After the hike on Saturday we were all shattered so spent Sunday doing very little, we visited the local Peruvian Market which stretches for around 13 blocks and sells EVERYTHING you can think of. In the evening we went out for a meal and back to the casa de volantario to watch a film.
Today I started work again first of all on the project we are working on which will be the new after school project building. The building is very old and needs a lot of work to make it ready. I spent the morning outside in the sun sanding the front of the building to make it ready for painting. The building materials here never seem to be made for the long term so the paint was like chalk and a lot of the plaster on the Walls just crumbled off but we got a lot done, but made an epic mess doing so, not such a good idea when our shower isn't working!
This afternoon I went to work with the kids in the existing after school club. After a couple of shy 'holas' and 'buenos dias' the kids quickly became very outgoing and excited someone new was there. This project aims to help kids with their homework when they have nowhere to go for help and then provide time for them to play and interact with eachother. One kid around 5 or 6, Frank, quickly found out that I make an ideal climbing frame therefore whenever I wasn't prepared he would be standing on the desk or chair and would launch himself on to me! I thought maybe traumatising him a bit by spinning him upside down would put him off but no, it made him more keen, and attracted his friend!
Trying to get them to do something educational we played a came with cards where you had a 2 cards with the same picture of fruits on but one would be English and one en espanol. Frank learnt to say tomato in English which although a little useless was a success. While helping Frank with this I glanced over to see his friend with about 3 cards in his mouth...I don't think he got the concept of the game!
Today is one of the volunteers birthdays and as he lives with a local family his mama very kindly invited us all round for a birthday celebration! The peruvians are very accommodating and they went out their way to make us feel welcome and as part of their family!
From now on it seems like we will be working hard to get the new project working but will be good to see the progress over the time that I'm here!