Cusco, teaching and the Earth Dance Music Festival

COUNTRY: Peru
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Teaching & Building
WRITTEN BY: Ollie Lotz

You know those moments when you simply have nothing to say? Yeah, this isn´t one of them. I can´t say it´s been an earth-shattering fortnight, even we´re not perfect all the time, but we have continued with the sorts of experiences related in my previous thesis, and chucked in a bit of immaturity to spice things up.

Teaching has started to become more natural. There´s a surprisingly small transition between the roles of teacher and student. It is, however, odd to be on the other side of the looking glass, and to watch yourself uttering phrases that you used to hate just like the real teachers used to. Are we falling to the ´Dark Side,´ or worse, were they right all along?


We have also encountered one of the hardest parts of teaching, children´s individuality. It´s undeniable that some kids are just better at everythng you set them, sometimes twice as fast, leaving the others feeling inadequate or simply making it difficult to keep the class cohesive. Even worse, in my class it tends to be the girls. Savour that admission, it wasn´t given lightly.

Still worse, there´s that token kid who just can´t keep up. He´s not rebellious, artistically independent or anything, it´s just that he doesn´t seem to understand what we consider obvious. He also tends to be the one that speaks Spanish with a generous hint of Quechua.

Across the school, there seems a strange obsession with soccer that is consistent with the adults we´ve encountered so far. Maybe it´s because of the relative lack of diversity in sports they seem to have, and the simple requirements of soccer.

What have we been doing with them? English has been mostly ´vocab´ lists taught with as much play as possible. So, colours, animals, body parts...Art involves a lot of drawing, colouring in photocopied pictures, cut out snakes and my favourite, tracing their bodies on large sheets of paper so they may draw what they want to be when they grow up. I never knew they wanted to be so colourful. Apart from a lot of body parts that deserve medical attention we had ´medicas,´ ´ingenieros,´ some colourful unknowns and soldiers with the always popular sword and pistol combo. Sport has been a lot of soccer, a bit of volleyball, though more truthfully the easier version, Nuke ´em Ball, and all the childhood games we´d forgotten we loved. Stuck in the Mud, Bullrush, Tip, the Hokey pokey, Fruit Salad, Bang, Teepeas and Indians...

We are getting the hang of construction, which for some means being conveniently absent. Mud was brought into the picture this fortnight as mortar between the mud bricks and projectiles. In our defence, maturity is a vague concept when you´re faced with a hot day, a river to wash in, and a few metres squared of deliciously guppy mud you´ve been tredding through like grapes. Some like it dirty...

Now for the formalities. The ´clinic count´ has cracked the quarter-group mark, with Naomi giving it a try and Ella jumping head-first into a shopping list of scientific terms translated as ´I´d better stay near the bathroom.´ Rachel went for a double dip in circumstances best left to memory. Myles requested that I share his brief episode as `Poo girl 4.0` after an awkward case of the drips at school. Let`s just say he`s not alone. We`re all playing jump-rope with health at the moment to some extent. An example is the awkward moment when you`re not sure if the egg burps you`re tasting are from breakfast or giardia. In no way related, Jane strode into our lives this fortnight and added that Australian touch the local administration was lacking. Arlich, don`t worry, we´re not trying to replace you. This means we can begin house-visits and see how the fundraising money is being spent.

Tourism has taken a bit of a slide recently, with only the Qorikancha and Chocolate museums to notch the belt with. But wait, I can explain! We´ve just been working really hard, and, and , and I´ll be honest. You can blame it on the boogy. The ribbon for Anna´s birthday festival was cut with a fruit, ice cream, chips, guacamole (well done Henry), and cake party.

Jasper`s birthday was on Monday, but required attention on sunday night too, as technically it was the 24th where it counts. What can I say about those nights? Hmm, we found a new quirky bar which seems to have live music all the time and delicious cocktails. The interior decoration ranges through colourfully abstract faces painted on the walls to artistically bare ladies behind the DJ`s booth, to pictures of angels in gas masks. As you do.

It also happens to be next to a 3.50 sol burger place that never seems to close. We also had a house party of sorts on Monday with some classic grooves and essential snacks. Oh and a tad of worship is called for because the cake selection was sensational. Ruby and Julz whipped up a chocolate, cream and strawberry cake as well as a carrot, banana, cream cheese and pecan cake, while Claudia and the gang attempted a giant brownie in an honorary J. With treats like those six birthdays just isn`t enough.

The last piece of the partying puzzle to report was our jaunt to Urubamba for the Earthdance music festival last weekend. We hired tents and a stove, which were a bit leaky, moldy, and structurally vulnerable to wind, but not too bad. Some people were even loaded with enough food for the whole weekend. It was unnecessary though. You could get pineapples for 2.50 in town, or 6 bread rolls for a sol, and similarly cheap prepared food if you so desired. The 5 kg of confetti however, went a long way towards Henry`s dream of a soft colourful mattress...over everything. The atmosphere was about as close to hippy as we expected, but the music was, to be diplomatic, repetitive, and almost nonstop for three days. Clauds and co did a fantastic job on `glittering-up` half the group before the rain washed it off that night.

So what more can I bore you with? The decision to continue Spanish lessons loomed once more, with about half swapping to private lessons to be conducted in town. The price difference is only 10 soles.

Claudia, Julz, and Holly would appreciate a minute`s silence for the dog they ran over in a taxi last Sunday, and maybe for Julz to stop laughing.

We´ve also started to develop culinary habits in town, having become regulars at Jack`s cafe, and Prasada. The latter is a vegetarian restaurant and booth that serves food so good I might wake up converted some time soon. They also happen to be of the Hari krishna persuasion, which means that they offer up the food to God before serving you. I consider this a cop-2out, but am happy to take the karma bonus points it supposedly brings.

Finally, our fun facts of the fortnight. A dying Peruvian Catholic belief was that during Easter, before his resurrection on Sunday, Jesus doesn`t see your sins. This means you have free reign to gluttony, adultery and other excess, as long as you pretend it never happened after. Tempted?


We`ve hit a sad realisation this week, that we are half way through our placement. As such, frenzied planning has begun for our remaining weekends, with almost half of us off to Lake titicaca on friday. Until next time...