an excuse to be incredibly loud all the time. If the dad isn´t snoring the baby is crying and if it´s not either of those things then they´re playing their tv at full blast all night. A couple of us went down to ask them to turn it down a bit and they said they only played it so loud to block out the noise we make, which isn´t really fair since we´re going to be sleeping at that time. Either way it´s quiter than the roof was! It also doesn´t get so cold at night and so hot during the day, so I´ve actually managed to have a nap! And also it´s right next to the bathroom which is always a score, and just generally feels more like we´re part of the apartment. Plus Mikey´s happy now since he´s moved into our old room; he likes to think he has his own private penthouse upstairs.

Last week was our last week with the children we´d been working with. On Thursday morning Lorenzo and I were really late for school because we were helping Charro prepare their uniforms and kits of school equipment. Not all of the children will be given a uniform, only the ones who really need it. It does seem quite arbitrary the way they decide who does and doesn´t get one though, Rosa just goes round to people´s houses and asks them if they can afford one. I suppose there isn´t really a better way of doing it, (but so much time here is wasted going to see people in the barrios because you can´t talk to them any other way. Certainly makes me appreciate the telephone!) although we did have a couple of instances of parents who were under the impression we were providing the uniform for their children and then we just didn´t have it on the day. It´s quite frustrating because all we can do is tell Rosa what´s happened, and then she´ll just say well their name´s not on the list so they´re not having one. Then you have to go back the next day and tell them sorry you can´t have one, and obviously the children don´t understand why some of them got one and others didn´t, so that was a bit of a mess really. They were all very excited to get their kits though, which consist of 3 jotters, a pencil, a rubber, a sharpener, 2 name tags, a ruler and a timetable. So there was lots of excitement and picture taking and they were mostly very grateful.

The next day was our very last day with the children, so we didn´t really do any work. We gave them some chocolates and a pen each, big mistake to give them different kinds of pens. Lots of squabbling!They´re too young really to understand the concept of never seeing a person again because all they can think about is what directly concerns them at that minute, but it was quite sad for us. I have no idea what they´re going to be doing in 10 years time and there´s more or less no way to find out. I like to think there´s some of them who are clever enough to get out of the barrios but lots of them will live the same life their parents lead now.

We had another slight problem because a few of the mothers didn´t know whether or not their child had been registered for school, and Rosa told us that they all understand that they need to organise that themselves and they need to pay for it themselves. But I don´t think she could have explained it brilliantly if some of them were asking what to do with their children next week. This sort of uncovered a bigger problem which was that we had 21 people in our class, and Rosa only thought we had 12. This was because the Summer School was only supposed to be for kids going into First Grade, and we had kids from all over the place, from Kindergarten to 6th Grade. Apparantly the volunteers and the teacher should have known but no one did and by the time a kid´s been coming to class for like 3 days you can´t just tell them to leave. So as you can tell, the whole thing is quite badly organised. Pedro and Charro basically do everything and work all the time. Bruce isn´t very well at the moment, and the organisation isn´t doing very well in terms of money either at the moment given the old economic downturn and what not. So if anyone has a burning desire to make a donation let me know!

So on Saturday lots of us were going to the beach nearby called Huanchaco, just all at different times. Mathilde and I went in the late morning and spent too much time on the beach before lunch; I suffered some pretty bad burns. I was using factor 50 and I reapplied several times but I just always forget to apply just at the edge of where my clothing stops, so I currently have very interesting burn lines. As you can see in some of the pictures, there are huge pelicans flying in flocks all over the waves and they´re amazing to watch. Huanchaco is a huge surfing spot so there´s lots more Gringoes here than in Trujillo, which also means things are more exensive, or they´re charging what I like to call "the white price." I hope they don´t kick me out of the website for that(!) But it´s very pretty and we took a walk upto the church to see the view and it´s all very nice. On the way back down a family who were having a huge bbq in their front garden invited us to sit down for a beer which was an interesting experience. Only 1 of them spoke English but we managed to get by, mainly because all they wanted to talk about was how white we were and one of the guys had taken quite a liking to Mathilde! They were very friendly though and genuinely nice.

There was a huge carnival party type thing going on in Huanchaco on Saturday night which we planned to stay a bit for, but we were so burned that we just went home. The boys had been surfing and so everyone wanted to shower as well. We have a new guy! It feels so weird that I´ve been here long enough to call another person the new guy! He´s called Rich, and he´s originally from Chester, went to Bristol Uni. He´s travelling round South America doing various teachery type things to see if he likes teaching before selling his soul and going back to London to become a banker in the autumn. So we went to this German Beer Distillery place in Trujillo instead and that was fun. On Sunday I was feeling quite weird due to all the burning, so I didn´t do much! But Mathilde and I did go to the cinema to see Benjamin Button in the evening, and it was really good.

This week is the week where we´ve been doing lots of different things, but most people have mainly been doing the "capturing" of children for the schools which start next week. I keep saying it like that because that´s what the Peruvians are referring to it as, but don´t worry we don´t wander round with nets catching children. I went with Travis and the new teacher to Nuevo Jerusalem to do just that on Monday, and to be honest it felt like a big waste of time. We´re not actually told a huge amount of information about how the organisation actually works, so even if the parents were asking me questions in English a lot of the time I couldn´t answer, so when it´s in Spanish it gets even harder. So all we were doing was following the teacher while she asks if there are any kids not going to school and talking to parents. Although I suppose it is useful to present the image that we are a working, legitimate organisation so its not just a lady walking around, because we´re always wearing the tabbards but even so, I really felt like I could have been helping more elsewhere. At the moment we´re not sure what will be happening in terms of where we´re going to be teaching, because the place we were using before was basically just the front room of a woman´s house, and she only agreed to let us use it if her son could come to the lessons. Now he´s going to kindergarten so there´s not reason for her to let us keep using it, and I´m not sure if we´ve got another place yet. I was talking to the new teacher, and she told me more about the actual school process than anyone else has yet. We don´t pay for the children to be registered to go to real school like I thought we did, and you have to pay this registration fee each year. All the organisation does is teach the children what they´ve missed and provide them with their kit to go to school, from there on it´s completely the responbsibility of the parents. I agree with sort of pushing them to do these things themselves and not handing stuff out to everyone but I don´t really understand how it can work, because if they can´t afford to send their child to school then they can´t afford to send their child to school. We just have to hope they´ll have saved up the money to pay for everything they´ll need each year. Rosa told me that the number of kids who go all the way through school is something like 60/70% but having already seen how some of them slip through the system I´m not sure how much I can trust this figure.

On Tuesday I went to the medical clinic again with Maurice and Sarah, which was interesting for me but again I felt like I could have actually been helping somewhere instead of observing. I was put in the pediatric department where they were giving vaccinations to newborns, the BGC and the HPV (anti hepatitis something). Though I did just find out that the BGC doesn´t actually protect agaist TB as I thought! Was I the only person who thought it did? Apparantly they´ve stopped giving it to 15 year olds in the UK now because it only works against one kind of TB, only for like 60/70% of the time and in those cases only for 15 years. So it´s not the best vaccine ever, but there´s loads of TB here apparantly so anything that will help is good. However when I arrived there were only 2 vaccines left and like 18 children to vaccinate. The government just hasn´t sent them anything for the past couple of months, and actually on the day when we went the main doctor who was runnning he place found out that she had been fired. The government is laying off people everywhere in the medical sector who make any money in order to try and save some, but it means they´re leaving the clinics without the people who have specific skills and could help a lot. Anyway, I kept asking if I could help but there were already 3 nurses there helping the doctor so i the end all I did was copy out 4 names onto a form. It was interesting for me but I was just thinking the whole time that I could have been actually doing something useful somewhere, I hate wasting my time because it´s not just my time it´s their time too if we use it efficiently.

The next day Mikey, Travis and I went to Las Delicias where we went to help out at the dog centre. Don´t understand everything about it, but it sort of sounds like Ana Thierry (Bruce´s wife) is the main drive behind it, they only do it because she likes dogs. Today she was saying that the local people know she likes dogs and looks after them so they get dogs left outside their house sometimes, and when they arrive they´re all horribly skinny and disease-ridden and after a visit to the vet and being fed and looked after they look really healthy now. I did make a specific friend in one of the dogs named Grass, which is always a mistake when you know you have to leave! Speaking of which, Travis almost bought an Alsation puppy on the street today; he took a lot of persuading to think about how Customs would react on his trying to bring a Peruvian street dog into the country! So Pedro has spent a lot of time making the dog centre a nice yard for the dogs to be in, they have beds and food and space to run around in. We took them for a walk which was nice, since Delicias is a beach. Then we washed them all but that was slightly futile because you can only really scrape the surface of the dirt that lives on them; they are covered in all kinds of stuff. And almost straight away afterwards 2 of them started rolling around in the dirt! It´s a nice change and good to be doing something practical, but I was talking to Mikey and I realised even if we do make a difference to a dog for one day, it wont change anything. If we were helping out at a clinic where they neutered street dogs for free then that would be something different and really good. Pedro was telling me about how they (I don´t know who "they" are, the police?) go out in Alto Trujillo and shoot the dogs sometimes because there are just too many of them.

Last night there was a huge party in the Plaza de Armas which started at about 6 and didn´t finish till roughly 1 I think, to celebrate the birth of Trujillo becoming a city (I think.) They had bands playing Salsa and Cumbia and it was a great atmosphere and very fun. We went out for a drink before to say goodbye to Kara because it´s her last real day tomorrow, and some of Rich´s friends were passing through so we had a big crowd. Jules and Sarah attracted a lot of attention in the Plaza with their dancing! A whole circle opened up for them and all the Peruvians were watching! So that was very funny and it was a nice evening.
It was good to see all traditional music being played, and that´s something that Kara was telling me about the other day. She spent 6 months in India teaching English, and apparantly there´s a lot more of the whole wanting-to-be-western/white thing going on in India, while Peru seems to be holding on to all its traditions which is really nice to see.

Travis and I were supposed to be going to the Dog Centre again today but for some reason there was a huge mix up this morning so we ended up going with Pedro to do some mercenary type style work. Pedro, apart from doing loads of other things, is in charge of Arriba Ya which I talked abut before. It basically aims to help women get their own small businesses started so that their children can stop working and go to school. However, we do this with loans that the women should pay back once they can afford to, but while Bruce was away somewhere someone spread a rumour that the money was a gift, so loads of them haven´t been paying it back. So for the past few weeks/months Pedro has been going round knocking on doors asking for money back from these women. He was telling me about how he has to be really careful, he´s a really nice guy anyway so he doesn´t get much trouble but like you can tell he hates the whole asking poor people for money thing. He can´t be too pushy because they´ll just close the door in his face and not see him again, and lots of them have aggresive or violent brothers/husbands/fathers so he needs to keep the whole situation quite light. Lots of them get their kids to go to the door when we knock and say that the mum isn´t in, and he just has to say right ok, yeah, tell her I came by. I think they are more or less paying, albeit quite slowly. So today again we weren´t doing a lot but it was one of the more interesting days this week.

So for the past week or so we´ve been teaching English in the evenings! And I´m really enjoying it so far. The first 2 lessons we just used to get to know each other so it was mainly chatting and didn´t really have a focus, but this week we´ve been going through the song "A Boy Named Sue" by Johnny Cash, and that´s been a lot of fun! We had a slightly different group last week to this week, the only person who left though is a very annoying quite insistent guy who wants to go to South Korea to do BioMedical Engineering, and he keeps asking for one on one lessons with all the volunteers (for free) and showing up at our flat and stuff, so its ok that he´s gone! We´ve got 2 new ones, a girl who is very nice and another boy who is really quite annoying. We´ll explain something then 20 seconds later he´ll shout out that word as if to say "what does this mean?". But the other 3 are great; really nice guys. One of them was so nice, on our first lesson he said something wrong and he was like "I´m sorry, it´s just I´m nervous becuse my new teachers are so beautiful!"

We had another cinema trip last night (!) to see Watchmen, which was super good but very violent. We did get interviewed on our way out though by a man with a camera asking us what we thought of the film! So that was quite funny. And today was apparantly supposed to be a day off for us, but we all got our wires a bit crossed so a couple of us ended up going in when we didn´t need to. Mathilde and Marie are going to be the new volunteer coordinators when Jules and Sarah leave, so they were having a meeting this morning about that, and they needed someone to go to Milagros to help get the new school ready, so I offered to go along in Mathilde´s place. We went to pick up some things that were left in the old school, some of which had been stolen we think, including loads of new equipment for the children. We had to leave this school because of a big row about breaking a football or something. Basically they just wanted to get money off us, so we had to find a new school. The new place is just a room in a building which is used for some kind of women´s group meetings. We sprayed some spider spray and cleaned it up a bit, then came back again.

Everyone was supposed to be going out for lunch to say goodbye to Jules and Sarah, but I was so tired I came home and slept for 3 hours instead 😊 We had a good meeting with Bruce today, although he did do a little asking for money. He gave us a summary of what the orgnisation actually foes at the end which was quite useful (if slightly late!) They´re trying to show the government the reality of the situation of children not being educated. If they can´t go to school for whatever reason, then they´ve missed their chance. The school wont accept them into 1st grade if they´re older than 6 and they cant join their year if they don´t know anything, so we´re trying to bridge the gap. What they want is for the gvenrment to see that this is actually a workable fairly cheap system and they should be doing it themelves, and it´s taking quite a while for them to be heard, but I think they are slowly.

We had another confrontation with our noisy neighbours who think we´re the noisy ones. They came to tell us to be quiet when we were playing Spoons, which can be quite noisy, but it´s 7.30 on a Friday night! They even phoned Bruce to tell him :S Everyone knows everyone here! But I actually quite like that. On my way to school or just walking round the town I see people I know, like the girl who works in the ice cream shop who is 13 but in love with Mikey; she just gave him some heart shaped chocolates for his birthday! There´s also the woman who works at the laundry place, the waiter at the restaurant I always go to (who must think I´m quite weird by now!) and the type-writer men who always say hello to me when I walk past. There´s a row of men who sit on the street with their typewriters and type stuff out for people who dont have a computer, and what you also see a lot of is people boiling quail eggs on the street. I´ve never really been walking round and thought to myself, I could really do with a whole bag of hot eggs right now, but people seem to like them!

Tomorrow we have to help move stuff to the new centre which is actually an extension of Bruce´s house in the morning, and we´re going out for sushi again for Mikey´s birthday and probably dancing afterwards. We might go to Huanchaco on Sunday, and try and get my back to be a relatively similar colour to the rest of my body! I didn´t go swimming last time because it´s really cold and I know there´s jellyfish, but I think I need to at some point so I´ll be swimming in the Pacific Ocean for the first time!

I should wrap t up there or I´ll be late to teach actually! So I hope everyone at home is well, and I´ll write more again next week!

Lots of love, Cons x

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Photos

strangest thing i´ve ever seen
ceremonial military march to "my heart will go on"...

Comments

[frusie]

Hello
Hi Cons, I'm loving it! Sounds all so cool and it's fab that you are no longer the new kid on the block. Feeling the photo's, I bet you are still feeling the sun burn! Keep using the factor 50 all over, nt too attractive with the white, greasy mess but hey ho. Got to go, got a full blow cold and so going to sneak back into bed and read the papers, watch tv and really do nothing at all. Adios.xxx

[Kayleigh]

It does sound quite poorly organised but that could be due to a lack of funding I suppose. It's great that you are critical of the things you are told, by Rosa etc. In a lot of these places statistics simply do not match up to the reality of the situation. I have lots of questions to ask you later!