El diario - Arequipa y San Isidro

There will be more pictures on Monday or Tuesday. I'm going to the beach with the other 20 volunteers for the entire weekend, so I wanted to post something before then.

Basically, as it is summer in Peru, the kids are out of school. Intiwawa is working hard to make sure that the children of San Isidro still have something to do and are still learning - even while they are on vacation.

My daily schedule is to wake up at 6:45am, get ready, and start walking by 7:20am towards a meeting place where all the volunteers meet every morning. From there we walk towards the bus stop (another 10 minutes). Along the way, I can pick up some fresh fruit and warm bread for breakfast. Then we hop on a bus that becomes more full than a subway in New York during rush hour. This ride is about 50 minutes, and by about 8:50 we arrive in San Isidro and the temperature by then is about 70 degrees.

Classes at the school are different every day. Mostly there are academics such as math, English, geography, psychology, history, and science. And then there is also art, music, and "deportes" or gym. These are not all taught every day. The school goes from 9am-1pm. The children - ranging from 6 years to 15 years - are divided in to groups and do a different combination of the 4 classes that are offered every day. Lunch is also served and there is about ten minutes set aside for the children to wash themselves and brush their teeth - simple things that are unfortunately not available in San Isidro.

Then, at 1pm, we hop on a bus and go back to our hostels, houses, or apartments. Usually, by then, we are all exhausted from a combination of the children and the heat. So it's nap time. A lot of times we get together in one apartment for dinner and eat together - usually a German dish since nearly 90% of the volunteers are German.

At night time, there is a lively scene in Arequipa. If we don't go out to the clubs, we watch a DVD in an apartment (usually in Spanish, the only language that everyone has in common). A lot of times, I go back to my apartment early to wind down and read for a couple of hours.

One of the activities that we did this week is a Brazilian dance/martial art known as "Capoeira". It is about two hours long and requires incredible upper and lower body strength, but it's a great time. Here's a couple of photos from our session:




Ciao!