Catching onto the typical Peruvian timing, with a late blog post

COUNTRY: Peru
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Teaching & Building
WRITTEN BY: Hayley Yellowlees + Melanie Power

Less than a month left of our placement! Although we still have a lot planned. I am sure that I speak for all of us when I say that we are excited to continue travelling or go home when we finish in Cusco, though at the same time Cusco has become home in its own way and it will be sad to leave.

Progress at the school has been slow, though we can finally see the end of the exterior walls. After many, many, many... many weeks of sanding, chipping and hacking away the old paint and plaster, at last we have begun painting. The kids still greet us at the beginning of each day with lots of hugs and shouting which generally continues throughout the lessons since we haven't quite got the hang of discipline yet. Although the discipline side of things isn't fantastic, we can definitely notice some progress with learning, especially in English. One teacher told us that at home, her son has been running around their house naming the colours of things in English. The colours red, yellow and purple have become favourites in class.

Since the last blog post, we have gone on many adventures. Arequipa, Puerto Maldonado and the Amazon, a weekend at the Pisac markets, and a night at the Cusco Earthdance Festival in the Sacred Valley.

Our trip to the Amazon was difinitely a highlight. Although Puerto Maldonado itself is a town with not much to do, the jungle and rainforest around it is full of weird, wacky and way cool wildlife and adventure. Swimming with Piranhas, electric eels and parasite fish, canopy walks, seeing a sloth and giant river otters were some of the amazing things we did and saw during our trip. Our planned 5 days in the Amazon turned into 8 days because of a gold miners strike that prevented our overnight bus from returning to Cusco. Unfortunately we missed out on a whole week of school because of this, flying back to Cusco on Friday. All I can say is, thank goodness for Nico!

Our Spanish is coming along slowly but surely, although I definitely still struggle a lot.

Until next time!