Ayacucho

Hi all,

Who ate entirely too much for the Holidays?? I did!! Oh well, that's what New Year's Resolutions are for. I hope you all had a wonderful break and are now refreshed and ready for the second half of the year.

It's tough to believe that I've been in Ayacucho now for almost six weeks. Sadly, my time here is drawing to a close. It sure has been fun, though. I work at La Casa Hogar de Los Gorriones (this means, "The Home of the Sparrows") five days a week, and we often have a lot to do on our days off given all of the holiday celebration. In the Casa Hogar are 27 children, from ages 3 to 22. It can get pretty rowdy at times, but we're always having a lot of fun!

There are three groups of kids: the Lupes, the Pequeños, and the Grandes. Each day I work with one of these groups. The Lupes require a lot of time and attention. These children all have mental and physical disabilities, so they need a lot of help just to do many of the activities we take for granted (like walking and eating). But the Lupes like to have fun just like any old kid! Some of our favorite activities are putting together simple puzzles, playing hide-and-seek, and playing on the merry-go-round.

Pequeños are between the ages of 3 and 6, and all are boys. As you might expect, the pequeños can also get quite rowdy! They actually share a set of bedrooms with all the girls in the casa. Imagine being six years old and having to share a room with your fifteen-year-old sister, sheesh. Now imagine having to share a room with seven other brothers and sisters! It can sure get crammed sometimes. Anyway, the pequeños love to play with their cars. They also enjoy when I chase them around like a zombie or, before bedtime, playing "This little piggy went to the market...."

The last group is the Grandes, who are between 8 and 22 years old, though most of the kids are 8-12 years old, the same age as you guys! When we´re not goofing around in the Casa, we loooooove to go outside and play volleyball. And, I´m proud to mention a new favorite activity: frisbee! We haven´t quite gotten to the point where we can play an actual game, but some of the kids can throw really well. They enjoy running as far away as possible to see if I can reach them on my furthest throw. That can be risky, because we play on a pretty narrow street, and the frisbee can go over a wall into one of the neighbors yards. Then we have to bang on the door to ask for it back.

I live in a hostel, which is a lot like a hotel. Many of the other volunteers rent rooms in a house not far away. In the morning we eat breakfast together. Usually, it´s just bread & butter, bananas, and tea, but I often can´t resist buying a mango, because they are so delicious here. For lunch we eat at the Casa, usually rice and a veggie-type sauce with a little bit of chicken or fish. I´ll talk more about traditional Peruvian food in my next post. For dinner, we take turns cooking at the volunteer house. It´s fun but, for me, stressful, because I´m a terrible cook. Last time I had to cook we made an "American Breakfast", scrambled eggs with pancakes. Most of the volunteers here are from France and Belgium, so they´ve never had pancakes before! Because you can´t buy maple syrup in Ayacucho, they ended up putting sugar and lime juice on the pancakes and rolling them up like a crêpe. It´s actually quite tasty this way. Do you know what a crêpe is?

New Years was a blast! We had a party at the volunteer house for all the kids, complete with balloons, dancing, and plenty of french fries. After the party, we walked to a lookout about 15 minutes away and watched all of the fireworks over Ayacucho as 2009 came to a close. It was pretty cool to have such a good view of the entire city.

OK, gotta run and get my shoes fixed before my big hike to Macchu Picchu. See if you can find a little information about Macchu Picchu; it´s one of the 7 Wonders of the World!

Hasta Pronto,
Kevin