Trabajar Voluntario

Hola a todos!

So this is week two of being here... I think I´m pretty much used to the altitude by now, except when I´m walking a couple of miles uphill.  I think I´ve dropped a few pounds just from getting around... not too shabby.  I´m still not used to the intense climate changes... it´s freezing in the morning, can get very sunny and burn you to a crisp if you´re not wearing SPF 90, then the clouds roll in and it´s starts pouring rain within 5 minutes.  Haha.  It´s an adventure in itself.  I´m also still not used to the GIANT spiders I keep finding in my room and freezing cold showers :).

So I wanted to update ya´ll on my search for a place to volunteer (and also a place to live).  I went up to this place called Niños Hotel today.  It´s one of the many orgs in Cusco that has a business to fund a program for kiddos before and after school.  They have two hotels that are on busy (too many taxis = hard to breath) streets, but are gorgeous on the inside.  They also have fairly cheap apartments which I wanted to check out because I only have next month covered in my homestay and I´m here until July.  The apartments are above the area with the kids, so I got to see them when I went to check it out.  Turns out they don´t take volunteers because they employ Peruanos to run the hotels and work with the kids.  That´s actually great, because then they don´t have the constant flux of workers with volunteers coming and going, so while I was disappointed, I´m happy for them.  The apartments were pretty nice, but they don´t have a fridge and the shared bathroom looked pretty creechy, so I told them I have other places to look.

Then I climbed a mountain, okay an extremely large hill, to get to South America Explorers which is a club for people travelling around.  You have to pay to be a member, but they have all kinds of resources on volunteering, apartments, jobs, etc.  It´s an interesting idea.  If I can find someone else to sign up at the same time, I´ll think about it, because it´s way cheaper, but for now I´m going to keep looking and talking to the head of Fairplay.

Then I went to the cafe for Yanapay, which is a really cool looking community center for kids in Cusco.  Their restuarant funds their center and the food was really good.  I asked the girls working there if Yanapay needs voluntarios and they said yes and gave me a map.  I´m going to go check that out tomorrow!

Tonight we have a cooking class at Fairplay.  Usually they teach you how to cook typical comida Peruana, but today I think we´re making pasta with pesto.  JAJA.  Benissimo! 

Well, I´ll let you all know how the Yanapay thing goes.  Hasta luego!

AY!  I forgot to say on my way home I was buying chicha morada candies to break a bill into smaller change for taxis, when I noticed that the girl at the counter was working on something.  I asked her, tarea (homework)? She was working on English!  So smiled and pointed at my workbook and told her I was working on Spanish.  We laughed and had a nice conversation (with my limited spanish).  I´ll have to go back to see how it´s going for her.