Game day

We got up for breakfast at 7 because we need to get ready for Jacana - games! We started these games at about 8:30. There were a number of different ones...in one, kids had numbers taped to their backs and had to try to see the number that was on the other person's back. In another, very fun game, two kids were blindfolded and one tried to feed the other milk and cookies!

After the games, it was time for showers for the school kids. All of the 5th and 6th graders were supposed to take warm showers and get a new tracksuit in return. Thee were eleven 5th graders and it took almost 3 hours for them to get done! We found out later that the water wasn't even hot, as the electric wasn't working! By the time we had lunch and headed back to the rooms to read and rest, Mom had to go back for the 6th grade showers. She finished that at about 4 pm, then she and Dad walked around town while the kids played games in the school courtyard.

At 5, we all hiked up to the lagoon, which was about a mile away. Five or six kids from town saw us heading up there and showed us the way. It was a pretty hike through many fields. The lagoon itself is small...really just a spring that feeds water to a bunch of San Pedro. We realized how hard the irrigation canal project was...they've got a loop beau to go before they'll have water going into the catch basin...and, they have to dig through many folks fields to get there.

At 6:30, we took our Spanish exams - we all passed! Dinner was choclo saltad - another stew type dish with corn, chicken, potato, and veggies served over rice.

After dinner, we headed back for an early bedtime - we have a big day coming up!

Avocados!

Avocados for breakfast! You'll have to ask us about that as it is going to be one of those stories that goes down in family lore...suffice it to say that here in Peru, they spread them on bread like butter. The kids had a tough time choking it down, but made it in the end.

The morning's project was the irrigation canal again. Dad, Dylan, Alex, and Dave worked on the ditch while Mom, Persie, and Kaitlyn started to clear out the catch basin. It was about 8 x 12 feet and filled with about 6" of really sticky clay/mud and grass. The agriculture teacher brought three secondary school students - Christian, Dinson, & Jasmine - to help. They did a great job but had to leave at about 10. They are in school, after all! Dad joined this effort at about 11 and and by noon, we had cleared the whole thing!

Persie had a headache, so went back to the room to rest. The secondary school English teacher came and asked if Alex and Dylan would come to his room to speak with his students, so Mom & Dad needed to teach the 4th graders all by themselves! For lunch, we had green spaghetti, made with peas and spinach, and potato salad with cheese sauce that Mom learned to cook in her cooking class.

After lunch, we had some free time - read more of "Throne of Fire" and rested - then headed out to make adobe bricks. We had some help from a teacher and another older mana and soon had 18 beautiful bricks and a big pile of sifted dirt. Dylan was a monster with the pick, Mom & Alex got really muddy making bricks, and Dad & Persie sifted and gathered straw.

In the middle of making bricks we took a break to help the local kids pick up trash around town. Mom took a team, Dad & Persie took a team, and Alex & Dylan tools team. The latter won with 7 bags of recyclables (they found the town dump)!!

For dinner, we had Lomo Saltado which was like a beef stir fry with vegetables and French fries. After dinner, we played spoons with everyone and had Pisco Sours...lots of laughing!

Independence Day

Happy 4th of July!

We woke up and were headed to the restaurant at 7 am. It was early! After breakfast, we went to work. Alex, Dylan, and Persie worked in the greenhouse with Yeseña, and mom and dad worked on the irrigation canal. After a bit, Dylan and Persie went up to work on the adobe bricks. It was really hard and frustrating work, but everyone kept at it until about 10:40.

At 11, we taught our English class to the 5th graders. We were trying to teach them greetings and "feelings.". It was hard because everyone was shy at first, but they loosened up as the class went by.

Next, we had lunch and then went back up to the room to rest. At 3, we performed our recycling skit and talked to the students about the benefits and importance of this. There'd is a lot of trash around town and it seems that everyone just throws stuff where/when it's convenient. I guess with all this land around, it must be hard to worry about a wrapper.

After the skit, all the kids played a soccer game while Dad, Mom, Yeseña, Dave & Kaitlyn went to work on adobe bricks. The soccer game ended after a bit and before we knew it, all the Baroody kids as well as a bunch of kids from San Pedro were all helping to make the bricks. We sifted a huge pile of dirt and mixed in straw. Unfortunately, there was no water (the water is only available periodically at the school...therefore the irrigation ditch and the reservoir), so we couldn't make the bricks today.

Later on, Yeseña taught us some Spanish - greetings and feelings. For dinner we had a yummy chicken dish made with onions and peppers.

Touring San Pedro

After a good night's sleep, we got up at around 6:30, treated a number of headaches (altitude we figure) and headed to breakfast. After that, Yeseña took us on a tour of San Pedro. The village is home to about 1000 people and is situated at about 10,500 ft. It's really perched on the edge of mountains. The homes are mostly one room, with dirt floors and no heat of any kind. The streets are dirt and/or cobblestone and are pretty steep as well. Wild dogs & cats roam the streets and burros, sheep and one llama all walk around freely. People here seem to carry all kinds of things on their backs using some cloth wrapped over their shoulders. We saw the town square, the church, the school, and even the cemetery during our two plus hour tour.

The cemetery was interesting...it's all above ground since digging into the ground is so difficult. Apparently, people spend a lot of time visiting those who have passed and even drinking with them...there were many empty bottles left in the area.

After the tour, we had lunch, then took a rest. We then went back to the restaurant and started preparing teaching materials as we are going to teach some English classes tomorrow! The kids also played some soccer with some of the locals who were their age.

We met Dave and Kaitlyn, a young couple from New Hampshire today as well. They are here in San Pedro for 8 weeks, volunteering as part of a program for which they'll get credit at school (UNH). Dave speaks a little Spanish, but Kaitlyn is like us...not much at all. They will be having meals with us and we'll be working with them on the irrigation ditch and adobe brick making projects throughout the week.

We were also assigned with coming up with a play that we could perform that would talk about recycling and its importance. We went back to our room after finishing our materials, took a rest, read a little Red Pyramid (the book we decided to read out loud as a family), and worked out our play. We returned to the restaurant, went over everything with Yeseña, had dinner, and then went to bed early. We we tired!

San Pedro de Casta

We got out of bed at around 8 and, after showers, headed down to breakfast. After showers, we read about San Pedro from the materials Globe Aware sent us. By this time it was around the time we were to be picked up and our guide, Yeseña, was waiting for us in the lobby.

We got our bags into the van that Yeseña had arranged for us and we headed off to Chosica, a town about an hour away from where we'd catch the bus to San Pedro. We actually went to Melina's (the coordinator for projects in San Pedro for the last five years) house first to pick up food...her mother and sister, Jahaira, were also there. They had guinea pigs and chickens right in their house! Melina was very appreciative for the computer which we had brought from the states. We got the food loaded (it was a good thing that we had a taxi in addition to the van) and headed out to Chosica.

The drive was interesting, but was mostly traffic filled...actually, it was really traffic filled...bumper to bumper the entire way. It was interesting that as we left Lima and started to enter Chosica, the sun finally showed itself. Yeseña told us that Lima was so smog filled that they basically never see the sun and that people go to Chosica just to get some sunshine...woah!

When we got to Chosica, our driver took a left turn against the wishes of a traffic officer, and quite the interesting argument ensued. It was ultimately settled when the taxi driver called a cop friend of his to mediate the situation. We then pulled in to the parking lot from which the bus to San Pedro would leave. It was crowded! We quickly put jackets on some seats in the bus to reserve them, gave our other bags to the guys so that they could put them on top of the bus, and left to get lunch at "Norky's," a fast food chicken place, and then walk around the center of Chosica.
Eventually, we got on the bus and headed up into the mountains. Karen and I had a few looks at each other during this trip that were pure joy...smiles from ear to ear. It was just like you read about in books...a bus filled to the brim, luggage on top, driving on a crazy one lane road into the mountains...the only thing missing was live chickens. The road really was crazy...one lane, dirt road right on the side of the mountain, with no guardrails of any kind. One tire over the edge and we were done for.

After three hours of this (we picked people along the way who were walking back to town from their fields and also tried cocoa leaves....Jimbo survived them and liked the effect, everyone else thought they we're horrible), we eventually arrived in San Pedro. We got our luggage, checked into our hotel rooms (no heat, but great alpaca blankets), and then headed to the "restaurant" (this is attached to the school and is where the teachers eat all week...we would spend a lot of time there over the week).

We helped to unload all the food, then carried our water and TP back to the hotel. When we got back to the restaurant, there were a group of four students from Lima there. The interviewed us for a project they were working on, took some video, and then left. We had dinner (it was very traditional Peruvian food, cooked by Jahaira), and then headed to bed.

We're off!

We got up at a regular time as our flight to Miami wasn't until about 11 am. We had breakfast and headed out to the airport. The flights were not much to talk about other than the fact that the kids were great. Eventually, we arrived in Lima at about 9 or 10 pm.

Unfortunately, one of our bags (mom's backpack, with our warm jackets...) didn't make the trip. We spent a long time waiting in line to make our claim, and they basically said, "we'll deal with it in the morning."

We were met by a cab at the airport (arranged by Globe Aware) and we drove the 40 minutes or so to our hotel. It was an interesting ride through Lima, which left me with the impression that it was dirty and dusty.

We got to the hotel and basically crashed...we were beat!