Day 3 - My New Life

Wednesday July First

     It was hard to get up early today, but the salsa dancing last night was totally worth it! It was my first day volunteering at the Kindergarten. María in her constant kindness personally accompanied me all the way there, and explained everything about twenty times for when I had to go by myself.

      The Kindergarten. Busy, busy, busy, there are over two hundred kids under six in one building! It's tiring just watching all the activity! It's also a very catholic school and so the first thing they did when I got there was a religious service recognizing the virgin Carmen, whose statue was holding a baby, but that was never really explained...

The courtyard in the Kindergarten

And my classroom

The kids are learning the Thriller dance right now! So cute to see them all pretend to be zombies!

        I was also surprised by how modern it was, the kids have uniforms and school bags, every classroom has a microphone and speakers for the teacher to use, and they don't appear to be lacking anything supply wise. While all this is great for them, I'm honestly...disappointed, I had imagined that I would really be doing something to help others when volunteering, but in the Kindergarten I'm almost useless. The only thing I did all day that was actually needed was teach the kids how to count to five in English, but that was ten minutes of an otherwise long morning.

        At lunch time I returned home to another huge lunch, and found another volunteer in our house who had just returned from a trip to Lake Titicaca,

         Aton: Laid back, self sufficient, smart, and self motivated, the only thing is I always feel it's kind of hard to become close to people like this who don't need anything from anyone. He is also a medical student at university, which means that all the A Broader View Volunteers are medical students except me.

        Then I went with María to drop off Mckayla and Mary at the airport as it was their last day. They were both extremely sad to leave, and I wondered what I would feel in three weeks time. I also tried to withdraw some money from my credit card while we were there, but as usual with that sort of thing, it didn't work, and now I have a big problem. I think the farther away from home you are the more problems you will have.

Goodbye Marya and Mckayla!

       In the evening there was a large dinner at our house with all the volunteers from all over the city. 

       Jorge & Ana: A couple from Spain who are probably two of the most enthusiastic and personable people you'll ever meet.

         Eric & Sarah: Not a couple, but both from the U.S., they were both quieter people who seemed very smart.

         We all watched a soccer game, which is an awesome part of Peruvian culture, and then had a delicious dinner ! So although the day didn't start out so good the ending was nice.

Here are all the volunteers starting with the back row, Aton, Tommy, Eric, Jorge, German Caroline, Ana, Me, María, Sarah, U.S. Caroline, mother of the two girls Gabby and Ellie, one of the two girls, the other one, and their nanny who for actually accompanied them to volunteer.