ONE MONTH!

Sarah and I at the Temple of the Moon

I’ve been back from the jungle about a week and a half and it’s been super busy! A lot has happened…. And as of today I’ve been here exactly one month! Crazy.

First, it’s gotten a lot more rainy. It rains every day, which also makes it very cold…not Michigan cold…but very cold J Thank God for rainboots.

On our way up to the Temple of the Moon

Second, last weekend I went on a four hour walk with some friends to see some more ruins. It was the one day this month it didn’t rain and was actually sunny!! It was beautiful. We all got fairly sunburnt but it was definitely worth it.

Third, I am now working in a daycare in a poor community in Cusco for kids ages 1-5. Their parents work in the markets during the day and pay about 5 soles per month for their kids to stay at the daycare. Five soles is about $2.00. The kids are SO cute and the staff are extremely grateful. The daycare is really small, but there are kids everywhere! And they all come up to about my knee :) There are two other guys volunteering there this week as well and we’ve had a lot of fun with the kids. Basically we just play with them and (try to) keep them from crying and fighting. I have done more puzzles the past couple of days than I ever have in my life! That’s pretty much the main activity they do there. Today, the two guys and I were cleaning up the room because the puzzle pieces were all over and a couple kids spilled their animal crackers and proceeded to step on them. We’ve done the puzzles so many times that we know exactly what pieces go with which puzzle, and which puzzles are missing pieces…we were walking around trying to distinguish between crackers and puzzle pieces making comments like “the fruit puzzle is missing the strawberry but we played with it earlier…” or “the number puzzle is missing a couple numbers…” The daycare workers want us to put the pieces back when it’s time to clean up because they often find stray pieces in the kids backpacks when it’s time for them to go home :)

Temple of the Moon

The kids were a little scared of us at first…The room is very small and I showed up with two tall American guys. But they have warmed up to us quite a bit. We get hit with wooden puzzles on a daily basis, screamed at and crawled all over. Shawn even has a little boy that calls him “papa”! For the last half hour, we danced to kids songs and when we left, the songs were stuck in our head for the half hour walk home.

Fourth, I’ve been taking some private Spanish lessons just to keep practicing. There’s also a program through my organization that sets you up with a student learning English so I meet with him once a day and talk in English for half hour and Spanish for half hour. He’s very nice and is studying English because he just got a job as a tour guide.

Fifth, next week I’m going with four other people I live with to volunteer with a family that lives on a farm in the outskirts of Cusco! Again, no electricity, outdoor showers, no big city…it’ll be interesting! We’ll be there from Monday to Friday…and when I get back, it’ll almost be March!! (and something exciting happens in March…..I’ll give you a hint….someone has a birthday……J )

I’m taking my camera to my placement tomorrow so I’ll upload more pictures very soon :)