Meeting my Spanish Family - Zoe's 2nd Update from Peru

And so it begins...

I brought with me a 32GB memory card for my camera. I don´t think it will last.The flight here is a distant memory and yet it feels like we´ve only been a couple of days in Peru.

Two weeks ago Peruvian families and gappies stood outside the Antipodeans office separated like the boys and girls at a junior school dance eagerly awaiting to be picked out of the crowd. After much nervous anticipation Anna (now to be known as Annita) and I, the last pair, were handed over to the loving hug of our Peruvian mother. She took us home, showed us our room and introduced us to our four new brothers and cousin. Coming from a primarily female family this was a shock, even more of a shock, however, was that none of them spoke a word of English!

We sat around the lunch table smiling sheepishly at each other and devouring a large chicken soup. As it turns out lunch is the main meal of the day in Peru and our new mother had assumed we eat the same amount as her 5 teenage boys. We struggled our way to the end and our plate was immediately replaced by a MAIN course of rice and chicken. A two course lunch! After this Annita and I had to retire to our room to unbutton our jeans and lie down for a while. We definitely won´t go hungry in this household!
Although the lack of English means that we always need a dictionary on hand it has also led to a rather entertaining series of games of charades. The other day we were ripping into skewers of rich red meat with rice when our mum pointed to the skewers and then made horns of her head saying ´vaca´ meaning cow. She then tapped her chest a few times saying ´tick, tick, tick – corazon´.

Mid-chew I realised I was crunching down on cow heart... and it was delicious! By the time we went to bed I worked out I had eaten a heart and a half that day.

Another time our mum asked (with her dictionary in hand) if we would like to go for a ´stroll´. We meandered downstairs to find out that this meant a family trip, with eight in the car (the older brothers in the boot) 45 minutes out of Cuzco to visit ruins, a small museum and climb an old aqueduct. It was quite an adventure, we spent the whole day laughing and looking like gringos with our cameras constantly flashing. I may be biased but I truly have the most amazing, caring and sweet family with a great pair of jokester older brothers.
After a day of settling in with the family it was time to meet the children that would be in our care for approximately three days a week for the next three months. We took a bus to the school and admired the previous group’s restaurant built from scratch. Led by teachers to the basketball court a few of us were put through a series of games like ´pin the tail on the donkey´ and ´find the shoes´ before we introduced ourselves to the children. Each class then presented their teachers with flowers, put confetti through their hair and held their arms wide for a hug. We knew that the next day these sweet little children could turn into anarchistic terrors but for the moment we were happy to imagine them as perfect angels. Since then teaching has been both stressful and invigorating. Izzy and I were blessed with the year threes, who are very inquisitive and really want to learn. Their teacher has been a great help keeping the quiet and making sure we have everything we need to make the class run smoothly. There is no greater a feeling than seeing the amazement on the kids faces when they realise the dot to dot they have been completing is a cat and watching them race to colour it in. We are teaching Computer, PE, English and art and so far every lesson has been an adventure.

Our group has fundraised and elected to build a stronger perimeter wall around the school and construct a greenhouse so that the kids can grow vegetables to eat and sell for money for rice and other necessities.

So far construction has been brilliant, many of us swinging pick-axes and sledgehammers with gusto.

After the first week we have knocked down around twenty meters of the existing wall, however when we arrived back on the Monday fifty local parents and friends of students had quite outdone our effort and annihilated the remaining wall! Currently we are cleaning the area and digging a trench in preparation for the foundations of the wall. Thankfully Alex lends us the use of her IPods and speakers for long days of construction and Katherine (self- appointed project manager and DJ) keeps us motivated with Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys and the old favourite Blink 182. We seem to be a novelty to the cars passing by who beep their horns and slow down to view us as if we were a flock of highly unusual birds building a nest.

It is still hard to get used to waking up, brushing your teeth and washing your clothes with a view of the majestic mountain just a few hundred meters away. Just yesterday I spent ten minutes hanging four pairs of socks on the washing line, although I did come back with some amazing photos!

Until next time, Zoe.