Strength

“I thought she was a strong girl,” I heard my grandads newest lady friend say from their bedroom down the hall, after my sobbing had subsided enough for me to hear anything.

“She is strong,” grandad replied, “but she can be emotional too.”

Sometimes a memory is a seed that has been planted, lying dormant in the deepest part of the brain, until something awakens it. This memory has been replaying in my mind often over the last few weeks, and while it has always been vivid it has never had a whole lot of significance until now.

The last few weeks have been hard, there isn’t another way to say it, and it has made me ponder the meaning of strength… Is it showing strength to stay in a situation that you don’t want to be in? Is it strong to put on a brave face when all you want to do is curl in a ball and cry? Is strength keeping your worries and troubles inside, letting them eat you up, refusing to talk about them? Or is strength more about acceptance, rather than avoidance, more about working and learning than it is soley about making it away from that place in which you don’t want to be.

At the start of this year I never realised how much strength I would need for this journey. Stepping into the airplane, not looking back, holding back the tears as best I could, that was strong. Sleeping in a half demolished farm house in Argentina, being eaten alive by mosquitoes, that was strong, as was telling the truth the next day and getting ourselves out of that situation. Meeting amazing people and having to say goodbye is always a test of strength. A month ago when we were living without power, I thought maybe it was strong to have a cold shower without complaining. Two weeks ago perhaps I was showing strength when I smiled at our landlady while she was shouting at me for breaking the electricity or closing the door too loudly or something or other. Last week I tried so hard to be strong when I found out my beautiful Tyson has cancer, but I couldn’t be strong. I broke down as soon as one of the kids at WaaW asked me what was wrong. But perhaps that was showing a strength in itself, showing these kids with a million hardships that sometimes even the profe can’t be strong, it’s okay to let it out. Last week it was strong to ask for help, to step up and demand fair treatment by asking a one of our teachers to help us reclaim our bond. Earlier this week I was strong when, after three days of broken promises of furniture in our new apartment I stepped outside my comfort zone and said no.  Enough is enough. I would prefer to be homeless than to put up with the type lies that can only be told when they can’t be fully understood. Yesterday I was strong in the taxi, while I was holding back tears an wondering just exactly where we would end up. I know I always have something and someone to fall back on, and for that I am lucky. 

Through all of our dramas, all it takes is for that little face peering in off the street to bring me back to reality, to make me realise that all of this strength I have is nothing compared to the kid out on the cold street at midnight selling finger puppets to the drunk tourists, the six year old who has just had two teeth pulled opening his mouth up wide to show you, the little man who fell out of a second floor window and a week later is up and running, telling the us how much he missed us. All it takes is the grateful hug of an eleven year old boy, 'Gracias Profe', to make it all worthwhile.

Strength always means different things in different situations. Strength isn't always about holding back the tears when nothing is going right, strength is getting past those tears to what is beyond them, an experience from which to learn and grow. Beyond those tears and that hardship there will always be something positive, be it lady luck at the other end, a new friend or even just a memory, as long as you keep pushing you’ll come across it eventually, as we have, here in our beautiful new apartment with two lofts, our beautiful friends, a package waiting at the post office to be picked up tomorrow and a little chihauhau in the courtyard to keep us company.

Thank you luck, thank you strength, and thank you James for holding me together over the last couple of weeks. Once again, with electricity, a place to call home and exciting things happening at the Aldea, I have re-claimed my optimism. I feel strong.

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...