Chinchero, Peru

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I had my Spanish practice lesson in the morning which went well. I have a terrible memory but the teacher is good. I didn't have my Grammar teacher today so instead I booked it for Saturday.

After Spanish I went to Chinchero with Coco, Emily and Karl. Chinchero is a place near Cuzco (amazing views of Vilcabamba mountains) and is a lovely andean village. I got the impression Chinchero was worse than Cuzco poverty wise. The houses were not as nice and the whole area looked poorer.

We managed to get a free bus trip with some other volunteers that were going to Chinchero, also with PoD. They were a high school group. Anyway... once we arrived Coco went to talk to two young boys that lived next door to the place we were visiting. Their 'house' was more like a shed. There wasn't windows, just plastic covering the holes and the 'garden' was just like a junk yard. Coco, Emily & Karl and bought the boys a yo-yo, a jumper and a kids magazine. The mother came over to ask Coco for money but Coco said that she is an alcoholic so she doesn't give her money, just stuff for the children. It was so sad. The boys were so sweet. They had dirt all over them and their clothes were torn. We took photos of the boys with their gifts and they were really happy with them. Later when we passed by the boy was wearing his jumper, it was so sweet.

The big group of volunteers were staying for a couple of weeks here at the house in Chinchero. Roxanna (owner) and a friend of hers had to make them all a meal, so me, Emily, Karl and Coco helped out. I served the food to the volunteers and the others peeled potatoes.
Roxanna also made me my own vegetarian option which was sweet.

After the meal we went to wash the dishes but there was no water. So we went for a walk. Coco showed us around a bit, there's such lovely views there. We saw a woman spinning yarn while walking which was pretty cool.

Later on, back at the house, the girls that we were to help teach English to turned up. I'm still not sure how it works to this day but I think they are friends with Roxanna so they come to her house now and again and PoD volunteers help to teach them English. The girls were all so polite and sweet and hug and kiss us. We introduced ourselves and then they started showing us their homework. There was one boy who didn't have homework so Coco asked me to teach him some English. I pointed to some objects and colours around the garden and taught him those words in English, I knew some words in Spanish by now but it was still quite difficult to talk to him! After that I went back over to Karl and Emily and the girls and we played a game to help teach them the days of the week. They were learning pretty fast, sometimes they got the days mixed up but they seemed to know all the names. I can't remember how many girls there were, about 4 I think. One called Daisy and one called Marissa. Not sure on the others.

After that we went for a walk to the plaza which is nothing special but it was nice anyway. The girls played around the statue and we had some photos with them. I also tried to find out their ages, a mixture of 14,15,16. Once we got back to the house the girls wanted to play so we played some games including tag, piggy in the middle and took lots of photos (photos I've now lost!) It was good fun though!
I had a really nice day here and the weather was lovely.
Coco had brought over some clothes for the girls too and they looked so happy and excited with the clothes it was really sweet. We said goodbye to the girls and then left.

On the way home we jumped in a car that was heading back to Cusco after waiting a little while. It was freezing outside!

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