Thursday 13th May 2010

Feeling much better.
Our first free day (sort of). We don´t go up to Pumamarca (the village school) today.
We had a volunteers' meeting at 10 am (so a sleep in). All the volunteers are required to give a report on what has been happening at the school and the construction projects they are on. We had a report on all the classes we have been involved in (that is the extracaricular classes) - computer, English, PE, art, kindy and hygiene

Santusa (the local lady who helps out in the volunteer house) made a Peruvian lunch for us. Soup and chicken curry followed by chocolate cake. It was great and I have a very hurried version of the recipe because she was cooking up a storm while I was taking notes. Trouble is she was cooking three things at once and it was hard to tell what was going into what dish. Anyway it tasted great and all the volunteers sat down to a meal together which was nice. Some of the volunteers have made some very nice friendships and go out and do things together at night (I don´t know how they have the energy) but it was good to have a meal altogether.

At 3pm Ray and I were both on community work.
We were taken to a small very poor village further up the mountain (part of the next project for Peru´s Challenge) where one of the houseswhas washed away in the floods earlier this year. Ray, along with Scott, Kirk and Benn (three very energetic boys) were set to breaking down the remaining mud brick walls and crushing the bricks in readiness to make new bricks to rebuild the new house for the family who are presently living in a makeshift tin shed with rags for a door. It gets very cold at night here and it is much colder in the mountains. It is very hard work and they come home very tired and dirty because it is very dry and dusty up there.

Meanwhile Jo and I went to Talleres (women´s workshop) in the same village as the boys, where we had to take the name and number of the women present and take a record of the craftwork they brought in and materials taken out (mainly wool for kniting for this group of women). The craftwork they do is to help bring in a bit of money but the purpose of the workshop is to encourage the women to get together and talk amongst themselves and to have some respite from their families and the fields. There is a lot of alcoholism and this is also a place for them to come for help and to work out who needs help.
It was caotic for Jo and I just to be able to understand the Spanish (thank God for Jo, her Spanish is better than mine) to take the roll call. We were busy the whole meeting just doing this because the women all want to make sure their name is taken and goods recorded so they crowd you in.

In the evening we did lesson preparation for tomorrow. We´re both on English classes. A very full day.