Please read and respond with your thoughts and opinions
hi guys
last night I left a salsa club just before midnight with my peruana 'mum' (I'm with the host family until the weekend) and 2 other students and we ran into a little boy sobbing in the street. Now before you even thing it we weren't in a tourist area, it was a nightclub only frequented by latinos and he didn't approach us for nything. It turned out his mother had thrown him out and he had nowhere to sleep. His clothes were thin and Cusco nights are bitter cold, his canvas shoes were ripped and worn and he had no socks underneath. He'd had nothing to eat all day and obviously hadn´t bathed for a while.
We took him to a cafe and bought him a meal which he ate politely but with such obvious hunger that it would break your heart.
There is a government shelter where the street kids can sleep if they have nowhere else and he was planning to go there and hope his mum would let him back in the house tomorrow.
The little boy's name was Jesus (pronounced heysoos) and his crime was forgetting to lock his bedroom door, he said he was 14 but looked more like 10 or 11.
We left him heading for the shelter and made him promise to meet me at my school at 4pm today. I waited for an hour with some shoes, pens, paper and sweeties but he didn´t come - I have no idea why or what happened to him.
All this prompted a lot of discussion with my 'mum' when we got home to our nice house full of food and copmfortable beds. Jesus´s story is not unusual and it is common for families with a lot of children not to eat some days as it's 'not their turn' The most important thing we can do to help these kids in the opinion of my 'mum' (and she's a lovely and wise lady) is to feed and educate the kids and create jobs for their fathers and/or mothers.
I've been told that many charities here suffer from the same corruption and misuse of donations as much of the government so what can be done. One of my options is to open a bank account here and control it myself with the help and advice of people which my 'mum' is arranging a meeting with for me.
So..... who among you would be willing to give me money or other help? to send a child to school here costs 100 soles a year, about 20 quid. A decent meal would only be a couple of quid and I paid a fiver for Jesus´s shoes.
Please think about all this and tell me what you think, post here or in the visitors book or email me (link is on www.incurabletrekkie.com) if you don't have my address. Please also send this to anyone you think may be interested.
thanks for listening
xx
First week in Cusco
I've almost completed my first week in school and it's flown by! The first day was taken up with orientation and a city tour. The orientation was very useful covering such topics as local customs and etiquette for those of us living with host families, do's and don't and cautionary tales about local scams. The city tour was not the tourist type one but rather along the lines of this is the cheapest place to buy notebooks and that's the best place to change travellers cheques etc etc. All very useful :)
Tuesday the real lessons started. This week I have one to one lessons from 8am-10am and 10.30am-12.30pm with Mario and from 4.30pm-6.30pm with Edwin. It's hard going, especially the grammar as I don't remember the technical terms in English let alone Spanish! I do feel like I'm learning a lot though although it's hard going. From next week I´m just going to do mornings for 2 weeks instead of mornings and afternoons for one week. That should enable me to practice more rather than trying to cram it all in with homework. The school is very flexible and accomodating :)
It's not all work though, on Tuesday I went to the theatre of native art and dance for a display of Cusqueña and Andean dancing and music. The costumes were amazing and the whole experience definitely to be recommended.
Wednesday night I was invited to a class reunion with my host 'mum' at her friends house. Imagine a dozen or so women who have known each other since school and have got together every 3 months for the past 26 years. Absolutely fascinating and the meal we were served was delicious. The desert was a Brazilian recipe and was possibly the nicest I've ever had - MUST get the recipe :)
Tomorrow we have a leaving party for Pieniece, an anthropologist who has become almost part of the family for the past few months while she´s been working around Cusco. She´s off to Canada soon to continue research for her book, I can´t wait to read it as I imagine it will be amazing - she's quite a remarkable lady!
Saturday is white water rafting and a free concert by Libido in the Plaza de Armas and on Sunday I'm visiting Moray with Lucy and Anneka.
I can't beleive I've only been here for a week and I can't imagin being anywhere else. I love it here, it feels like home :)
Riding and Caving near Cusco
August 20th was spent with Lucy, Katie and Sara riding high above Cusco near Sacsayhuaman. We rode for a while then let the horses rest while we explored a bit and climbed the hill. On the way up we found some caves which we had to explore of course. One of them entailed walking in, waiting for a while to let our eyes get accustomed to the pitch black then going forward again until we saw the faint glow from the exit up ahead. We followed the light and then climbed out of a hole in the roof. Fantastic! We just missed being caught in a thunderstorm, while we sheltered under the eves of a building in Sacsayhuaman the lightning flashed overhead and torrential rain was followed by hailstones the size of marbles.
Great day out followed by a wonderful dinner and a visit to one or three of Cusco´s night spots :)
photos will be on the photo site shortly.
I MADE IT!!!
I made it safely to Cusco after 2 days travelling and am very happy to be
here.
I had absolutely no problems with the trip here, everything went very
smoothly. I got an upgrade to business class from Amsterdam - first time
that has ever happened to me and it made a big difference. I had a
fantastic last night of salsa at Bar Risa but I got stepped on with a
stilletto and my foot was very swollen before I left home. It´s now black
and purple but because I was able to sit with it up for over 14 hours the
swelling is down and the pain is almost gone.
I sat next to a guy from Barcelona whose family live in Lima and we chatted
a bit in Spanish - I was surprised how much I managed to understand, his
english was as limited as my spanish, but it seems to be coming quite
naturally, maybe it`s all the spanish music I listen to!
The hotel in Lima was very nice but all I wanted to do was sleep as I´d had
only 2 hours in 3 days. 10 hours sleep got me caught up and meant that I´ve
now adapted to the time difference, we are 6 hours behind the UK.
The house where I`m staying is very nice and the family are lovely - very
friendly and welcoming. There is one other language student at the house,
Lucy is a young English girl and very nice.
