Volunteering

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  Cusco, Peru
Wednesday, September 10, 2008

I am finally feeling better! It is great. I actually went out to dinner last night and ate a big plate of spaghetti bolognese and even had room for dessert, a big fruit salad. It was the first time I had felt really hungry in over a week! And, I didnīt get sick afterwards.

On Monday I finally got in touch with the director of an orphanage that a friend of a friend of mine had volunteered at. I went by and met her. She was very nice and made an exception for me so that I could volunteer there for one week only (usually they only take volunteers for a month or more) and let me do it independently (usually you have to go through an organization...my Spanish school sends volunteers there but then you have to pay money and I am against paying money to volunteer). She gave me her cell phone number and said I should call her if I need anything while I am here.

She is the director of two sites. One is an orphanage for boys and the other for girls. She gave me my choice of where to volunteer. I chose the girls (mostly because I preferred the hours 3:00-6:00 instead of 8:00-11:00...although Iīm feeling better I still need a lot of sleep!)

I have been twice now. There are 36 girls living there, from age 5-16. I have been helping them with their homework and playing with them. The first day a lot of the children had homework about a book their teacher read in class and they didnīt understand why I couldnīt help them with it so I ended up playing a lot. The next day they had a lot of math which was easier for me to help with although they teach things differently here. They set up division problems differently and I had to have one of the kids show me.

They are adorable although they tend to fight a lot. Some of them are pretty nasty to each other, pulling hair, ripping up others homework, stealing toys! I was pretty surprised because it was nothing like the children I worked with last summer in Cambodia. They were always very nice to each other and helped out the younger ones. Itīs a bit difficult because Iīm not sure how firm I should be with them. One of the other teachers lets them scream and run around in the classroom but another teacher will come in eventually and yell at them all and tell them to sit down and work. And, they didnīt teach us how to discipline children in my Spanish classes!

I am definitely enjoying it and am glad to be out and doing something because I was getting rather bored in Cusco!

Going today to buy my bus ticket to Arequipa. Will be traveling with a friend, Jan. We are planning on going to Arequipa, then Nazca and then onto Lima. Looking forward to it!