La Vida es Bella

Some pics you've seen, some you haven't.  Check out Waaw and a little bit of Cusco.

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

Waaw!

SO, we started Waaw (formerly Wawawasi, but it means house of babies in Quechua and we take 6-11 years olds, so we needed to avoid confusion) this past Wednesday. It has been really crazy, loud, a bit chaotic at times, but really fun!
Monday and Tuesday we went to the local school and handed out fliers and jumping origami frogs to the parents and kids. My Belgian friends showed me how to make a new and improved jumping frog to the ones I make from post-its.
Wednesday afternoon was our first day of the program. We start at 2pm since the schools get out at 1pm. Our planned schedule is to have homework time from 2-3pm, activities at stations to learn and foster creativity (with different mediums like clay, drawing, acting things out, etc) from 3pm-4pm, sports and games in the park up the hill from 4pm-5pm, a nutritious dinner from 5pm-6pm, then we all go home. This week since we are just getting started, we have been doing homework, a snack, puzzles and games, sports, then going home. Homework is a challenge as many times we don’t understand what the homework is asking to begin with (we are all at different levels of learning Spanish), and then often they are doing things like Peruvian geography which we aren’t familiar with. I need to find an Atlas somewhere in town.
Our first day we had 21 kids come. Most of them left early because they were giving out free shoes in San Sebastian, so they definitely needed to take advantage of that. It rained that day, so we couldn’t take half of them to the park to play like we’d planned, which meant we had stir crazy kids making a LOT of noise in one tiny room. All of the volunteers were a little relieved that a bunch of kids left to go get shoes as we were a bit overwhelmed the first day, but overall it went very well and we were happy with the supplies we had and that all the kids seemed to enjoy it.
Yesterday was our second day and we had 43 kids. It was a bit crazy, but since it didn’t rain we were able to go to the park and they loved it! We played some crazy running around games and when we participated they were so excited. There’s one game where everyone sits in a circle. One person walks around the circle and stops between two people. Those two have to get up and run in opposite directions around the circle, and try to get back first to grab the flag. They think it’s hilarious when we are competing with them, so they chose me and a kid a few times. They call us “profe” short for profesora or professor, so when we play, they scream “Profe! Profe!” It’s pretty funny. I have to remember to wear clothes I can be fast in :D. Also, these kids are tough. There were a couple of times when they ran into each other or just lost control and fell on the concrete, but instead of crying like you’d expect they jump right back up laughing.
They have been loving the bananas and apples we’ve been giving them this week. Our goal is to provide nutritious meals every day because according to the research done for this program due to malnutrition, it’s very likely with a lot of these kids that their brains will not fully develop. Next week I get to cook for 28 kids, so if you have any ideas for nutritious meals that you can cook in a pot, please send them my way. So far all I have in mind is spaghetti with a veggie on the side for one day. They intend for us to cook chicken once a week and fish once a week. Other than that, suggestions? Please? 
You can see in some of the parents that are coming up to the door the intense need they have for this program. Moms that are working on the street selling random goods all day, that can’t give their kids the attention they need and can’t help with their homework because they can’t read themselves. This is going to be an awesome program. I just wish we were able to take as many kids as want to come, but we are limited for space, limited on volunteers, and limited in funds to support the program. We have to select 28 kids to stay in the program this weekend and I’m sure we’ll have more than 43 today as we had moms coming and asking yesterday if their kids can come. The selection process is going to be horrible and telling the parents and kids that we can’t take them is going to be worse. Please pray that we’ll have wisdom in selecting the kids that need this the most and can benefit from it the most.

 Margo (New York/Holland) and Stejn (Belgium) when we took the kids to the park yesterday.

The kiddos playing that game I described earlier.

Typing back on our little cloth bandanas that help us keep track of who needs to come back to the school with us.  Other neighborhood kids come over and want to play too while we're out.

The view from the park is not to shabby :)

Ohhhh before I forget... thank you so much to the people from work and family and friends who gave me money to spend on volunteer work down here... so far we've contributed to this program by buying paints, playdoh, two large plastic tubs for carrying toys to the park, facepaint and brushes, and velcro to use on the puppets for the puppet theater.  All that costed 106.80 soles, which is about $39.55, so we still have over $450 to donate when needs come up.  Believe me, these kids really appreciate everything that is given to them here. I've never seen kids so happy to play with puzzles and silly games.  Thank you so much for your help!!

Some Maps

I used google maps to show my mom where I'm living now and she thought it would be a good idea to post it here...  so if you're in Cusco, Peru in the next few months, look me up!

A Little Piece of Paradise... I mean Peru

Don't read too much into the song... I'm not trying to run away from you guys forever.  I just love Coldplay, and this song, and wanted you guys to get a peek at what I'm seeing down here.  The snowy picture is the Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu that I hope to do with Ruben in the fall.  Enjoy!

Wawawasi Progress...

Sorry it’s been a long time since I’ve updated… our progress in getting ready for Wawawasi has been slow!  We’ve been buying supplies, painting, buying more supplies, getting the wrong colors, getting stuck… but the room is almost completely painted…

Today after painting, we worked on puppets for the puppet theater.  We are making a variety of animals, a Peruvian boy and girl, and an Incan king and queen.

Saturday the teachers from FairPlay are going to come and clean and help get the room ready. 

Monday and Tuesday we will be doing “marketing” by walking the neighborhood and giving out information to the mamas and origami jumping frogs to the kids. 

Wednesday we are projected to start!  It’s going to be really fun and I’m sure very challenging, but we are all really excited to get started!

I also got an email from Yanapay saying that the first email was an error and they still need help, so it’s possible I will work with them later this year.  I would really like to work with them as well, since they seem to have an awesome program and they are also located much closer to where I live now, so I could walk up there.  ALSO, I think they would benefit from the money that you all donated much more than FairPlay since FairPlay does their fundraising in Belgium/Europe.  It’s hard to say though.  I’ll watch and see if there is a specific need we can fill at Wawawasi.

Here are some pictures of the art that was designed by Josie from Northern California of all places.  She’s an art student at a college in Oregon.

I moved from my homestay (which is a little silly because Wawawasi is in the same house) to a hostel near the mercado San Pedro.  It’s a covered market where you can buy everything from half a cow carcass to fresh mangos (my fav!).  It’s not quite as quiet here as Cari Grande, but I love being walking distance to the plaza and the market.  I also have a kitchen so I can cook and I’m paying about half as much as I was at the homestay.  The other residents of the hostel are really funny to live around.  The bulk of them right now are Argentinians that are in some kind of circus.  Others are musicians, so we constantly have some type of music playing… everything from an acoustic version of MGMT’s “Kids” to more Andean sounding music with flutes… it’s a happy place to live.  The owner is a really nice lady named Delsy.  Her husband and 16 year old also live here and her parents visit often.  She often gives me food when she makes lunch for the family like fried fish with giant corn and salad and when I cook French toast, crepes, or Korean bbq, I always share with the family.  The only thing I don’t like about this place is the freezing cold water when it’s already 45ish degrees every morning and night… and this is SUMMER.

In other frivolous news, I got a haircut near my hostel for 5 soles (that’s less than two bucks) and colored it (I have lots of grey hair) for 40 soles (less than 15 bucks).  Since we don’t have hot water in the hostel, having my hair washed in hot water felt like a little piece of heaven, haha. 

A blurry pic of my new look (it's just my old look refreshed):