Rollercoaster

Travelling is both the most amazing and the most difficult adventure, an emotional rollercoaster. While it is an overused phrase, it makes perfect sense. One day I am going to live here forever, the next day, I want to go home… right now… I want a hug from my Mum and a vegemite sandwich, I want to eat roast pork with my family and fight over the crackling… and I want to see how much Immy and Zoe have grown and go to Healesville market with Carly and I want to eat fried rice with Bec and Brad and have an hour long D&M with Kirsti… I want to drive up the misty hill to Kallista and be hugged by all my kids from school and hear the staffroom gossip. I want to jump on the trampoline for hours with Aidan, Corey and Bailey until we all collapse from exhaustion. I want to go to a Thomson family dinner and sit and have a cup of tea with the Traceys… I would give anything right now to curl up on the couch with Jack and watch Karate Kid.

But… perhaps tomorrow, again, I will never want to leave the chaotic streets of Cusco, the daily parades and fireworks, always looking forward to the next big event. The burst of culture and community and reality that hits me each time I open the front door. The children with resilience an Australian teacher would be astounded at, an ability to get along, to give love to everyone and to never complain. I love so much the company of the wonderful people I have met here, though they will all travel onwards shortly too, perhaps to explore a different corner of the globe, perhaps to head home to all of the people they miss, and then I will have someone else to miss too…

I know it is pointless and timewasting to sit and mope and miss home, it is true, but sometimes it can’t really be helped. It isn’t every day, it isn’t even every week, but when it hits, it hits hard and heavy. And despite all of my wants and desires, if someone offered me free passage home right now, I know that I wouldn’t take it. I’m not finished travelling yet, I’m not finished learning about the world, and more importantly myself. In some ways I’m terrified of going home. How will I cope without James by my side almost 24 hours a day? Having to work 5 days a week again? Being surrounded by wealth and sterility? And it’s hard to really know how much I have changed, I think that will be a huge challenge in itself, figuring that out when I come home…

But hey… we will be here in Cusco for another 3 months… why don’t you come and visit me???

Cusco... The Beginning!

So so much to fill in... We have been in Cusco for 4 weeks now, its quite hard to believe. We planned to only be here for 5 weeks, to learn a bit more Spanish, but we have fallen in love with the place... The colours and the culture and the festivities, the beautiful people, our lovely apartment we found and the beautiful FairServices community have all contributed to our desire to stay for longer... So, we have done what any good holiday makers do and we have extended our stay here... for three more months.... Three more months!

Every Sunday morning there is a big parade in Plaza De Armas, today was no exception... Today's Parade was bigger and better than the last few weeks, I think because its coming into festival season... Each day kindergardens, schools and universities have groups of students practicing traditional dancing in all the different plazas dotted around Cusco, preparing for Corpus Christi and Inti Raymi... Below are a few photos of today's parade around Plaza De Armas. 

Fireworks... they seem to go off all day every day,
often starting at 6 or 7am!

Watching the parade...

Colourful costumes and masks, representations
of the Spanards.

Todays parade seemed to be all about the public services,
all of the different police units were involved, including the
dog squad!

Traditional dancing is a whole family afair, with both kids and
adults being involved in the parades.

More colourful costumes and masks!

Our last four weeks have been a wonderful mix of exploring, learning and hard work. We started our classes at FairServices with no intention to spend more than our 4 hours of lessons each day there, though we have been drawn in by the beautiful culture, vision and enthusiasm of the organisation and have become super involved. We have started volunteering at an after school project for disadvantaged kids run and funded entirely by FairServices and volunteers. James has just taken over the role of Operations Manager from an inspiring young lady who has been there from the begining of the project, about 3 months ago, and I have taken over the role of Content Manager, deciding each week the activities that the kids will do. The project is named 'WaaW', derived from a Quechua word meaning child care, though the project is much more than that... 

WaaW started up 3 months ago, and is run out of a small, beautifully painted room, courtyard, and kitchen rented from a family who also provides home stays for language students in Kare Grande, a small and disadvantaged neighborhood about 20 minutes by taxi from the city center. In its first few days WaaW opened its doors to all of the kids in the neighborhood who had a need, and by the third day nearly 80  children were coming, in such a small space it wasn't possible, so the initial volunteers had to select 28 of the most needy kids, an extremely tough job I'm sure, I'm glad I wasn't involved in that. 

WaaW caters for primary aged kids, from 5 to 11 years old, and runs from 2:15 to 6:15 each afternoon. The first hour is dedicated to helping kids with their homework, even the 5 year olds often get enough homework to take up the hour... unthinkable in Australia... but the education system is very different here. In the next two hours the kids are split into two groups, the grandes and the pequenos... (bigs and littles)... They spend an hour each either in the classroom and courtyard completing different activities focusing on a particular theme for the month, the alternate hour the kids spend at the local park doing physical activities and games, often with other kids from the neighborhood sitting on the sidelines looking in, wishing they were a part of the action. And we wish we could include them...

During the last hour the kids are given a nutritious meal and are taught to brush their teeth...

Because of the level of poverty of the children we are working with, the parents, though they want to do the best by their children, very often don't have the knowledge... The aims of FairServices are huge, while they are starting small, they are aiming big, hoping to break the cycle of poverty from the bottom up. WaaW is an initial program aimed not only to help the kids, but also to gain the trust of the people. Because of some crazy history here in Peru many Peruvian people don't have trust for foreigners, rightly so, and seeing as the project is headed by a Belgian based not for profit organisation and run almost entirely by western volunteers this is a real problem. So, initially the aim is to gain trust, then the aim is to work down the age system... Providing health and childcare to toddlers and newborns and eventually to provide prenatal care and education to pregnant women who would otherwise not be able to afford any medical care. Education is  a main aim, education on the importance of nutrition and hygiene from birth. A typical meal for a Peruvian family consists of rice and potatoes, with chicken or meet on a special occasion, bread and sugary tea for breakfast and left overs from lunch for dinner... The nutritional content is not high enough to allow for optimal growth and development of not only little bubs bodies, but also their brains...

Early last week one of our little ones was having trouble eating, a sore tooth causing him so much pain his mum had come to us to ask for help, he wasn't eating, he was crying out in his sleep, she didn't know what to do... We had a look in his mouth and we could see the hole, after which other kids asked us to look at their teeth... these poor kids do suffer. Luckily one of the volunteers had a connection with a local dentist who was willing to come and take a look at the kids free of charge. The result was horrendous....

Out of the 16 children the dentist had time to check, 7 teeth needed pulling and another 157 teeth have holes that need to be filled. The little chicken in pain was not the worst in terms of his teeth, but was the worst in terms of the infection... The dentist came back to us with a quote for each child, the worst (a tiny little 5 year old) needing $1900 soles worth of work ($725). FairServices is going to pay for the majority of this work... putting a major dent in the fundraising they are doing to purchase land and build a custom made center to cater for all of their aims.

But... FairServices is about the positive, about the 28 little munchkins who now get to eat a healthy meal every evening, get help with their homework, who are no longer obliged to sit at their mums work all afternoon... 28 little angels who have so much love to give, never a day goes by when the profe's don't get a hug and a kiss and fall a little bit more in love with these kids, who despite having so little, are able to give so much...