June 27th and I go for a run

      Since the half marathon on the sixth of June I had not been for a run. This was strange to me as I had spent almost the entire months of April and May running every single day in preparation for the half marathon. The main reason is that Ayacucho isn't exactly the most inviting city to go running in. Between the thick smog that always blankets the houses, to the crazy streets, packed with cars and mottotaxis, and only sometimes having a sidewalk, to all the stray dogs and guard dogs that bark and chase you. But today Alison and I put all these fears aside and went for it.
      The 7:30 city was already bustling, the air was filled with the upturned dust from the half paved roads and smoke from the wood ovens that were making the morning's bread. The air was harsh on our lungs, and trying to catch our breath we ran down our road until we came to a bridge that carried the traffic over the trash filled river. Uziel had warned us that this bridge was a magnet for the homeless and drug addicted people who made their homes beneath it. We cautiously crossed but it wasn't people but guard dogs that jumped out and started chasing us up the road. The huge scary dogs were much faster than us and we ended up leaping across a huge ditch on one side of the road and clinging to the side of a rocky cliff for a few minutes until they finally lost interest. With all that adrenaline it was pretty easy to run the rest of the way up the steep hill and we ended up on a more populated road. The sidewalks were packed, and we had to weave in and out of people, goods, and live animals. The cat calling was particularly bad too in our running tights and shirts, and made us pretty uncomfortable, which I was annoyed at myself for feeling because that's what they wanted. After three accidental detours we eventually found the cobblestone road that lead back to our house and I was so happy to be home! Definitely more than we bargained for!

At work today in INABIF I was assigned the task of teaching Roberto to read. He is seven years old and I was shocked to find out that he didn't know how to read. When I inquired as to why, I learnt that he didn't go to school. Many kids bully him for this, teasing him, excluding him, and taking his things. A lot of the kids started telling me how lazy and bad he was for not going, and told me that he did have the option of attending a state sponsored school for street kids like him (he's also an orphan) but it's a tough, militaristic place that requires the children to give up all of their freedoms and become very disciplined and well behaved. For me it didn't seem as obvious that Roberto was a bad kid for not going, for someone who has only ever been able to do what he wants, to give up all of his freedom and suddenly live a life that's the complete opposite of everything he's known, especially when he doesn't have the help or guidance of parents seems very difficult. It's also hard because the older he becomes the more used to his life he is and the less he is likely to change. He already had no interest in learning to read or write and it was really hard to keep him focused. I can't help thinking that without education, opportunities in the future for this sweetest kid are dim.
   

                                                               Alison, Karen and me

The kids always want me to take their picture with Alison. This girl did an amazing french braid in Alison's hair.

       After we got off work, there was a guy waiting for us outside our workplace! It was Jose, the guy that we'd met three weeks ago when he stopped on his motorcycle to ask us if we were volunteers and how he could become a volunteer too. Apparently he'd spent the entire time in between trying to track us down which took both Alison and I aback. He had been to our house, and tried to get a job at INABIF all because he wanted to practice his English with us. Alison and I were reminded of our superstar status, everyone here wants to be friends with us, and we are constantly getting invited to people's houses or out for meals, but no one has gone to this length before just to contact us. It's a strange for me and Alison, we don't feel that we have as much to offer as people seem to think.

                           We met up with Uziel at his job in a local private school, and Jose came                                                 along too. Uziel was rehearsing the same play, street kids, but with older
                                                                               students.

 We went to get tea with Jose and found out that he will be going to 

Texas next year and is very nervous about his English. I thought he

was very good at English.

The main cathedral is beautiful at night!

       After all of that, we went back to Mono Sazon and helped the extended family shuck peas and then ate a small dinner of sausages and coffee with them before walking back to the house pretty late. On the way back we had a very interesting conversation with Katia and Uziel about the role of Catholicism in Peruvian culture and how it's relationship with the scientific community. Both Katia and Uziel were raised catholic, but Uziel has since stopped believing in God. He told me he's agnostic now, somewhere in the middle, some people are religious fanatics and others extreme scientists, and while both are very different both have very closed points of view. He thinks that both faith and science can be used to explain the world, and that it's better to have something to believe in rather than the terrifying unknown. I'm inclined to agree with him.