Final Week!

From Piura a three hour bus took me to Chiclayo, and from there a ten hour bus took me to Chachapoyas- arriving at 4:50am. Ronal didn’t arrive until 5 so in the mean time I slept, showered and read my book, all very interesting. For those who don’t know, Ronal is a friend from Lima, his family owns the hostel my DWC group stayed at this year and last year. Once he arrived we caught up and exchanged stories about the past month and a half.

The next day we took a very crowed taxi to a town called Huancas, about 20 minutes outside Chachapoyas to see a canyon. It was huge! There was a river running right down the middle, and Ronal thought we should go swimming, I contested. We walked around the mountains for a while until we got to a dead end. Then we made a fire. This probably kept us occupied for an hour. First we put rocks around the outside as shelter from the wind and stacked some small sticks in the middle and lit them on fire with a lighter (cheating, I know). But the sticks burnt really quickly so we kept having to go find more and throw them on the fire before it burnt out. Eventually we had a pretty steady fire burning, and when we were done we made sure to put it all the way out.

When we got back it started pouring rain and we got in a combi to go to Tingo. Okay this combi was so horrible, there was probably 13 other people plus the driver, it was hot, wreaked of some fish/body odour type smell, and this child beside Ronal would just not stop moving. During the ride he looks at me and says, “Never I think I kill a child…” By the time we arrived in Tingo the rain had finally stopped and it was so amazing to breathe fresh air. We stayed at Ronal’s Aunt’s house, but as soon as we arrived we went to someone’s house/restaurant to watch the Semi Final Copa America game, Peru vs. Uruguay. Peru lost. It was the weirdest thing, all the guys that were watching would buy beers, but they would buy them one at a time and then have a glass or two going at a time. So one guy would pour a glass of beer, chug it, and then pass it to the next guy. This carried on the entire 90 minutes of the game…Peruvians…

The next day we had to go on a hunt for breakfast because each little store in the town only sold certain ingredients we wanted. One store had bananas, one had avocados, mandarins and water, and one had bread. And when we returned to the house to put everything together, the house lady had made us breakfast. After breakfast we went on a journey to Kuelap. To get there we had to take a car for one hour along the side of a mountain. Kuelap is an ancient ruins site, pretty much the remnants of an old city. It takes about 40 minutes to walk there once the car drops you off. Once we got there we walked around it for about 3 hours, we stopped and ate lunch in one of the old houses, we made  pretend tour guide videos, and talked to llamas.

Our final adventure up north was a hike to Gocta. According to the Peruvians, is the tallest waterfall in the world, but when I looked it up turns out it’s only the 5^th tallest. It takes about an hour and forty five minutes each way to hike there. Also, it’s a good idea to arrange transportation for the way home before you do the hike because there are no cars or motos waiting to take people back. So how did we get back might you ask? We hitched a ride with a tour bus to the turn of, about 11km. From there we had to wait for passing cars to see if anyone could take us. After waiting about an hour with no ride, we started walking and only a minute later a combi came by with two spaces!

The next day we had a twenty hour bus ride to Lima from Pedro Ruiz- on which they serve meals- one of which was a whole fish (tail and everything).

And the next day I was on a flight back to Canada... 3 months sure goes by fast!

I'm going to be continuing a blog throughout the next two semesters to post information about upcoming fundraisers and events happening to support different organizations and causes.

Thanks for reading :)

Crossed the border once again, back in Peru!

After many hours of travelling I am back in Peru! – But back tracking a bit. On the 14^th I arrived In Banos, a town full of hot springs, waterfalls, adventure sports, surrounded by jungle. Every block has at least one tour company trying to get you to sign up for bungee jumping, rafting, cannoning, jungle expeditions… etc. Since I hadn’t gotten to see any of the Ecuadorian jungle I decided to go on a one day jungle tour. (This is when I should have booked it for another day, and registered for my upcoming school semesters- and now all the good classes are full) Anyway, our first stop was a money rescue center. This place had different types of monkeys, and other animals such as anteaters, just wandering around and we were able to pick them up and play with them. It was so awesome, they were so cute and friendly, well except for one who climbed on a man who had his kid on one of those backpack  carrier things  and stole the kids lollypop! He actually ran away with it in his mouth, just like in the movies.  At our next stop we visited a native community of about 90 people- all one family. And from there we all got into a canoe and went for a stroll down the river for 30 minutes to our lunch destination.  Lunch was at a riverside campground sort of place that you would stay at if you did a 2 or 3 day tour. After lunch we went for an hour’s walk to a waterfall where we could go swimming. Along the way our guide pointed out many different medicinal plants and the different types of bugs you can eat if you’re stranded in the jungle. He also showed us a tree that has the ability to move 3meters over its lifetime by growing new roots in certain directions. After the walk we hiked up 230 steps to a “mirador” or lookout. Here we had an amazing view of the river and the jungle that we had just been exploring. Overall a great day!

The next day me and a friend went for full body massages and manicures at a place in town (for only $20) before I had to start my journey to Loja – which is where I would be catching another bus to Peru.

Not so simple. From Banos I had to take a bus for just over an hour to a town called Ambato, where there are suppose d to be many bussing going to Loja passing through. Well, sometimes lonely planet can be wrong. I got there and the official company did not have a bus until 5:45am the next day. I walked down the street a bit to another company and asked (in Spanish) if they knew anything about bussing to Loja. There were two other people waiting for the same bus as me at this company and they said one should be along in about ten minutes. Well, ten South American minutes went by, no bus. Finally one comes and it’s already overflowing with people so we aren’t able to get on that. Also, I might point out, we aren’t at a bus station, we’re on the side of the road with all these random people trying to catch busses. We have to wait another hour and a half (on the street) for the bus, one comes by and doesn’t take us, another comes by and doesn’t even stop. Finally around  9 a bus lets us on. However, they are also completely full and there’s already two guys standing. We slept in the aisle for the majority of 10 hours.  One thing that was cool was while we were waiting we just ate street food, sat on the street that smelled like pee, listened to music from a shop and a guy trying to sell the new Harry Potter movie. So authentically South American.

We arrived in Loja around 7 in the morning were able to catch another 10 hour bus almost right away going to Piura.

I’m right on schedule for meeting Ronal in Chachapoyas on Monday. Having left Lobitos almost two weeks ago, I’ve thought about my time there every day since I’ve been away from it. I miss it way more than I thought I would. I miss helping at the school, the people in the WAVES house, and being by the beach (sun!). I miss the Christmas lunch twice a week, and the random things that made my time there so unique. It’s interesting because during my first week in Lobitos, all I wanted to do was go back to Lima and continue with my experiences there. I never expected that I would feel that way about a totally different experience with totally different people. And although it sucks not being there anymore and feeling this way, it’s worth it to have had such an amazing experience and such great memories to look back on.

If I wanted snow, I would have stayed home.

Montanita was cool. It’s got the same vibe as Mancora but with bigger waves and more hippies. I even recognised some people that I’d seen Mancora weeks earlier hanging out in Montanita. Everywhere you go travelling hippies are selling their jewellery and other trinkets.  Oh ya! In Guayaquil, we met this couple who had been on a cruise to ANTARCTICA! First of all, I thought only scientists were allowed to go there, and second of all… what the heck that is so cool!!

Anyway, so a couple days ago I took two busses, the first one leaving at 5:45am, to get to Quito because people say it’s awesome. Well after 12 hours of travelling I was slightly disappointed. Firstly I thought we were going to all get robbed on the bus. Sometimes the busses stop and people are allowed to get on and sell things and whatever. This dude gets on and just starts talking to everyone from the front of the bus kind of aggressively. But you know, my Spanish is limited, so I’m all confused. And then I swear he said something about iPods… so I’m like shoot this guy is going to hold up the bus. Then he lifts up his shirt and I can’t see over the seat in front of me completely but he’s got some white tape on his stomach. So then it’s official in my mind he’s got a gun taped in or something. He walks down the aisle and obviously I needed to see for myself. GOOD NEWS, no gun. But he had a big scar down his stomach where I thought the contents of his stomach might erupt from, and the tape was covering a bandage- and, he was just begging for money.

As you might have guessed I arrived safe and sound in Quito and freaked out for no reason. I got to my hostel and since it was dark and Ecuador was a very spur-of-the-moment-I-have-no-idea-what-to-do-when-I-get-to-a-big-strange-city, sort of trip I watched the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy! Yup I’m all caught up now!  I met an Australian girl at this hostel, she was a little weird.

Yesterday I wandered the city, it was boring, I saw nothing. Seriously I just took pictures because I felt like I had to. Thankfully, I had plans to meet up with someone that Deborah (another WAVES volunteer) put me in touch with for drinks. So me and this other new friend I made went and did that.

This morning I was up at 6:15am to go on a hike/bike trip to see the most famous volcano in Ecuador, Cotopaxi. Ya there was a snow storm. We could only hike to 4400m instead of 5000m. Should have done the horseback riding, that’s all I have to say about that.

Border crossing at its finest

Our bus crosses the border into Ecuador, we’ve passed through the immigration office and are on our way.

First the bus gets searched for drugs. The police find about 3 kilos of marijuana in body board bag on the bus. Everyone on the bus has to get off. They separate the people in the police courtyard into three groups.  There was one group of people who got on the bus at Piura (all older, Peruvian looking people), one group of guys who got on at Mancora and one group of girls who got on at Mancora (young, backpacking gringos).  Antonio, Christian and I got on at Mancora. So the guys were all spaced out by the police cars and the girls were allowed to sit together.  They checked tickets and baggage tickets and asked anyone if the body board bag belonged to them and no one claimed it. We sat around for a while, they strip searched a couple guys, and then they let everyone who got on the bus at Piura back on. Then they slowly picked apart the remaining people and let everyone else back on except 9 people. The three of us had to stay along with two girls who were travelling together, and four guys, three of them were together and one was Peruvian (who was only forced to stay because he was sitting beside Christian on the bus). When everyone was getting back on the bus the police told everyone to shut their curtains so they couldn’t see us. Kinda weird hey?  So we’re all forced to sit spaced out with our bags in this courtyard while the police investigate and three of the guys had to sit in separate cells. The two girls have their bags searched first and the police find about 400 grams of marijuana in their bags and the girls are all “I’ve never seen that before in my life…”  So then we just sat around, and by 9am they let the other guys out of their cell things and we were all in the courtyard. Then we had the bright idea to call our embassies.  An American guy calls from his iPhone, and one of the girls calls the UK one from the police phone. When I went to call the Canadian one, they wouldn’t let me use the phone and said we had made too many calls already. So according to the embassies we are in a federal case and one of us is guilty so we were not allowed to leave and they can hold us there for two days if they want to. So now it’s about 11 am. For breakfast they asked us to give them money and they brought back chips, oreos, brownies, soda crackers, coke and peach juice from a kiosk outside. Around lunchtime they did the same and they came back with maria cookies, coconut flavoured cookies and vanilla wafers. Anyway, so as soon as they let us move around again, the three guys travelling together were talking and I  hear them talking. Two of them are telling one guy “man no one’s looking, take it out of your back, put  it in your pocket and go flush it.” So I look up and sure enough this guy is over by his bag putting something in his pocket and he walks over to the washroom. Later on this guy admits to Christian and I he had something on him coincidentally but he’s flushed it and the body board bag is for sure not his. Antonio and Christian were being used as translators by the point 2-4pm, and this is how we have so many details. So the bus lady told the police that she saw one of the guys (the one who “coincidentally” had drugs on him) handling the body board bag. So now the three of those guys are the main suspects and the two girls are just in trouble for whatever they had on them. So Christian has to go with the 5 of them as a translator to a meeting with a lawyer, judge, police and the bus lady. Turns out the girls are getting 30 days in the Ecuadorian jail and two of the three guys have a sentence too, but we don’t know how long because they didn’t use Christian’s translation for that part. 8pm rolls around and we’re allowed to leave. We also find out from the other policemen around that the three guys tried to point the finger at Christian and blatantly tried to blame the whole thing on him: saying that the body board bag was his.   

18 hours later we’re on a bus on our way to Guayaquil. Checked into our hostel at 2am, we were supposed to arrive at 6 in the morning. And the boys caught their flight back to the sates at 2pm that day.

After a day in Guayaquil I’m heading to Montanita today with a girl we met at breakfast yesterday. At least we don’t have to cross any borders to get there.

Two Months!

Two weeks later….

I’m going to Ecuador tomorrow!  My month in Lobitos has come to an end and I’ll be home in three weeks tomorrow. Over the past two weeks I’ve been working on nutrition guide for the locals to help them choose healthy foods and prepare healthy meals. There is a table that mimics the Canada food guide, but the food examples are all foods they can find locally here. So there’s no tofu or bagels on the menu. To further explain the table, I made a seven page nutrition guide to explain vitamins, minerals, different foods with their nutrition content, an explanation of foods to avoid, and an explanation of what type of people should eat what  e.g. people who are pregnant.  Other than that, I’ve still be helping teach English three mornings a week, and going to help out with the surf classes. Not to mention, taking my own surf classes with other volunteers.  Having more volunteers in the house has been great and now there are only two of us left; once again I’m the only girl. Oh and yesterday a random boy asked if I would take a photo with him.

My plans for Ecuador go something like this. Tomorrow, not sure what time, getting an overnight bus to Ecuador with two guys I've met through WAVES. We end up at Guayaquil, Ecuador sometime on Wednesday. We get to hangout for one more day and then the two of them fly back to the states and the solo travelling beings! There's a couple of cities I've looked into visiting, and at most I've got two weeks before I need to be back in Peru for some travel time with Ronal. How and where I'm meeting him I don't know, but we're gonna make this happen. People seem to have good things to say about Ecuador so I'm just going to hope for the best and go with it.

International Surfing Day

June 2oth marks the 7 annual International Surfing Day! This is the first time that Lobitos has been able to participate in this event and it was a great success! This event is used to promote the sport of surfing, however it also is used to promote being "ocean minded" and doing what you can to protect the ocean. SO we had a beach clean up! las Capullanas is a beach about 15mins by car south of Lobios. Its a gorgeous beach with sand dunes and caves, but its covered in garbage because of the next town over, Talara. We had 40-50 people show up for the event, including kids, parents, surfers, and of course the WAVES volunteers. We collected about 2o bags of garbage collected, I even found myself a little keepsake. I found a sea lion, or in spanish "lobo" vertebrae. I think it may end up being a donation to the WAVES house because I'm probably not allowed to bring back foreign animal bones into Canada. At the end of the event we had a draw for prizes that had been donated by surf companies from the states and Europe, overall a pretty good day.

The Road Way Less Travelled

I remember talking about my trip to Peru this year and mentioning I would be volunteering at an NGO in Lobitos after my time in Lima, and I remember no one having any idea about where Lobitos is.  Now I know why. It’s in the middle of nowhere. No restaurants, markets, bars, stores, traffic lights, and they there’s a population of about 1200 people. They have a beach with world class surfing. This doesn’t mean much to me yet because I only get to surf the baby waves, and even those are rough here.

I arrived on June 6^th to an empty volunteer house, besides the two guys working here at the moment.Sidetrack for a second. My adventure getting here went as follows. 6 am flight from Lima, so its my first time flying in a counnty on my own where I don't speak the language. So naturally, I want things to go as smoothly as possible so I get up at 2:45am, in the cab at 3 on the way to the airport. For those of you who know about the traffic situation in Lima, it doesn't exist this early in the morning. I arrive at the airport at 3:25am for my 6am flight. They aren't even letting us check in this early only 15 minutes before the alloted check in. Once they do I get through fine and arrive at the gate, which is still unknown, its gate 1-7. The plane ends up leaving about a half an hour late, with no announcement of course. AND it makes a stop halfway without even telling us until we are leaving the gate. Only in Peru... So ya. Went from the capital city of Peru living in a house with 9 friends and some local friends, to a town with only cold showers and corner stores.  My days here are not so “9-4” anymore. Instead I get up around 7 everyday, Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday I help teach English at the school across the street and afterwards I work on random projects (if there are any) and if not I just “chill.” We eat lunch each day at the house of one of the local people, this way, families can earn a little extra money, we get fed, and we get some interaction with the locals that we otherwise would not have.  

Last Wednesday another volunteer, Casey, arrived. She’s from California, and she’s come to teach a couple surf classes. So Wednesday and Thursday of this week we’ve got all girls surf classes, and on Friday there’s a boys class. Lobitos is a town dominated by guys. All the guys we see around town are surfer guys, and the girls are mostly pregnant, or with children at home. So this surf class is awesome because it’s going to get the girls in the community excited, hopefully stoked on surfing, and it’ll give them something to do after school in their own backyard. The organization I’m working with WAVES for Development, uses surfing to get kids out and about utilizing the waves in their own backyards to surf. Without it they wouldn’t have the resources to do so. Volunteers also set up their own personal projects that help benefit the community in some way.

Next Monday (June 20^th) is international surfing day! Its based out of the states of course, but they are promoting surfing and also keeping the ocean clean. So they’ve sent us a bunch of surfing swag and we’re doing a beach clean up at a nearby beach that is filthy because of the pollution to the ocean from the surrounding town.  

I’ve had my first real food poisoning/ traveler’s sickness experience here. It was horrible, not getting into details.

So to make up for it Casey and I went to the town of Mancora for a night. It was awesome. This lovely surf town is situated about one hour north of Lobitos. It’s such a happening place, known for its partying and beaches. We arrived there Saturday afternoon, first thing we did was eat at the most gringo restaurant we could find which happened to be called “Green Eggs and Ham.” Oh the comforts of home.  Afterwards we strolled around the markets, and of course went to the beach. The next day we were up at 7, after a visit from some friends of ours getting home at 6 in the morning, and we went surfing. Well we tried, but we had been told they opened at 7 or 7:30. We were there at 7:45 and literally nothing was open…  no surf huts, not restaurants, no stores. We wandered the town a bit and realized on a Sunday of a party town such as this people generally had a late start. We didn’t have to wait too long and found something open at 8 for breakfast. So by 9:15 we were in the water catching our first waves in Mancora.  We got lucky and caught a ride home with some friends, who then had us over at their hostel in Lobitos where we had some disgusting sandwiches they insisted we eat and afterwards we watched some surf videos. ­

One Month!

One Month down, two more to go!

This past month has been amazing, and the experience has been one that I will continue to learn from for a long time. This last week finished the painting in our rooms, and put together any missing pieces. On Tuesday the municipality came back with stoves and gas for the school's new kitchen. On Thursday we had a meeting with Ifejant. We did an evaluation of our project, and gave suggestions on how they can improve as an organization. The director of the school was there and he thanked us for our work and reassured us that what we built is going to be put to good use and said how the school is so grateful for us. Afterwards we went to school to finish up anything else that needed work. Funnest thing that happend that day was probably when Harjot dumped a bucket of water on Miguel, and it got all over him and the wall behind him...then Dora came in and thought it was me. She was mad.

Friday

We went to school for a good bye ceremony and to have "fun day" with the kids. When we arrived the kitchen and dining room had been decorated, and the soccer pitch had about 500 people waiting for us. The mayor of Villa Maria and her posse decided they would attend and pretty much host the whole thing. She made a couple promises to the school and presented us with some volunteer certificates and pins. They asked me to talk, so I would say a few sentences and Andres, our translator, would repeat it in spanish. I didn't know I would have to give a speech infront of the whole town, so there was some major improvising involved, I may or may not have said "um" into the microphone. Good thing they don't know what that means. We had numerous photos taken and we were also presented with gifts from the moms of the school. This ceremony was equipped with a preist, who blessed our structed and put holy water on it. That was followed by the breaking of the champagne bottle in the doorway and some more photos. Afterwards I got to ask the mayor what her plans and commitment are for the school and the community. She replied by asking me how long we were staying and when we were coming back.... clearly she didn't know we had been there a month. And if you go the website you can read an article from the point of view of the municipality on the project. http://www.munivmt.gob.pe/#  Something we learned at our meeting at Ifejant is that the municipality donated everything they did because of our work, because when they see a group of people who've come from another country to help their community they can't help but to consider why they aren't doing anything. And they came to the school, evaluated our project and figured out a way they could add to the success of it. A good intention for sure, but it shouldn't take a group of Canadians to make a mayor realize she needs to help her community out a bit. Especially when its a community where 70 percent of the kids are malnourished, and 40 percent of those are chronically malnourished. 30 percent can't afford to get water, and 30 percent don't have electricity.

Once the formal festivites were done we hung out in a classroom for a while, they performed a dance for us and afterwards we got to learn their dance and hang out. We had lunch, gave Dora and Miguel their parting gifts, and then went back up to the soccer pitch for a couple hours of  hanging out with the kids who made all of our hard work worth it. We played a mixture of soccer/basketball/volleyball and had snacks, made pictures, played with skipping ropes, hula hoops, bubbles and noise makers.

That night we went out for dinner with the team plus Ronal and Omar, and came back to the hostel to hang out and have drinks on the roof one last time. We said out good byes before 8am to the cus crew who are off to Cusco and Matchu Picchu! The leftover 4 of us are hanging in lima until tomorrow. My flight leaves at 6 in the morning for Talara, and the others leave at 1 am for Canada.

We're closing in on our last week together as a team! Our progress at school has been amazing. This week we finished the roof, and we are well underway on the painting of the structure. We had a very week since we've returned from our trip last weekend. We had the Ifejant meeting on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we worked full days, putting putty on the cracks in the walls, sanding and painting.

 On Thursday we visited another primary school in Villa Maria for working children. We had a great presentation (with our translator) and we learned more about the working children's school system, and what it means to grow up in such a poverty stricken area. The school we visited is funded through organizations, and as Peru becomes more of a "developed country" the government gives them less and less money. An example of how this affects the kids is this school used to have 4 classes, but as of now they only have funding for 2. Schools like this one are especially important where families cannot afford to send their kids to the public schools. This school costs 20 soles (about 7 dollars) for one families children to attend. And the family can pay the "tuition" whenever they have the money throughout the year. For a child to attend public school the family needs to pay anywhere from 80 -100 soles at the start of the school year, per child, not per family. 

After our visit at this school we went to our school to work for another half day. Friday was by far the funnest day of work this week. We worked with Miguel a lot and actually got along with him! Also, Dora caught me trying out one of the Spanish swear words and when she started yelling I told her Miguel taught me and ran away...hehe But overall it was a cool day because we actually got to interact through our broken Spanish (which is improving) to learn a bit more about the school and the lives of the locals through a local person, not through the eyes of an organization.

Also on Friday we had a surprise visit from the mayor of Villa Maria, and the ministor of electricity. They came by, took some photos with us and asked about what supplies we needed to finish the project. They've also said they will be coming by again on Monday. While all this whas happening Miguel told Suud that they've come by before and done the same sort of thing, but pretty much they come by, take pictures and leave.

After work we came home, went out for dinner on Pizza Street, which did not live up to the expectations of some participants, then we went for drinks and dessert at cafe z.

Pretty much the past three weeks have been an amazing experience, the group is awesome, our project is coming along great, and I've gotten to learn so much more about such an interesting country.

Huacachina Weekend

We had the day off work last Friday, so we headed on down to Huacachina. After a 5 hour bus ride we arrived to flind much nicer weather than the rain (mist) we left behind in Lima. We hung out at the hostel, this time we could actually enjoy the pool, minus the questionable water and the random dragonfly or bee we found in it. There are many activities huacachina offers including: winery tours, sandboarding, boat tours and the Nazca lines. Since I'd done three of the four activies last year, I figured I would see something new. So six of the nine of us signed up for the tour for the next day.

Our group's taxi/bus was suppose to leave at 8. So we are down there ready to go and as we're about the leave the guy at the hostel asks if we have our passports. Well not knowing ahead of time this was going to be the plan, only two of us had them. We explain that we've only got copies, and ask if that would be fine. The man working there calls the airport, and after a half an hour delay, we're on our way with the impression that copies of our passports will be fine. The drive to Nazca is a long dusty highway with a few twists and turns through the mountains that should have taken about 2 hours. On our way we asked to stop for breakfast, the driver tells us we will stop in 1 hour... we never ended up stopping, but we did get to stop when we were pulled over by the police for about half an hour. Our bus that we paid an extra 7 dollars for, because we were told was a shorter ride, ended up taking 3 hours. We arrived at the airport, and the six of us were too heavy to ride in a plane all together, so we were suppose to be split between planes, first 5 together, 1 separate, then 3 and 3, eventually we ended up 2, 2 and 2 in different planes. Side note; airport tax was 5 soles more than the hostel said it would be.... not cool. Also, it was about 12 and none of us had eaten all day, so we went and got these yogurt drinks, strawberry flavour, SO gross. Suud and I were in the same plane, and we went after Rory and Matt. We had specific placements in the plane, I was in the back on my own.  These were 6 person planes, and the seats were pretty much on the ground. The ride is only about 30 minutes, and 2 mintues into the ride you see the first figure. I was feeling nauseous before even seeing the first figure. I took a few pictues before anything terrible really set in, and I tried to look out the window, when they said we were passing by a figure. But eventually I couldn't turn my head and sat there with my sunglasses on, eyes closed, head back, wishing time would go by faster. Somewhere between the spider and the condor figures I got sick. A few mintues later another guy on our plane got sick too, so I didn't feel like such a nub anymore, and I realized there were a bunch of bags in the seat pockets for a reason.

Felt sick the whole rest of the day, the drive home only took 2 hours, but we did get pulled over another 2 times by the police, no idea why because of the lack of spanish skills. Once we got back, Steph and Carley told us that one of their guides that day for a different activity told them that 2 in 10 people get sick while seeing the Nazca lines. For our group it was 2 out of 6. And in my plane it was 2 out of 5. They should really warn you about these things. Anyway, we had a great dinner that night, and a fun time at the hostel club that night.

The next morning we went on a sandboarding tour, complete with a dune buggy to get us around. It was awesome, and I have a great souvenir sunburn.

Today we only had a half day of work becuase we had another meeting with Ifejant. This time the founder was there, he talked with our group once last year too. This time was different because he asked us questions and he had a lot to talk about regarding the philosophy behind this orgnaization. We also had more conversation with Dora about work, but we had a translator so it was quite helpful. We got to ask questions about things we had been wondering about but could never ask, such as why do only some of the kids wear uniforms at school, when does their school day start, just whatever had been on our minds since we've started the project. The buildings are really coming along, and we've alreay started the supports for the roofs on the next two buildings. Crazy to think we've only got 9 days of work left! One more weekend with the group and then people start going their separate ways. Meaning only a couple weeks until I move north to work at the surf camp!

One Week!

Yup, we've been in Peru for an entire week already, but it feels like we've been here forever. The group gets along great, minus the random arguments betwen Ryan and I, but you know gotta keep it interesting for everyone else.

The past couple of days at work have been super interesting. With Milo directing the group around he often singles out jobs as "man jobs" and will only ask the guys to come help. Which leaves the female participants feeling bored and frustrated. But usually the girls just get up and help anyway. The other day Milo said he needed "two guys" to bring up more wood, and Matt corrected him and said he needed "two people." He's taken the hints we give him but doesn't do too much to be inclusive, he's mostly concerned about getting the job done as soon as possible.

Then he was concerned that we wern't going to pay him enough for the time and work he's put into our project. Milo, Dora and I had a conversating where I established with him that he was only needed for translation since I have participants who've paid to be here and work but often end up sitting around while he takes over. Milo style of working is he'll do the job and you get to hand him the screws, nails or drill that he needs. We also talked about who would be paying him to stay on board as our translator. From my understanding DWC was going to be paying him but Dora seemed to have heard that if he was to be paid it would be coming out of our budget. Communication at its finest. So that afternoonn he gave us direction only, and then went and sat down at the school. That afternoon is the most I've seen the entire group working together so far.

When we got home I sent off and e-mail to DWC explaining what happened and then told me I could use the "communications" part of the budget to pay Milo for translation. As a group we came to the decision  that we can get by without him, and that since we are here as volunteers who've already paid to be here, someone else should not be making money off of our situation. Someone who would otherwise be sitting at home all day. When I e-mailed Milo explaining our decision he said that he had not signed up to be a charity or work for free and that he was misunderstood on our goals of the project.

As our group had discussed, we're here to work with the people of Villa Maria and learn from them, not go in there with our Western ways and power tools to get a job done as fast as possible. We want to work, but we also value the interaction and times spend with the kids and residents of the town. If that's the way we wanted things to get done we would have stayed home and worked in Canada. This project isn't about a building, but its about appreciating another part of the world and working together with them. We can't kid ourselves that we're going to go into that town, build a few rooms and save the world. They've made it this far with little help from the Western world, and when we leave they will continue to make progress on their school. So much has changed in a year since I was last here and who knows what its going to be like in another year or two.

On another note-

My second Peruvian birthday was amazing!

In the morning I had 3 cards to open, two from home and one from the participants. I skyped with my parents and they sang me happy birthday, complete with a cake and candels..which my mom blew out for me. During the day we went to the park and to cafe Z for lunch for the second time, where we had our first pisco shots of the day. We walked by the water and then headed back to get ready for a night out.  I wanted to go to a restaurant called Mangos, but couldn't remember exactly where it was, so of course Ronal walked us there. But he blanked on where it was too and took us on a ten minute walk in the opposite direction. We soon figured it out and took cabs, for 6 soles, (roughly $2) to the restaurant. When we first got there they said it would be a 20 minute wait, but we ended up getting a table in 5-10 minutes, right on the balcony outside, overlooking the water! How lucky hey? After dinner we took cabs home, without the help of a Peruvian for the first time, Matt was a stellar barter and we got them for 6 soles again.

I got home to find the roof of casa rodas decked out in birthday decorations, complete with a mini bar! Balloons, streamers, flashing lights, and of course a Peruvian flag next to the Canada flag that last years group signed for Ronal. Next came the cake... no it did not get shoved in my face, Jorge and friends had not arrived yet so it was just us Canadians and Ronal there. But everyone was stuffed from dinner so we made the decison that it would be eaten for breakfast this morning. Around 10 our Peruvian amigos arrived and then around 11 or so we went to a bar located right on the beach. Jorge had put us on the guest list during the week, so no line no cover. Overall, it was an awesome birthday!! Oh ya, and Suud made videos of the pre party with my camera with I have yet to watch, should be interesting!

Day 4 and 5

May 10th

Gotta love the communication issues of Peru. The group is up and ready to go at 8, but Dora is no where to be seen. At 8:15 I check my e-mail and realize Dora had sent me an e-mail in her broken english saying we were going to ifejant for a meeting at 9:15. So we wait around for her to come over. 9:30, she's not here. So she calls the hostel saying we're suppose to be meeting her there, but we have no way of getting there on our own. So naturally Ronal, superhero that he is, takes us there and attends the meeting with us for a while.

At the meeting, there was a translator who helped us to understand the philosophy behind ifejant and what they are trying to accomplish.

A few things I learned at the meeting
- ifejant works to provide rights to working children, rights that include treating them as equally as adults and providing the opportunity for them to work and provide for their families
- children in other rual areas of peru work because it is a part of their lifestyle and it is what they are brough up with, but kids in the city work beccause their families live in poverty and have no other option
- ifejant works with about 5 schools around Peru to create these opportunities for kids
- they want to break away from the western ways of thinking that kids should only attend school to obtain an education
- through working they are able to further their knowledge, but ifejant does value education, and creates programs with schools so that kids can both work and attend school

A pretty interesting philospohy if you ask me.

We also learned that Lima is one of the fastest growing cities in the world, with 90 percent of the population living below the poverty line. We learned about some of the issues and needs of the population. One of the resons there is so much poverty here, is that many people move from the andes region of Peru, but they come to Lima and cannot find much work and end up living in the slums.

After the meeting, we went to Villa Maria for another half a day of work. Savannah and I painted a classroom, and the others worked on similar projects from the day before. After about 3 hours we went a played soccer with the kids. 

Meanwhile, Dora and the principle of the school had gone into town to get supplies for the school. We were suppose to leave at 5, but at 5:20 she still was not back. After waiting around for about an hour, she shows up saying their combie had a flat tire. She arrived in a truck full of supplies that we then had to unload.

Once that was done we were allowed to head home. But its much harder to get a combie to Miraflores for 9 people at night, so one half of the group took a mototaxi to the bottem of the hill, and the other half took a combie that was aleady full. So we had about 20 people in a small bus that seats roughly 13 people.

So then we had to take another combie from the bottem of the hill of Villa Maria to Miraflores and its well past 7 by now. Things started to look up when the combie that Dora found was the same one our group took last year! Getting into the combie the driver recognized me right away and was stoked to have our group. We arranged to have him drive us each day.

Once we got home Ronal was waiting for us and he helped us order Chifa (Peruvian Chinese food). It was a pretty big hit and unlike last year, we didn't have any leftovers. 


May 11th

We get into the combie pretty much on time today, to find a translator sitting on the bus!! Dora managed to work her magic and got her neighbour to come to work with us today. His name is Milo and he is awesome. He brought a suitcase full of stuff to help us out at the work sight and he even brought power tools.

We started building today. First we had to move everything that we had moved the day before to the top of the hill. The only people who fell were Savannah and I...go figure. Next, the boys stated making walls for the stucture, because Milo insisted that was a man job. So the girls did a lot of sitting around today. But, we did move some old doors, and walls from a previous building up to the top of the hill where we were working, and once they were there we had to take the nails out of them and pull the pieces apart so that we could cut them up small enough to make a fence out of the material.

We finished work around 3 today, and there were no kids around to hang out with so we got to leave early, and come home to our showers. It was my shower day today, but the water kept shutting off and going from hot to cold... not cool. 

After first showers the boys and I went grocery shopping for dinner and lunch food. When we realized how many bags we had we realized we couldn't easily carry everything home so we (mostly Ryan) decided we would take the grocery cart home with us. No one seemed to mind. Matt and Ryan pushed it along and I walked behind with Suud and Rory naturally scared we would get in trouble.

We made a huge pasta dinner, and it was awesome. We didn't even have Ronal to help us this time!

Day 3, First day at Villa Maria

Dora the explorer got us to villa maria safe and sound! We took a random combie, and life just seems to work out sometimes because they are picking us up and driving us to work tomrorrow!

So as we're driving up to the school the first thing I notice about the school is our mural that we painted last year is still there facing the street! Once we get there we are greeted by Edwin, the principle of the school. We visit two classrooms where the kids introduce themselves, and Edwin explains why we are here. He also talked a  lot about all of the hard work our group put in last year and how happy they are to have us. Afterwards they gave us a small tour of the village and the school.

The school looks amazing!

Photos to come, but the classrooms are completed with paint, windows and ceiling. Theres a small shop where one of the mothers sells snacks where that little blue shack with the random toilet and garbage used to be. The washrooms we built last year are still standing. They have windows at the top and have proper doors. The thing is, they are not being used as washrooms atm. Washrooms that were built by a previous group of volunteers that were not being used last year are being used now. They designate some for the kids and some for the teachers.

This year we are building an additonal establishment to the school a little higher up on the hill. I did not full understand Dora's translation but what I got out of it is that we are building 3 rooms. One is a kitchen, one is a living room, and another room of some kind that I am slightly lost on the purpose of. 

We didn't start on that project today, today we only worked a half day. There is a new staircase leading up to the school, and today we built a rock wall around it and smoothed out the path leading up to it. We had some help from karla and Alexander of course.

We made our first home cooked meal today! Ronal helped a lot...mostly. He made the Rice, the group cut up the veggies and chicken, Sav stirred the chicken.. and I poured the veggies in the pan.

We also had a spanish lesson in the kiten while cooking, Savannah showed off everything she learned in spanish class and Ronal got mad at me for not being a good teacher and not listening enough. He says I say "whatever" too much. 

Tomorrow we have our first full day of work!!

Day 1 and 2

We are in Peru!

First of all, this is so surreal. 8 months of recruiting, organizing and planning and somehow I'm finally here with my group of 8 volunteers!

We are staying at Casa Rodas 1 this year, its located maybe 3 blocks up from Casa Rodas 2, just 1 block up from Plaza Vea . This hostel is more open than Casa rodas in that the main hallway where the rooms and kitchen branch off of has no ceiling. There are 5 rooms, all with a diferent number of beds and of course there's a roof top balcony. The showers are a little short for some of the guys, but overall everyone seems to be happy with it!

Day 1

Our flight gets in right on time, everyone is tired but excited to have arrived after having been travelling for an entire day. To go through customs in Peru you hand in your customs form, and you press a button that flashes green or red. Green lets you go right through, and red means you get your bag checked. We ALL got green! So we get through fairly quickly, only to realize that Ronal, our host from the hostel isn't there to pick us up. So I tried to use a pay phone to call the hostel, twice, but couldn't figure out how to work the phone. Luckily we started talking to man from Green Taxi company and we got to the hostel on our own and Ronal met us there. Turns out he was expecting us the next night, so he wasn't prepared from us and was short 2 beds, so our group became very close very fast.

The next morning, after a long night's sleep, we wandered Miraflores, saw the beach and the love park and best part is that its about 24 degrees, clear skies with a cool breeze. A little nicer  for sight seeing than the smog that coverd the sky for most of our trip last year. 

We ended our journey with dinner from our favourite cafe from last year, Cafe Z. And of course I had the Vegetarian Omlet. Afterwards the group went out on the town for the first time, accompanied by our Peruvian friends, Jorge, Jeremy, Carlos and of course..Ronal! 

Day 2

We went to the "Indian Market" which is a huge market in Miraflores where you can buy all kinds of Pervian souvenirs. Afterwards we came across a magic show, in spanish of course. I would think Anissa would be proud, we saw him juggle with 7 balls.. did the Calgary Jr. magic club ever teach you that?

At dinner a participant ordered ceviche, and was a little taken back by the raw fish that showed up on her plate when they brough the food, but another participant ate it anyway. Yay for our first Peruvian meal!