SO we went to Ica and Huacachina this weekend, which was about a 5 hour busride from Lima. We stayed at a hostel in the oasis of Huacachina which was surrounded by HUGE desert dunes. On Saturday we went sandboarding (like snowboarding but on sand!) and it was soo fun. We took this sweet dune buggy up to the middle of nowhere in the desert and preceded to go down the mountains. Considering I had never snowboarded before but have skiied, I thought I´d be okay. Guess not... biggggest bails. We met up with two English girls so that was sweet! The weather was amaazing which was a nice change from Lima where it was cloudy and misty most of the time. Our teacher for sandboarding was from Huacachina, Edwin, and he was saying how bad he wanted to come snowboard in the Vancouver Olympics heh heh. He took a bunch of us to an all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink dinner which inevitably turned into a night at the bar in the town of Ica. This was a bad idea as we were taking what we were told was "a very sketchy flight" to see the Nasca Lines. I tried sleeping in the airport terminal before said flight and all of a sudden the health staff came and brought me into their sick room because they had thought I had already taken the flight and was sick. Good thing I knew how to say "yo bibo mucho a la noche" in broken Spanish so they got the picture that I was hungover. No wonder when they measured my blood pressure I was fine..
SO now to the purpose of this whole trip (I know it sounds like all play and no work) which is volunteering in Cusco! We flew here yesterday and our host family is unbelievable. Marita and Angelo are retired and have have three children in their mid 20s early 30s (Juan Carlos, Marcella and Angela). Everyone lives here but Marcella and they also have two dogs, one
old one named Pooski and a puppy Old English Sheepdog named Lucas (like my old dog Penny! :) ) So believe it or not there are are 5 of us volunteers here and they have 2 people who help cook and clean. They are a well to do family for Peru, definitely. They don´t speak a word of English but it is so fun trying to figure out what everyone is saying hah. The man Angelo loves to make fun of my Spanish and he likes to talk about el football. Marita makes us the most amazing food and SO much of it. Peruvians traditionally have a large lunch (kind of like our dinner) and a smaller dinner. But it seems like she is catering to us Canadians because both meals are HUGE. Cusco is 3,300 m above sea level and you can definitely fe
el the lack of oxygen as soon as you get off the plane. I almost fainted and get super tired after walking up a flight of stairs.
So the organization that we are working with is called HAMPY (which means helping in the native Peruvian language of Quechua). Our coordinator is from Maine, and today she took us to this totally sustainable elementary school called Huacarpay, which is set in the middle of some beautiful mountains above a lake, about 40 minutes outside of Cusco. The children that go there are from the ages 5-12 and are from a small community close to the school. These children have parents that either can´t afford to send them to private school or just don´t have parents at all. There were about 35 students and as soon as we got there, they came to us looking so cute in their uniforms and one by one gave us each a hug! They are so beautiful and try to talk to you in Spanish or Quechua in which case neither really works for me. Today they had a man visiting to teach them about video cameras and filming and I had to do an interview with two girls en Español. It was short to say the least hah. Anyways a year ago, some German Environmentalists came to build a greenhouse at the school and since then they have found ways to recycle absolutely everything. They do regular classes in the morning, and for a couple of hours in the afternoon they tend to the gardens and the greenhouse. Each student has their own garden plot and they grow whatever they want in it, and a couple times a month they take their crops and either bring them home to eat or sell them in the local market. It is an amazing system they have here, and the two profesoras make the world of a difference. They run the whole school and are so enthusiastic about their way of learning. I didn´t have the chance to take any pictures but I will forsure tomorrow. This school doesn´t have any clean drinking water, so we are going to teach them about this program called SODIS, w
hich is when you take a certain kind of plastic bottle (PE 1) and fill it with the contaminated water. You set the bottles on top of an aluminum roof and then let them heat up for 6 hours. This makes for better tasting water than just boiling it, and can be saved for up to a week without being opened and will remain uncontaminated. ANYWAYS it is going to be a challenge doing a presentation to los niños en español but I will let you know how it goes! We are going to be working on this project this week and next week we are planning something new.
Evan, Caitlin and I are heading to Machu Picchu on Friday and doing the Sacred Valley Trail on the way there. We are supposed to be meeting up with two of my friends from St. FX (Sarah and Kaitlyn) but they are currently MIA on their boat trip in the Amazon. They should be in Cusco by tomorrow though...
K so I will upload some more pictures soon!
Lauren
PS good luck to my MCAT friends, it will all be over soon enough..
SO now to the purpose of this whole trip (I know it sounds like all play and no work) which is volunteering in Cusco! We flew here yesterday and our host family is unbelievable. Marita and Angelo are retired and have have three children in their mid 20s early 30s (Juan Carlos, Marcella and Angela). Everyone lives here but Marcella and they also have two dogs, one
old one named Pooski and a puppy Old English Sheepdog named Lucas (like my old dog Penny! :) ) So believe it or not there are are 5 of us volunteers here and they have 2 people who help cook and clean. They are a well to do family for Peru, definitely. They don´t speak a word of English but it is so fun trying to figure out what everyone is saying hah. The man Angelo loves to make fun of my Spanish and he likes to talk about el football. Marita makes us the most amazing food and SO much of it. Peruvians traditionally have a large lunch (kind of like our dinner) and a smaller dinner. But it seems like she is catering to us Canadians because both meals are HUGE. Cusco is 3,300 m above sea level and you can definitely fe
el the lack of oxygen as soon as you get off the plane. I almost fainted and get super tired after walking up a flight of stairs.So the organization that we are working with is called HAMPY (which means helping in the native Peruvian language of Quechua). Our coordinator is from Maine, and today she took us to this totally sustainable elementary school called Huacarpay, which is set in the middle of some beautiful mountains above a lake, about 40 minutes outside of Cusco. The children that go there are from the ages 5-12 and are from a small community close to the school. These children have parents that either can´t afford to send them to private school or just don´t have parents at all. There were about 35 students and as soon as we got there, they came to us looking so cute in their uniforms and one by one gave us each a hug! They are so beautiful and try to talk to you in Spanish or Quechua in which case neither really works for me. Today they had a man visiting to teach them about video cameras and filming and I had to do an interview with two girls en Español. It was short to say the least hah. Anyways a year ago, some German Environmentalists came to build a greenhouse at the school and since then they have found ways to recycle absolutely everything. They do regular classes in the morning, and for a couple of hours in the afternoon they tend to the gardens and the greenhouse. Each student has their own garden plot and they grow whatever they want in it, and a couple times a month they take their crops and either bring them home to eat or sell them in the local market. It is an amazing system they have here, and the two profesoras make the world of a difference. They run the whole school and are so enthusiastic about their way of learning. I didn´t have the chance to take any pictures but I will forsure tomorrow. This school doesn´t have any clean drinking water, so we are going to teach them about this program called SODIS, w
hich is when you take a certain kind of plastic bottle (PE 1) and fill it with the contaminated water. You set the bottles on top of an aluminum roof and then let them heat up for 6 hours. This makes for better tasting water than just boiling it, and can be saved for up to a week without being opened and will remain uncontaminated. ANYWAYS it is going to be a challenge doing a presentation to los niños en español but I will let you know how it goes! We are going to be working on this project this week and next week we are planning something new.Evan, Caitlin and I are heading to Machu Picchu on Friday and doing the Sacred Valley Trail on the way there. We are supposed to be meeting up with two of my friends from St. FX (Sarah and Kaitlyn) but they are currently MIA on their boat trip in the Amazon. They should be in Cusco by tomorrow though...
K so I will upload some more pictures soon!
Lauren
PS good luck to my MCAT friends, it will all be over soon enough..
No comments:
Post a Comment