Saturday, August 11, 2012
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Long Over-due Update
So it's been a really long time since I posted. Sorry about that. Peru can be a busy place. Since my last post of videos of our Salkantay trek, I've done the Lares and Choquequirao treks, spent a lot of time volunteering with the kiddos and moved apartments twice. I'm now in a beautiful lofted apartment (two lofts: one for a sitting area, the other to make the second bedroom for my roomies Brenna and James from Australia). We've lost a few kids at the school, but gains a few more and they are gorgeous kids with sweet personalities.
Brenna is a teacher back in Australia, so she's been making our program much more organized and thinks up really fun activities for the kids. I gave her $50 of your donation money and $50 from my grandma to buy books for the classroom. She's really awesome about making reading a priority and bought a whole bunch of beautiful books so the kids are really excited to read. She also got in contact (I think with the help of our awesome friend Stephanie from England) with a lady who runs a children's library, so every Wednesday we take 7-8 of the kids on a bus to the library and they get to pore through a whole bunch of books in this tiny library and they love it!
James has been doing an amazing job managing the program since Shawna left to go travel before returning to Belgium. He's great at organizing and leading and entertaining the volunteers. The two of them make an awesome team heading up this program and they are fun roomies too.
I also bought a box of those mosaic tiles for the classroom... different little shapes that you have to use to form pictures. They like those too :).
So on the Lares trek... I can't believe I didn't write about that... Ruben and I just did that one solo. He carried our tent and sleeping bags, I just carried my backpack... what a nice guy, eh? It starts out at some beautiful hot springs, then you trek through the mountains to a town in the clouds called Huacahuasi (town or house of cows in Quechua). The boys of the town were in the school yard wearing their traditional dress of colorful ponchos and hats with ribbons hanging off of them, hunched over little circles drawn in the dirt, playing marbles. We walked through to watch and one of them invited us to camp in his yard and use their house to cook. He wanted 1 nuevo sol for us to camp at his house; that's 38 cents. They live in a stone house with Andean grass for a roof. The stove is a three burner iron (or some other material) thing on the ground that you burn llama poop in for fire because there are no trees at that high elevation. The mom was going out to the mountains to care for their llamas for the night, but Edgar and his two small cousins were there for the evening. We decided to cook dinner for the boys and make arroz con leche for desert later. So we sat with Edgar (11 years old) and chatted in Spanish (they learn it in school) while his two younger cousins chatted and giggled in Quechua (they haven't learned Spanish yet) until we looked their way and they would start and be very quiet until they felt they weren't noticed again. Later Freddy, one of the small boys, pulled out a couple of thin books from the other side of the room. They were Edgar's books he'd bought from the school, fables in Quechua with lots of colorful pictures. Freddy pored through the pages, looking at the pictures because he can't yet read, then looked again from the back cover to the front. We were talking to Edgar and Ruben was encouraging him to keep inviting the guides/tourists to camp at their house and use that as a way to support his family. He was such a beautiful boy, so friendly and open. We ended up buying some food to leave with them from the tiny tienda run by a 7 year old, and I cooked them breakfast in the morning before we sat and ate our breakfast with an 83ish year old man who came to visit their neighbor. He was also very gracious and friendly. I was so impressed with the people there. We told Edgar we'd come back around November, so I've been on the hunt for books in Quechua to bring to him and Freddy. It's surprisingly a difficult task to find children's books in Quechua in Cusco.
Then there was the Choquequirao trek. We bought some camping equipment in preparation for Ruben to start his own trekking agency... the website is almost ready... and decided to take it with us to try it out. My roomies Brenna and James came with us, which made it really fun. I have to say, this was the hardest trek yet, by far. It's about 42 miles out and back and a 4500 elevation gain in one day. Oh, and it's also HOT. The bridge was out, so we got to ride across the Apurimac river in a basket. The site was amazing. It's much bigger than Machu Picchu, and only 30 percent excavated. Pretty amazing. Ruben and I heard a huge rush of wind type noise when we had stopped to put on sunscreen and saw three condors flying in formation through the canyon. It was awesome. The crap part is that once you're done in Choquequirao, you have to retrace your steps, and you've already seen the horrors that lie ahead of you, heh heh. It was so hot when we were climbing back up the other side of the river to our camp, that the hot water we took out of our backpacks felt icy on my head when Ruben was pouring it over me trying to cool me down. We ran out of water about 15 minutes from the camp, so when we got there, we put our heads under the sink and just sat there with water running down our faces. The views were just incredible. I'm going to put the pictures to some music and I'll post them.
So we got a few new kids because we've lost some of the originals due to different reasons... Mario is our oldest kid. He's very enthusiastic and very polite (most of the time). He shakes the profe's hands before going home and gives some of us hugs and kisses. I'm the profe for his homework group, so I get to talk to him more. He's really pleasant. I'm trying to get him to help me with my Quechua, but I think he's embarrassed that he knows it and pretends that he doesn't. His younger brother, Alberto, is suuuper shy. He typically watched the other kids, while clutching this three headed dragon toy and looking around with a little furrowed brow. He's a sweet boy. Sadly, I was told by my roomies that they saw him digging in the trash on the last Friday outing, only to find out he was looking for food because they only eat once a day at their house. We decided at that point that we need to make sandwiches to send with them on Fridays since we don't make dinner that day. It breaks your heart to know just a bit of what this sweet kids are going through on a daily basis.
We also have Julio, who is always eager to help out with whatever you may be doing and is really smart at math and pretty much everything else he tries. We have Helen, our oldest girl, who seems very wary to get to know us, but opens up a tiny bit once in a while with a beautiful smile. I believe Roly is her little brother, another boy on the quiet side, who seems eager to learn and was eating up our review of the food pyramid. We also have a little one called Adrian who is clearly babied at home and is learning not to whine like a two year old, because the profes don't listen to that, but put him in front of a camera and he becomes a really cute little guy posing in all kinds of ridiculous ways that remind you he can be pretty cute.
I was pretty sad not to be around for my cousin Hill's wedding to the amazing Jono, but I am excited that they are starting their life together and can't wait to congratulate them in person in December.
I'm still confident that this is where I was/am supposed to be this year and feel really blessed to have this opportunity. Hope everyone is doing well!
Besos! Kelly
Brenna is a teacher back in Australia, so she's been making our program much more organized and thinks up really fun activities for the kids. I gave her $50 of your donation money and $50 from my grandma to buy books for the classroom. She's really awesome about making reading a priority and bought a whole bunch of beautiful books so the kids are really excited to read. She also got in contact (I think with the help of our awesome friend Stephanie from England) with a lady who runs a children's library, so every Wednesday we take 7-8 of the kids on a bus to the library and they get to pore through a whole bunch of books in this tiny library and they love it!
James has been doing an amazing job managing the program since Shawna left to go travel before returning to Belgium. He's great at organizing and leading and entertaining the volunteers. The two of them make an awesome team heading up this program and they are fun roomies too.
I also bought a box of those mosaic tiles for the classroom... different little shapes that you have to use to form pictures. They like those too :).
So on the Lares trek... I can't believe I didn't write about that... Ruben and I just did that one solo. He carried our tent and sleeping bags, I just carried my backpack... what a nice guy, eh? It starts out at some beautiful hot springs, then you trek through the mountains to a town in the clouds called Huacahuasi (town or house of cows in Quechua). The boys of the town were in the school yard wearing their traditional dress of colorful ponchos and hats with ribbons hanging off of them, hunched over little circles drawn in the dirt, playing marbles. We walked through to watch and one of them invited us to camp in his yard and use their house to cook. He wanted 1 nuevo sol for us to camp at his house; that's 38 cents. They live in a stone house with Andean grass for a roof. The stove is a three burner iron (or some other material) thing on the ground that you burn llama poop in for fire because there are no trees at that high elevation. The mom was going out to the mountains to care for their llamas for the night, but Edgar and his two small cousins were there for the evening. We decided to cook dinner for the boys and make arroz con leche for desert later. So we sat with Edgar (11 years old) and chatted in Spanish (they learn it in school) while his two younger cousins chatted and giggled in Quechua (they haven't learned Spanish yet) until we looked their way and they would start and be very quiet until they felt they weren't noticed again. Later Freddy, one of the small boys, pulled out a couple of thin books from the other side of the room. They were Edgar's books he'd bought from the school, fables in Quechua with lots of colorful pictures. Freddy pored through the pages, looking at the pictures because he can't yet read, then looked again from the back cover to the front. We were talking to Edgar and Ruben was encouraging him to keep inviting the guides/tourists to camp at their house and use that as a way to support his family. He was such a beautiful boy, so friendly and open. We ended up buying some food to leave with them from the tiny tienda run by a 7 year old, and I cooked them breakfast in the morning before we sat and ate our breakfast with an 83ish year old man who came to visit their neighbor. He was also very gracious and friendly. I was so impressed with the people there. We told Edgar we'd come back around November, so I've been on the hunt for books in Quechua to bring to him and Freddy. It's surprisingly a difficult task to find children's books in Quechua in Cusco.
Then there was the Choquequirao trek. We bought some camping equipment in preparation for Ruben to start his own trekking agency... the website is almost ready... and decided to take it with us to try it out. My roomies Brenna and James came with us, which made it really fun. I have to say, this was the hardest trek yet, by far. It's about 42 miles out and back and a 4500 elevation gain in one day. Oh, and it's also HOT. The bridge was out, so we got to ride across the Apurimac river in a basket. The site was amazing. It's much bigger than Machu Picchu, and only 30 percent excavated. Pretty amazing. Ruben and I heard a huge rush of wind type noise when we had stopped to put on sunscreen and saw three condors flying in formation through the canyon. It was awesome. The crap part is that once you're done in Choquequirao, you have to retrace your steps, and you've already seen the horrors that lie ahead of you, heh heh. It was so hot when we were climbing back up the other side of the river to our camp, that the hot water we took out of our backpacks felt icy on my head when Ruben was pouring it over me trying to cool me down. We ran out of water about 15 minutes from the camp, so when we got there, we put our heads under the sink and just sat there with water running down our faces. The views were just incredible. I'm going to put the pictures to some music and I'll post them.
So we got a few new kids because we've lost some of the originals due to different reasons... Mario is our oldest kid. He's very enthusiastic and very polite (most of the time). He shakes the profe's hands before going home and gives some of us hugs and kisses. I'm the profe for his homework group, so I get to talk to him more. He's really pleasant. I'm trying to get him to help me with my Quechua, but I think he's embarrassed that he knows it and pretends that he doesn't. His younger brother, Alberto, is suuuper shy. He typically watched the other kids, while clutching this three headed dragon toy and looking around with a little furrowed brow. He's a sweet boy. Sadly, I was told by my roomies that they saw him digging in the trash on the last Friday outing, only to find out he was looking for food because they only eat once a day at their house. We decided at that point that we need to make sandwiches to send with them on Fridays since we don't make dinner that day. It breaks your heart to know just a bit of what this sweet kids are going through on a daily basis.
We also have Julio, who is always eager to help out with whatever you may be doing and is really smart at math and pretty much everything else he tries. We have Helen, our oldest girl, who seems very wary to get to know us, but opens up a tiny bit once in a while with a beautiful smile. I believe Roly is her little brother, another boy on the quiet side, who seems eager to learn and was eating up our review of the food pyramid. We also have a little one called Adrian who is clearly babied at home and is learning not to whine like a two year old, because the profes don't listen to that, but put him in front of a camera and he becomes a really cute little guy posing in all kinds of ridiculous ways that remind you he can be pretty cute.
I was pretty sad not to be around for my cousin Hill's wedding to the amazing Jono, but I am excited that they are starting their life together and can't wait to congratulate them in person in December.
I'm still confident that this is where I was/am supposed to be this year and feel really blessed to have this opportunity. Hope everyone is doing well!
Besos! Kelly
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Salkantay Part 3
This last part shows our arrival in Aguas Calientes. In true Peruvian fashion, there was a parade to meet us as we came into town. Ruben and I planned to hike another mountain overlooking Machu Picchu called Putukusi. It started out really fabulously. The secret stairs to the right of the train tracks were mysterious and alluring. The path was gorgeous and different from what we'd been hiking for the last four days. We even had a dog that decided to hike along with us (we had two but one left after we met the first obstacle). Unfortunately this hike has a lot of straight up faces of the mountain/rock that require ladders to ascend, and the rains destroyed the ladders. We climbed around the first broken one and Ruben climbed pretty high on the second set, but we decided even if we could get up, it would be pretty dangerous to come back down since the rocks are covered in slippery moss. We'll have to go back another time when the ladders have been rebuilt.
Salkantay Part 2
After we reached the Salkantay Pass, we hiked downhill for the rest of the day to reach the bottom of the valley where our camp, Chullay is located. It rained all afternoon, so we were walking in streams and mud for hours. We got to skip the hardest part of the rain sitting in a tiny room, drinking hot cafe con leche and eating fresh guacamole, since Ruben talked to a lady who owns a tiny store out there in the midst of those amazing landscapes. Toward the end of the day, we practically had to run to make it to camp before it was pitch black. The moon wasn't shining very bright that night and we didn't have our flashlights with us. It was an adventure. The next day we were rewarded with sunshine and a beautiful walk in the jungle, as well as a fun ride in the back of a truck with a bunch of Peruvians, bags and luggage, and a baby cow. We camped in Santa Teresa where it's nice and warm (jungle) and you can see all kinds of things growing like coffee, bananas, and passion fruit (tastey!).
Salkantay Part 1
Hey! Last
week I did the Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu (we skipped the Machu Picchu
part) with three of my friends from volunteering and my boyfriend Ruben as our
guide. It was an awesome hike packed with insanely amazing landscapes,
some freezing rain in the highlands, and some gorgeous hot weather in the
jungle. The video was pretty long, so I had to split it into three parts to upload. My parents might be the only
people who actually finish watching it, but enjoy as much as you please!
Waaw is still
going really well. Our core team from the past couple of months is
starting to break up as people go home or continue on their travels through
South America, but we have a steady flow of great new people coming in as well,
so the program should continue to function well. Our Friday afternoon
trips with the kids that have earned enough stars during the week for good
behavior have been going well. We took them to the Wanchaq market one day
and let them pick out stuff to buy that would fit in each section of the food
pyramid (we are studying nutrition in our activity time). They loved
having the chance to pick out the stuff and ask how much it cost, then pay for
it with the money we gave them. As we split into groups of six kids with
two volunteers, my Belgian volunteer partner Eddy and I were asked by several
of the women working in the market how many children we have. Another
week we took them to the small town of Orepesa, where all the bakeries are.
They got to make some bread and see how the process works. This week we
took them to a dairy farm where they screamed and laughed and stood in awe of
the cows, then tasted fresh milk that was still warm from the cow (they aren’t
that big into pasteurization here). Our
kiddos are as enthusiastic and fun as ever. I'll make a new video of them
soon when I get enough pictures.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Waaw Cooking Days 1-2
3/19/12
Ay ay ay. So my task this week for Waaw is to cook for our 28 kids along with Margaux from New York/Holland. We got together ideas for the four days this week that we need to cook and came up with spaghetti, chicken/veggie noodle soup, chicken adobo, and a Quechua meal that was prepared in Margaux’s homestay… I originally forgot that we don’t have to cook on Fridays so we also have chili as backup. I went out Sunday afternoon and comparison shopped in two local supermercados for ingredients.
This morning we went to the store, bought all our ingredients for today and tomorrow and were quite pleased with ourselves for being under budget. This afternoon we got to the project, and with the help of our fellow volunteers we washed and chopped red peppers, carrots, onion, garlic, and lots of tomatoes… we cooked up our onions and garlic in a little oil, added the veggies, cooked them down, and … here’s maybe where we went wrong… added ketchup in place of very pricey tomato paste. We figured it has a similar consistency with spices and sugar, so it should be fine. And if you ask our volunteers or Margaux or myself, the sauce was delicious… it boiled down to a great consistency with the ground round beef we cooked and added. We added it to the tallarin (pasta noodles) and served it up to the kids.
When they were served they all said, ooo que rico! (ooo delicious!), but after a few minutes we had a myriad of reactions… a few of the kids liked it, a few of the kids were super polite and tried to choke it down, others just were not liking it which showed on their faces. Haha. One of my favorite little kids, Victor, who is always quick to give you a strong hug that lingers a bit (he’s adorable) actually really liked it and said, “Que rico la comida!” as he passed by. Later one of the other volunteers came into the kitchen laughing that Victor was telling him very enthusiastically that THE PEPPERS ARE THE MOST DELICIOUS PART! I love Victor. As long as he was happy with dinner, I’m happy.
So now I’m really worried about tomorrow’s planned chicken adobo because it seems that the sauce was too sweet for their tastes… and this recipe is pretty sweet as far as meat goes (correction, it’s salty from the soy sauce, I was thinking of Korean BBQ). It’s hard enough trying to please little kids when you’re cooking… it’s even harder to please them when they are from a different culture, because like I said, all the volunteers liked it (and we are from Belgium, Holland, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S.).
Other than that, the program is going well. They selected 28 kids that need to be there the most due to family need after interviews with the parents on Friday. We only had 24 kids there today, so I’m not sure what happened with that… but they really seem to enjoy the activities and having help with their homework and are always very entertained by us, whether we are meaning to be funny or not. It’s a great program and a great group of volunteers right now… everyone gets along really well and is always willing to pick up a knife to chop veggies or come over to help with homework that another volunteer can’t figure out with our limited Spanish skills… I’m really happy to be a part of it. I just need to figure out how to feed Peruvian kids food they will like while hiding some veggies in their dinner :).
3/20/12
So today we cooked chicken adobo that my dad makes at home. This version is Filipino food… one of my favorites along with poncit. It required a lot less chopping than yesterday since we only needed garlic, onion and green onion in addition to the soy sauce and white vinegar. It’s super easy to cook since you just chop, throw everything in a pot, and let it cook down into delicious chicken and sauce for your rice. We used the excess chopped tomatoes from yesterday, added chopped cucumber and lime juice and salt, and we had a cool veggie (fruit?) salad for a side to counter the salty chicken. We also learned from yesterday that the kids are accustomed to the typical Peruvian custom of having a mate (tea that’s not just black tea) with their dinner, so I picked up manzanilla (chamomile) from the store this morning…
Everything was going so smoothly until our gas tank ran out… meaning we had no way to finish cooking the chicken, start cooking the rice, or boil the water for tea with only an hour until we serve dinner. So we quickly looked to the family that lives there for help… after a little confusion about how much gas we had (little versus none) we got a new full gas tank from a dude who brings it on a motorcycle and were back in business. Once again the volunteers were coming into the kitchen saying, “Wow it smells great!” which gave me no confidence because we all agreed yesterday that the pasta sauce was great… we started dishing out the food and soon heard the kids coming back from the park and clambering in to wash their hands. We dished out plates with minimal salad, rice, and chicken, because they are required to finish their food and yesterday some of them were pretty miserable. A few minutes later as I was still filling plates in the kitchen, I heard Stejn ask the kids if they liked the food and a resounding “SI!!” came from the room. I was soooo excited. (After yesterday I lost a little confidence in my cooking even though Ruben and my hostel family always seem to enjoy what I cook for them.) A little while later we had the kids coming back for seconds and even thirds… Seems we found a winner of a dinner recipe that we can use again! Thanks dad!
Also, we got a really sweet note from one of our girls, telling us that she loves us and thanking all of us for teaching her beautiful things. We tend to get little notes or flowers or hugs every day… and it never gets old. :)
And now some pictures, because things are always better with pictures and because you should see how cute our kids are.
Stejn and Shana teaching the kids about gallos y gallinas (roosters and chickens)
Trent and Maria helping with some puzzles
Georgia and Zack making words with the kids with scrabble tiles
Margaux and I having fun on kitchen duty… we eat a lot of chocolate from the tienda across the street to get us through, thus the happy faces
This little girl’s face says it all as she’s trying to figure out how she’s going to choke down this strange food… (spaghetti with sauce sweeter than they are used to)
Much happier campers today
Our precious letter of thanks today
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