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.