More Volunteering in Huancayo

It´s been a bit since we´ve written. Although we haven´t been traveling the continent, we continue to have some really great experiences here in Huancayo. So great, in fact, that we´ve decided to fore-go our trip to Brazil (we even had our visas already!) and stay for the month of March as well. Through the end of February, our time was spent working or preparing to work with the guys at Inabif and the girls at Fransica Mayer, in addition to having Spanish lessons daily. Now in March, we are going to focus our volunteer work on literacy initiatives with the girls at Francisca Mayer.


Our Daily Schedule

Jeremy has Spanish class from 8:00 to 10:00 so he is up early. Sarah has Spanish at the same time in a different location on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Through the month of February, we headed over to Inabif to work with the guys at 10:00. We worked with them on some hygiene instruction, greetings, and basic literacy. Since March began, we´ve been running errands in the morning. Noon is lunchtime, so we´ve been heading home to eat and to finish preparing for our second volunteer placement in the afternoon. We catch a combi at 1:30 so that we can be at Francisca Mayer for 2:00. We were starting at 3:00, but have since added an hour so that we can spend more time teaching there. And sometimes Jeremy is there at 1:30 to help the older girls with their homework. We´re usually there until about 5:30pm and then walk back home so Sarah can make it to her other Spanish classes from 6:00-7:00. After Sarah´s Spanish class, it´s time for dinner. Then we plan for the next day, relax a bit, and head to bed. As you can tell, each day is quite full!


Highlights at Inabif

Some of the recent highlights at Inabif included making paper wind socks in an art class with the boys, having a party for the day of friendship with dancing and snacks, playing soccer and other games, and doing some planting together in their garden. These guys are lots of fun to hang out with as well!

Hanging Out with the Boys at Inabif


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Planting at Inabif

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Group Photo on Our Last Day with the Boys!

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Highlights at Francisca Mayer

Sarah has been working with two girls one-on-one to help them to develop basic literacy skills. She´s been able to put her special education skills to use! After administering an assessment of basic reading skills for each girl, she got to work. One of the girls (Rosa Luz) has made a great deal of progress after only 2 weeks. 2 weeks ago, she only knew how to name and write a few of the vowels. Now, she is reading sentences that use up to 12 different letters! The other girl (Karla) is not quite as motivated to learn, so Sarah is working on different ways to include her artistic interests to motivate her. So far, they´ve used modeling clay, letter and number stencils, and different colored markers. Next week, they´ll try some new things as well.

Jeremy has continued on teaching Spanish literacy to the more advanced students. He works with the secondary (high school)students from 2:00 until almost 3:00 and then he works with the younger (middle school) students from 3:00 to 4:00. He is helping the girls develop their reading comprehension skills. They´re reading a book that Jeremy had bought for himself to improve his Spanish literacy and supplementing the book with other non-fiction reading materials he finds on the internet. They´ve also been doing alot of geography instruction lately.

Besides all the work we are doing with the girls, we have been spending a lot of quality time with them, from 4:00 til about 5:30. All the girls are really sweet and really enjoy the company. There are three little girls named Yoana, Yenni, Mariela, and Karla plus a little boy named Kelvin who require a lot of attention. Having two other adults around (especially ones that they aren´t with 24 hours a day) helps. We spend a lot of time holding them, spinning them around, dancing, putting together puzzles, etc. Up until the end of this week, a volunteer was working with the girls doing a lot of different art projects while we taught the older girls. Hopefully a new volunteer can take on that role.

Jeremy plays soccer and volleyball or whatever game that the older girls come up with. Sarah usually joins the games for a bit, but ends up spending the last part of the day playing mostly with the younger girls. We´re both pretty tired by the time we leave, but we´re loving it just as much as the girls.

This month, we had a few parties at Francisca Mayer as well. In addition to the Day of Friendship celebrated on February 14th, two of the girls had birthdays. We bought cake, candles, and soda for each party because, unfortunately, the orphanage can´t afford things like that for the celebrations. Maria turned 12, and Elizabeth turned 15.

Carnival was also this month which means we also got wet quite a bit. Sarah got hit more than a couple of times by water balloons boys threw at her in the street. The tradition is to get the opposite sex wet by whatever means. One woman in our volunteer group got drenched by a boy with a bucket of water. Actually, it was an accident because she ran into the boy carrying the water while running away from a group of boys shooting water guns at her. Jeremy got his turn at being wet when the girls at Fransica Mayer had a carnival party. He managed to recruit some girls to be on his team so it wouldn´t be just him against 16 girls. That day everyone got really wet and it wasn´t just because it happened to be raining at the time.

Playing with the Girls at Francisca Mayer

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¨El Dia Del Amistad¨ at Francisca Mayer


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Elizabeth´s 15th Birthday!

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Huancavelica

The weekend of February 10-11, Jeremy and I took a train to Huancavelica, a remote town in the Central Highlands. We caught a six-thirty early morning express train from Huancayo. It was our first long-distance, train ride in Peru and we were happy for the change of transport. It was a really nice ride with really nice scenery of the surrounding mountain and farm area. Also, we got there in just over half the time it would´ve taken us had we taken the regular train.

Huancavelica was a nice place to get away for a weekend. The town, itself, is very simple, but nice. There are very few tourists who visit here mostly because of it´s remote location, but we really liked being in a small town again. We spent our time there, relaxing, putzing around, trying out some local dishes, and climbing up to a mirador overlooking the town with a great view of the surrounding mountains.


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Week Two in Huancayo

Our time in Huancayo is passing quickly. As usual, we´re keeping busy. We're volunteering at 2 orphanages, living with a host family, and taking Spanish classes (Sarah has been and Jeremy will start next week).

Some of the highlights of our week besides volunteering have been having the chance to watch the Super Bowl at our host family´s house, visiting the Sunday market, and eating with our host family for lunch almost every day. We also had a volunteer-made dinner of chicken fajitas. It feels really good to be in one place, building relationships again!

Inabif

Every morning, we walk over to Inabif, an all-boys orphanage to volunteer with the 7 guys with special needs there (Abel, Abran, Gabriel, Marco Antonio, Pepe, Sergio, and Victor). We spend our time helping them with greetings, early writing skills, hygiene education, and sportsmanship skills. In the following pictures, you´ll see many more boys than just the guys we work with. On these particular days, they were super excited to have their photos taken. One thing I noticed with a few of them is that, unlike in the States, they would STOP smiling as soon as the photo was taken (especially Abel). I think this is because in pictures here, it´s not as common to smile. All the guys are very sweet!


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Francisca Mayer

In the afternoons, we catch a combi (small bus) and walk a bit to Francisca Mayer, an all-girls orphanage. There, we teach reading comprension skills and a bit of direct instruction in reading with one girl who hasn´t yet learned to read. Everyday, we also spend some quality time with the girls, usually playing volleyball or soccer. Just like the guys, these girls were absolutely thrilled to have their pictures taken.

On Monday, we're going to have a bit of a Carnaval celebration with the girls. We've been told to bring an extra set of clothes because between the water balloons, buckets of water, and water guns that will be used, we are going to get soaked! Jeremy will be hit especially hard because the tradition is for girls to get the guys and guys to get the girls. Unfortunately for Jeremy, he´s the only guy and there are a whole lot of girls!


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This weekend we´re headed for Huancavelica, a remote town about 6 hours away by train, also in the highlands. And then on Monday, we begin another week volunteering at these orphanages!

First Week of Volunteering in Huancayo

We left Lima and headed to Huancayo by bus to start our one month volunteering experience there. It was a relatively short (7 hours) and comfortable bus ride because we upgraded. The food was relatively inedible so we unfortunately spent the ride hungry. The Disney movies didn´t help Jeremy's enjoyment of the trip either.

Here in Huancayo, we plan to stay for the month of February. We'll be volunteering, staying with a host family, and taking Spanish classes with an organization called Mosoq Ayllu while we´re here (see links at the right for more info).

We spent the first night in Huancayo in a hotel and the next day we were picked up and taken to our homestay. Our homestay family consists of Mosoq Ayllu´s program coordinator´s mother (Aurora), father (David), and brother (Albaro), as well as two other volunteer (Ceri from Hong Kong and Jenna from Australia). We eat breakfast together every morning and sometimes lunch too. They're all wonderful people and just by staying there, we're improving our Spanish skills! The house is within walking distance of the orphanages, internet, the center of town, and some decent restaurants too.

After meeting the family and getting settled in a bit, we were taken on a tour of some of the places volunteers work in. The first was Coto Coto, an orphanage for boys and girls of all ages. We briefly visited the infants and toddlers as well as the children up to age 7. Later we went to another volunteer location called La Ladrilleria. It is basically a brickmaking yard surrounding by the the workers´ dwellings. Mosoq Ayllu has built two buildings to work with the children who live there. It is a very poor area with no electricity and little running water.

The next morning we started our volunteer duties at Coto Coto. We were not permitted to work with the infants because of an illness going around, but we did get to work with the other group of slightly older children. By work, I mean basically spending time with the kids. There are close to 15 kids whom are taken care of by only one adult so they don't receive much individual attention. They are all in need of emotional and social support. At least three of the children have severe physical and mental disabilities. It's difficult to imagine how one person can possibly attend to even their most basic needs. We played with and held the children. It was a lot of fun, but also pretty demanding because the kids are so excited to have someone to be with.

After we finished our two hours there, we learned that the volunteer program at Coto Coto was going to be put on hold until the 15th of February. That would be more than half of our time that we had planned on being in Huancayo volunteering. It was very sad news especially given the fact that volunteers seem to fill many much needed voids at the orphanage. It was no fault of our volunteer agency. There seems to have been some bad blood with another volunteer organization that works there, but that had nothing to do with our program. The reasoning was not clear, but it basically came down to the whims of a new director. It's a shame that services had to be suspended in the meantime.

The following day, after rearranging our schedules, we went to a different orphanage called Inabif. It is a boys-only orphanage serving boys ages 7 and up. Because Sarah was interested in utilizing some of her newly learned special education skills, we began working with a group of six guys with mental disablities. We are working as a team with them. It's been challenging working with them, but fun too. We are working on greetings, hygiene, and sportsmanship and are trying to do a little bit of each every day.

In the afternoon, we started volunteering a girls' orphanage. We are working with 10-12 teenage girls to improve their reading skills. It seems a bit unusual that we are teaching reading in Spanish, especially given the limitations of our Spanish, but so far so good. Many of the girls actually seem to read fairly well. Our focus will be on improving reading motivation and comprehension skills. I'm sure that it will continue to be challenging, but that we'll find a way to do it. Right now, we are focusing on getting to know the girls' interests, making connections with them, and doing a bit of reading instruction. After our hour lesson on Thursday, we played volleyball. On Friday, we played soccer. It was a lot of fun. The girls are really pretty good and playing sports provides opportunities to bond with them.

So, things are starting out well here in Huancayo. As usual, we´re keeping busy, but we're also having a lot of fun! It feels good to be in one place for a bit. We'll try to include some photos in next week´s entry.