Alto Trujillo, Bruce and Otuzco

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Hola a todos

So I went straight back to school last week, all better. I really love working at Alto Trujillo, because the teacher there is brilliant. I just look after 5 kids so I get to know them really well, and Issella gives me exercises to teach them and checks up on how it´s going every now and then, which I really appreciate. The journey there is always interesting as well because we don´t take a combi we take a colectivo which is basically a taxi that lots of people use. So as you can imagine the driver always wants to get as many people in the car as possible, we had 11 people in at one point! Quite a normal week at school last week, apart from on Friday when we got to paint with the kids and generally have a play day which was really nice. In the afternoons last week I spent a lot of time at Huanchaco trying to even out my tan, but to no avail since I still look absolutely ridiculous! Mathilde´s friend Alex came down for a visit from Ecuador at the weekend, so we spent the night in a hostal in Huanchaco with her and her friends on Friday which was really nice; had my first hostal experience! Lesson 1, always bring your own loo roll.

It was Janelle´s birthday on Sunday so Mathilde made a carrot cake and we all sat around chatting for a really long time which was really nice. Because we´re less people now we have a bigger sense of a group feeling which I like.

I had to go Nuevo Jerusalem for the first few days of this week because Lorenzo was ill, and it made me realise how lucky I am to be at Alto, because the teacher at Jerusalem doesn´t give any guidance at all. I got to go with Rosa on the Pregnant Girls project twice and had such a positive experience both times. The first time we went we went to Alto Salaverry/Alto Moche which is a barrio but its actually quite nice (as barrios go). We went first of all to see if we could use the community centre as a place for the meetings and the woman in charge said yes so that was a good start. Then we went to look for the teachers who are going to teach the girls how to knit and sew clothes for the baby and bags that they can sell. Both teachers said yes! Another success. Then we went to the medical centre to get a list of pregnant teenagers in the area, and we were given a list of about 11. We actually bumped into one of the girls on the list while we were there; she´s just 14 year old. We went to look for the girls we had on the list which involves just a lot of walking around asking for drections, but I felt like I could help a lot more this time. Even if it was just simple things like knocking on people´s doors or asking for directions, it makes things easier for Rosa and saves time eventually. It was also very interesting this time because we were invited into several of the girls´houses to talk abut what we were offering, and I was surprised by how many possessions they had. I think this barrio is probably one of the better off ones, but it struck me as bizarre that almost everyne owns a personal stereo system with huge speakers and a tv.

The second time I went with Rosa we could only really look for about 4 girls because Rosa had a meeting to go to but we had just as much success, we´ve got at least 7 girls signed up to come to the sessions now. And we actually found someone who was really eager to help us set up another school in that area, which was really exciting. I´m just dissapointed I wont be around to see how the project progresses. I know it doesn´t sound like a lot, teaching them how to knit clothes for their babies and sew bags to sell but it does more than that which is hard to describe. Quite often the situations we find are not nearly as dramatic as Bruce makes them out to be (Bruce loves the drama!) Most of the girls were with someone who left once they realised they were pregnant. Just having an atmosphere which is friendly and informal and allows them to meet other girls of a similar age and who are in a similar situation to themselves is really helpful for them.

I was puzzled as to why there are so many pregnant teens here when my first impressions were of a very religious country. Apparantly though religion has nothing to do with it, people aren´t looked down upon if they have children outside marriage or if they are in a relationship, and condoms are quite readily available in pharmacies, and actually given away for free in the health clinics! So it must be education; I think sex education is increasing in Peru but is still in its early days.

At the beginning of the week Bruce invited Lorenzo to come and work with him as an Assistant to the Director, basically taking on all the tasks that Bruce and Ana Tere (his wife) dont really have time to do but end up doing anyway, and to be link between the organisation and the volunteers. I have to say I think they desperately need someone to fill this role but Lorenzo decided not to do it in the end, he couldn´t work with Bruce and I don´t think Bruce could work with him either to be honest! Anyway, Bruce came to me a couple of days later saying that he knew I wanted to work in NGOs and that he had been very impressed by Mathilde and I, saying we had a combined age of about 50 (should I take this as a compliment...) and that he wanted to make me an offer. So for days we were all speculating what it could possibly be, thinking he was maybe going to ask me to be the person to help set up a similar set up to this one in Lima (because he´s been looking for someone to do that for a long time) but I knew it couldn´t really be that because I don´t have nearly enough experience. When we finally met up he asked Mathilde to come along as well, and ended up just asking us about what we thought could be improved about the organisation. We mentioned things like communication with volunteers, giving us more informaton in general. So he asked us to put together a better welcome pack for volunteers which has most of the general information about how the organisation works, which we´ll do before we leave. Another thing is having a standard format for a relationsip between teachers and volunteers because each school is run differently, and having had experience of both extremes I definitely think each teacher needs to give the volunteers work to hand out and check up on them, because some volunteers are completely left to their own devices, and could be teaching absolutely anything and the teacher wouldn´t even know. Anyway at the end he just asked if I would want to come back and volunteer for a longer period of time but for free, and I had to say no because when he says long term he means about a year and I can´t really do that when I have loads of plans for the next few years.

Thursday evening was Janelle´s last night here so we went out for a drink to say goodbye, and went to a place we´ve not been to before to play pool which was really fun. We almost missed it because it was behind a massive metal door with no sign or anything, and when we went in it looked more like a construction site than a bar (which you´ll see from the pictures) but it had a friendly atmosphere, and we ended up playing pool with a boy who came round selling sweets for a while!

Since it´s both me and Mathilde´s last weekend really we wanted to go away to one of the places that you can actually get to quite easily from Trujillo, either Pacasmayo which is a beach resort or Otuzco which is up in the mountains. In the end we decided on Otuzco and I´m so glad we did, I literally had the best time I´ve had since I´ve been here. Mathilde, Louise and I took a colectivo from Trujillo up to Otuzco and the drive itself is about 40% of the reason to go. The views were absolutely stunning, and I just couldn´t believe how diverse this country is where one minute you can be in desert and an hour and 40 minutes later you can be surrounded by green mountains and rivers; it was amazing.

When we arrived we were slightly dissapointed because it had begun to get misty so we couldn´t really see the town well, and it was really really cold. We also went for the only hostal metioned in Lonely Planet- big mistake. It was 20 soles for the night and when we went for a walk around we saw literally about 20 hostals round the place which were all probably cheaper. That´s not the first time Lonely Plant has let me down either, I´m thinking of removing it from its pedastal as "The Book".

We went out for dinner and had some good old Lomo Saltado, personal favourite Peruvian dish and some mate tea, apparantly good for altitude sickness. Lomo Saltado is strips of beef in a tomato marinade with potatoes and rice, so good. Looking forward to trying cuy (guinea pig) and ceviche (sort of a raw fish meal, classic Peruvian dish) but am waiting for Tom to try them. We were really tired though and it didn´t really seem like a night time kind of place so we just bought loads of really horrible Peruvian chocolate and went to watch tv in our beds! It was good to get a good night´s sleep though because Saturday was quite a day. We went out looking for some breakfast but every place that we asked if they did anything for breakfast was like "sure, we´ve got chicken soup, ceviche, lomito...." and we were really just looking for some tea and toast. We eventually found somewhere where we could have coffee and an egg bap which was extremely good. They serve coffee differently here, they give you a cup of hot water and then a jug of coffee essence to pour in, not nearly as strong.

Then the boys arrived (Rich and Mikey) and so we started to do a little exploring. Luckily Saturday was really clear and sunny, and the town itself was really lovely. All cobbled streets and really old women wearing the Peruvian hats selling interesting bread and kids running round all over the place. We decided that we wanted to climb one of the hills that surrounds the valley so off we set! It was absolutely beautiful, and so much fun. The altitude started to affect me though shortly before the top so I had to stop, I was getting quite a bad headache/earache and feeling a bit dizzy so I decided to just enjoy the view instead with Louise and Rich. Louise had to stop because the only shoes she´d brought were high heeled boots. Don´t ask!

So Mathilde and Mikey set off for the top and we just sat on the mountain about 2,800 metres in the mist looking at the town below; amazing.

Otuzco is actually a relatively famous pilgrimage site, people come from "all over the world" (i.e. Spanish speaking Catholic countries) to see the Virgen de la Puerta, which is just an idol of Mary. We went to the museum which holds a stupidly large collection of dresses, once every 2 months or so they change the dress she wears and have a big parade through the town. People donate thousands of pounds to have really nice dresses made, and I couldn´t help but be quite angry that people will spend thouands of pounds on a doll when someone like Bruce has to work night and day and start selling his stuff just to keep his charity afloat.
When we got down we had some tea and bread with avocado in a local restaurant and then took the bus back, which was even better than the trip there! We had such a fantastic time.

Today we went to Hunachaco for a bit and actually swam which was lovely, again amazing how I´ve been in 3 completely different environments in such a short space of time. However I´ve got a problem with one of my ribs at the moment, it really hurts to lie down so I couldn´t stay at the beach for too long. I refer to it as my "broken rib" but I know it can´t really be because I don´t remember doing anything strenous, ever. Hopefully it´ll go away by itself and I wont need to get an ex-ray done in a Peruvian hospital...fingers crossed!

So this week will be my last week here! I´m so excited about the next bit, though slightly jealous of all the people who are visiting about 10 countries and spending about 6 months doing it all, but we can´t do it all it one trip because there´s so much to see, and we want to get to know just 2 countries really well as opposed to several countries only vaguely. So I´ll be spending lots of this week going to different schools because people are leaving and a few are arriving and I´m going with Rosa one day so it´ll be quite hectic, I´ll also need to be doing general getting ready for going away things. So I´ll do one more blog before I´m off! So excited!

Lots of love x

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Comments

[Kayleigh]

Definitely get an x-ray done- you can add it to your list of experiences!