Arrival in South AmericaThis is a lot to chew through. I've copied the first two weeks of my journal type thing. Sorry for not summarising. 9/10 – Trujillo Day 1 It is a Friday. Travelled from Lima to Trujillo. The bus was actually really comfortable. I met a guy in the bus terminal before we left who spoke good English. We chatted for most of the bus ride. He told me a whole bunch about extorting businessman, dangerous parts of town and corruption/jealousy at his university. Arrived at Trujillo and was met by two people from the place I was staying. We got a cheap little cab to the house where I met all the people and ate some of the food. Earlier I met a lady on the plane from Madrid who was helpful in teaching me little bits and pieces of local lingo, most of which I forgot. 10/10 – Trujillo Day 2 It is a Saturday. Everything in the area I'm in is under development. Apparently it's dangerous here. Sounds shit. We have red vests which we wear when we're going to the part of town where the school is because it's a pretty rough place to be. They have “Hilo Rojo” on them which is the name of the school. It's better to be a volunteer gringo than a regular gringo. Crime sucks. I don't want to get my stuff stolen. Today we walked up the mountain. This consisted of catching a cheap bus in to the bad part of the 'burbs then meeting up with one of the boys who attends the school name Anthony, who was our guide for the morning. At some point we met up with his cousin Andreas, who had made the decision to go bare feet. Anthony was wearing nice leather shoes. The walk was pretty good, great views of the city giving a decent layout and nice exercise to stop me getting fat. The kids found two snakes on the way which they mercilessly killed and put in a bottle. One was black with red and yellow bands which were quite pretty. There was a bit of rock hopping, loose gravel underfoot and some sandy parts. There was no view from the very top because it was cloudy. On the way down we found some dunes to run down. We then went back for lunch. The food generally seems plentiful but a bit bland. I would dig a curry. I'm reconsidering how much time I'll be spending hanging out compared with doing my own thing. If I do hang out with people, it'll probably be the people in the room I'm in. We are away from the main house. At the moment it's Morgan (Chicago), Rosa (north of London), Lucy (north of Auckland) and myself (Beaconsfield). It is generally seen to be better to be living in the main bit, but I'm not convinced that's the case. They all share a shower between about 13 people, whereas we have one for four. There is no WiFi here, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm going to start working out in the mornings. I'm in pretty rubbish shape at the moment. Maybe I'll find a working out partner, but I think that's ambitious. Trujillo Living11/10 – Trujillo Day 3 It is a Sunday. I've generally felt fine about walking around the place in terms of safety. Navigation, much less so. It's one sole to take a bus and there are some standard routes and regular buses. Working out where each bus goes is a job for the people who actually speak Spanish so I wouldn't be confident doing it by myself. I'm wondering if the bus system here is actually more efficient that in Aus/UK. A guy on the door doing the money thing and rushing people on and off as fast as possible works pretty well. Most of the other people here seem like better travellers than me, even the younger ones. I think this might be because I haven't really done much backpacking. Plus they all speak better Spanish than I do. I found a fair few new fruits and vegetables at the market with Morgan in the morning. I had a passion-fruit type thing and also bought some black corn. After breakfast we went to the Chan Chan ruins which were built by the Chumi people who were the ones before the Incas. There was a tour guide for the nine of us but it was all in Spanish so I didn't understand a lot of it. Then we went to the museum which had translations. I realised I really don't know much about South American history. After that we went to the beach to had lunch. I had cebiche and it was pretty gross if I'm being honest. The fish was tasteless and was smothered in lemon and salt which is all I could taste. Then we walked along a bit and I got a shitty ice-cream before we watched some kids playing football for about an hour. Kalle the 35yo Finnish guy who looks about 25 cooked for everyone which is a thing he does on Sunday seeing as food isn't provided then and he was a chef I think. It was a collection of dips and stuff, really nutritious and flavoursome which is needed seeing as the normal food is bland. I feel like my Spanish isn't really getting any better. Maybe that will change tomorrow when I'm at the school and all the kids speak only Spanish. Regardless I want to get a SIM card asap so I can do duolingo more often. Speaking of school tomorrow, I'm pretty nervous about how it's going to go. I think the main reason is the language thing and I know that I'll want to be critiquing and consequently making a difference, but I won't necessarily have the ability to do either of those things. Also, I'm not super confident working with kids because it's not something I've done a lot of in the past. It's definitely more out of my comfort zone than climbing and mountain. I was randomly playing a cricket shot today when I thought that I'd probably be better off working in India where everyone loves cricket. Football is the jam here and it just doesn't suit me. The language thing is going to be a problem everywhere so what's the difference really? I think I would feel less out of place there. I have been allocated Pepe who is half paralysed or something and needs full time care. As I'm a dream big and make the most difference kind of chap, I don't think I'm going to love this. I'd rather be helping with a larger group of kids, but at the end of the day, if I'm not as good as the others at that kind of thing then maybe it's best I'm with Pepe. The most help I can be is probably to do with the organisational side of things, so being with Pepe will allow me to watch all the stuff without having to directly focus on it. Anyway, I think the key is to just have a go and see what happens. It would be good to stick it out for the four to five weeks even if I don't love it because worst case it'll still be good experience with kids which I don't have and I'll know a bit more Spanish but the end of things. Also, if I can stick to some sort of exercise regime I'll be in good shape. The way things are set up is that we are allocated classes/Pepe for the morning (8am-noon) then we come back for lunch. After lunch there are classes Monday to Thursday (English, Science, English, Games) for the kids who have been through Hilo Rojo and are now maybe at a real school or just to keep them off the streets. I think I'll try to go to as many of these as I can because why not. There is a Canadian family who is somehow associated with things and are living kinda with us. There are three kids (two girls and a boy) and this is the first actual school they've been to as they were previously home-schooled. They are ridiculously confident talking to strangers and they're really nice. I spent half an hour playing with a little ball puzzle where you have to get it to follow the 3D maze inside a perspex sphere. First Day of School12/10 – Trujillo Day 4 It is a Monday. Alright, alright, alright, alright. Today was the first day of school. Things were learnt. It started out with the kids slowly rolling in to school between 8 and 8.30. Pepe didn't turn up today so I was in with the five and six year olds. I found out that Pepe is actually 22 years old which is a bit of a game-changer. There were about thirteen in the class I was in. They were little rats in the main. The boys were the most troublesome because their attention span was so short and the things they were distracted by were more destructive. Generally they really loved attention, especially a few in the lunch break who just wanted to be picked up and hugged the whole time. It's great exercise as long as I don't do myself an injury. I'll do little bios on some of them, then go through the day in general. Camillo: had a spiderman jumper on. He was sometimes unruly, but he also was brushing the dust off my shorts at some point which was a nice gesture. Icker: He was sitting next to me at the start and was trying to run all over the place. I've decided I can't be bothered thinking long enough or questioning people to find out the names of the other kids. There was one that I was carrying for an hour during the break. She wasn't too heavy but an hour is a long time to be throwing a kid around. Some of the play equipment was broken but the kids didn't mind. I feel like my mind has already lost all of the information of the day. During the morning class we sang some songs, learnt some numbers, coloured some print outs of the human body. The left was red and the right was blue. Painted dots. Then they got some work books to continue with. I helped just one little guy the entire time because if I left him for a second he was out doing something else. Essentially my time didn't seem to be worth much from my point of view, but I guess it was a help for the teacher to have someone else there. At the end of the day, I think the net effect will be that maybe some kid will potentially decide that they should send their kids to school, but it feels like I'm basically doing nothing. I don't mind this so much, because I'm getting a whole bunch of experience with children which I didn't have before. Today I actually questioned whether or not I want kids, considering what kids are like. Home school for at least a bit is a requirement for sure. The afternoon session was an English class which was run by Rosa and had only three kids in it. It was pretty educational for me because I learnt some basic Spanish. The kids (Dante, Miley, something else starting with M) were fun and seemed to be there because they wanted to be. I've not really written much background on the school. It's called Hilo Rojo and was started about three years ago by a woman called Rosemary who works a normal job six days a week to keep it going. The public schools here are free to attend, but there are a whole bunch of other costs associated with them which make them unaffordable for the families who live in the slums near the mountain. Hilo Rojo is for those families. The kids enjoy the social activity and having people care about them. A lot of them have bruises and scratches, most of which probably just came from rough play. Attendance is sporadic, especially in the afternoon classes, but the philosophy of any difference is a difference still rings true here. The kids that turn up get benefit. 13/10 – Trujillo Day 5 It is a Tuesday. Exercise routine established. I'm thinking every second day I'll do actual working out type stuff and every day I'll do stretches for at least 20 minutes. I'm spending most of the days picking up kids which I'm sure isn't great for my body but if I can keep my form then maybe it'll be a good extra workout. This morning I discovered that my headphones are playing up which is infinitely annoying. I don't want sound coming in to one ear, I want it coming in to both. Today I should actually meet Pepe, and in the afternoon there is a science class for the older kids. I wouldn't mind going in to town to get a sim, but if there aren't enough people doing the science thing then maybe I should just go. Considering I can't do a class by myself in Spanish and I don't even help much when I'm an extra, maybe it's better to get a sim so I can practice duolingo. So it turns out that Lucy was alone in her travels to the actual school to give English lessons, so I went with her and Ward (Belgian) and Anna (Poland) looked after Pepe. Ward leaves tomorrow afternoon so I'll need to ill with Pepe and him so I can learn his signals. The first class consisted of 14 eleven year olds, most of which were sassy or disobedient. It was generally difficult to keep their attention, but they were infinitely better than the small kids at Hilo Rojo. Then we had a break during which time there was what seemed to be an evacuation and first aid drill type situation where all the students came outside in their class groups and each class had someone who was pretending to be injured and two first aiders. Once the kids were bandaged up they had recess and we were inundated in questions in both English and Spanish. Once the onslaught subsided and recess was finished we taught some well behaved nine and ten year olds who seemed to actually want to learn. It was interesting that one class really didn't care for school and the other was interested in everything. In the first class people could sit where they wanted, so the boys were on one side and the girls on the other. When we played a game where they had to get in to groups of whatever number was written on the board in English, some boys would willingly lose the game instead of going in a group with girls. The other class seemed to have allocated seats so there were roughly an even number of girls and boys on each table and they seemed to disregard gender almost entirely. Their concentration and eagerness was better and they didn't cause any trouble when they had finished copying what was on the board and had a bit of spare time. Nothing interesting happened at lunch, except that I decided to go to the afternoon class. I had hoped to skip it as the teacher to student ratio was basically one to one the day before, but nobody really wanted to help with science and Ward would have been on his own otherwise so I went to help. Lucy decided to come too and it was good to have two people to keep the non-interested people calm while Ward taught the interested kids. I would like to take up teaching the science class, but I just don't have enough Spanish at this point. The way Ward has been teaching is great because he keeps in relevant to their lives with things like the atmosphere leading in to pollution and the effect that has on the environment. I think from now on I'll go in the afternoons on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, depending on need. I still really need to get a sim, so I'm going to try hard to refrain from being roped in to going tomorrow afternoon. It's English again so there should be enough. Rosa gave me a friendship bracelet which I didn't know was a friendship bracelet until after she gave it to me. 14/10 – Trujillo Day 6 It is a Wednesday. Today was the first day with Pepe. I wish I was Ward with his general people skills. Mine are terrible. Pepe is around maybe 19 years old, though nobody knows his true age except maybe his mother. On the way to and from school he walks with his nephew who comes to the school. When he gets to the school he needs to have someone constantly nearly touching him so that he doesn't fall over. This doesn't seem to add up, but because there are a lot more stimuli at school, he can get excited and lose balance or move to fast and fall over. At the very start Ward and Pepe cut and glued pictures of certain foods into Pepe's book in the categories of either healthy or unhealthy. Pepe finds it difficult to use his left hand at all so Ward had to hold the paper while Pepe cut it with scissors in his right hand. Next we went through the numbers up to ten (in Spanish), then the letter “b”. Pepe concentrates and tries hard to get things right, but his motor skills aren't great and neither is his concentration. By the end of all that it was ten o'clock which is food time, then we went up to the park to play basketball. Pepe gets tired easily. At eleven we went back to school and all he could manage was some colouring in. He was getting distracted really easily, but the fish he coloured was beautiful. The main problem is that I don't get him. Not only can I not communicate with him because I don't speak Spanish too well, but I just don't seem to get his vibe. He sometimes plays tricks on people or fingerbangs them and you have to pretend to be shot, so he does have a sense of humour, but I just don't know when to let him do what he wants and when to tell him no, you need to do this. He can get frustrated easily and I don't want him to not like me and therefore decide school is rubbish and a waste of time. If I can keep him attending then I'm winning. I think I'll talk to Anna (Poland) who kind of organises things and make sure that someone else is the person in charge, and I'd be happy to be the helper. The problem is that there are fewer volunteers now because Ward, Chloe (France), Magdelena (Austria) and Clementine (France) are leaving and only one new girl, Hannah (Germany) has arrived to take their places. This numbers problems meant that I needed to go in the afternoon to help with the English class. I'm kind of the crowd control guy and feedback guy because I'm totally useless at actually taking the classes. Tomorrow we are all (The Away Team which is what I call those who are not staying in the main building) going in to town in the afternoon, assuming that someone else will go to teach. 16/10 – Trujillo Day 8 It is a Friday. Let's start with yesterday. Yesterday I was with Pepe by myself for the first time. It went a whole lot better than I thought it would, but still not that great. It takes a while to get used to what he wants, and it's even harder for me because I can't rattle things off in Spanish and he can say yes or no, I have to actually do the things for him to tell me that I've done the wrong thing. Anyway, I got him to rub his hands together and make little crepe paper balls to stick on his book in the shape of the letter “b”. We did some number stuff then went to the park to play basketball. After lunch was colouring. Today we did the letter “c”, a few numbers and cards, then the park for basketball and football, then colouring. After that everyone got together to celebrate the leaving of three volunteers, Morgan, Rosa and Kalle (Finland). This involved people speaking in Spanish, some kids doing songs and lots of dancing. At some point Pepe got up and danced and seemed to really enjoy it. Normally he gets super sad on Fridays because he loves school, and because people usually leave on Fridays. He seemed ok today. Pepe like to play tricks on people. It gets really old, really fast. Sometimes he just taps me when I'm not looking and pretends it's someone else, and other times he pulls my leg hairs and pretends it's a mosquito. As in every five seconds when I don't have an activity for him to do. I'm told Pepe needs someone constantly within reach of him to look out for him, yet he makes it to and from school with his five year old nephew who attends the school. There are times while he's at school that he does need someone to slow him down because he gets too excited about stuff, but that may just be a product of him having someone there to help him all the time. Either way, at the park today I felt comfortable leaving his side if I needed to and he was totally fine to hang out on his own for a minute or so. I think my plan of attack with Pepe in the future is for me to be less involved with his movement so he takes on more responsibility himself and to get him doing activities which engaged his left hand. At the moment it seems to receive identical instructions to his right hand, but it's kinda messed up so it's functionally nearly totally useless. He can use it for rolling paper balls, but that all at the moment. I think that even though I don't love my role being to look after Pepe, I've accepted that it's probably the best place for me while I'm here. It's good for him to have the same person with him, instead of having a bunch of new people who need to learn his cues anew each time. Also, I don't have the Spanish to teach a normal class, and helping out with the little kids isn't something I love either, just because the actions of the teachers and students is so illogical. Sure they're only three to six years old, but surely there are some rules which govern their behaviour? Anyway, I expect to be with Pepe for the future if he'll have me. Weekend Recovery18/10 – Trujillo Day 10 Yesterday was a Saturday. We went to the beach in the afternoon and Morgan and I went surfing. 21/10 – Trujillo Day 13 It is a Wednesday. Where were we? Surfing was loads of fun even though I was totally rubbish at it. I had the largest board and still the most I managed was to make it to my knees. I only caught a small number of waves and that was the major problem. I found it difficult to determine which waves were catchable and which weren't. The people who got lessons had someone giving them a boost as the waves came which meant they could catch nearly every one. They all stood up. I would like to have another go because it was really fun, but maybe somewhere with better waves, more of which are catchable. On Sunday I lazed about a bit. I had sore ribs and arms from surfing so I planned to go for a massage for 30 soles, but the place was closed. Nothing else really significant happened on Sunday. Carbonara made by Kalle was delightful. Rosa left. Morgan had left the night before. Lucy moved to the main house so I'm on my own in the away apartment. Monday morning, went to school, hung out with Pepe, his mum was sick on the weekend. He imitated a seizure so maybe that's what happened. I think she went to hospital and had her hand cannulated which was the only bandage Pepe could see so he thought that was the thing which was wrong. He was pretty quick to get back in to playing tricks on people and he maintained good application with his school work. I went to the afternoon English class and there was a meeting back at base about the school involving all the volunteers, teachers, owner and maybe the director. All I wanted to say was that I didn't like always being the one to go in the afternoon and that other people who never do it should help out, but the meeting was in Spanish and it seemed like nobody really cared about that. I'm happy to do more than my share of afternoons because I don't have lesson plans to do, but for people to use that as an excuse for never going is bullshit. It doesn't take three hours to plan for a three hour class every day. Anyway, Tuesday was a normal morning with Pepe then Nicola (German) and I planned the afternoon Science lesson. It was about pollution with regard to the ozone layer and global warming. Only one kid seemed really interested, but it think it was good for everyone to at least be exposed to the idea. Most of them are only very young. I think I forget that sometimes. I think I'll have to go to the afternoon class again today because otherwise it'll be only Lucy. We really need more than two people, especially since my Spanish isn't good enough to teach them. I get pretty exhausted doing full days every day. It's 7.40 am until 6.20 pm, including travelling to and from the school twice, and the kids are generally a handful. 23/10 – Trujillo Day 15 It is a Friday. Yesterday was a pretty normal morning at school, then in the afternoon I watched the Canadian kids while Joseph and Carlee had an afternoon to themselves. We each had a piece of A4 paper and made part of a board game, then stuck them all together at the end so we could play. Yesterday there was another Canadian family who arrived (Chris the father, Sarah the mother, Abby and Jake the kids). Abby and Jake also helped make the board game. They are slightly less erratic than Holly, Reid and Avery, but everyone was pretty well behaved. We needed more chance squares. I'm trying to sort out what to do on this trip. I was going to stay here for four weeks, but I heard Lindsey (U.S.) talking about how nice it is to trek in Panagonia and I decided that I want to go there to do some walking. If I do go south first, then I'm definitely not coming back past Cusco, so I probably need to do all the nice things around there on the way. Morgan is doing that at the end of next week, so I'm going to meet up with her in Arequipa and do Macchu Pichu, Puno Lakes, Bolivian salt flats then head down towards Santiago, then on towards Patagonia. This change of plans will cut in to my savings significantly more, but I think after that I'll find a workaway in either Argentina or Brazil before meeting Corin and Youngy in Rio for Carnival at the start of February. After that, who knows. I feel bad for not staying as long as I said I would, and it might be interpreted that I haven't enjoyed it as much as I thought I would. While technically this is true, I am still really enjoying myself and the real reason I'm leaving early is just that it works out better for me to do it this way. Today is Valentin's last day. Pepe will be really sad because he likes Valentin a lot. Hopefully he has a dance and remains upbeat like last week. I hope it's not too hot today, because that always tires Pepe out. 24/10 – Trujillo Day 16 It is a Saturday. Pepe got pretty sad at the sayings of goodbye yesterday. He's so sweet. He traced “VALENTIN Y PEPE” and cut it out for Valentin who has been here for I think two months and gets along with Pepe really well. He also cut out various things for Carlee, Joseph and the kids. He asked about it himself. On the Canadian front, they decided that after four weeks of wanting to throw all their energy in to building the bathroom and not being able to, that it is time to move on with their travels. They have raised enough money for them to help build a bathroom, but if they leave it to the school, it's hard to know if is will still be sufficient. There have been five “maestros” now who are kind of the equivalent of a journeyman. The first four either didn't turn up or weren't very good. I also wish that I would have been able to help out in the afternoon, but I doubt enough will get done in the next week to enable that. Yesterday afternoon I went for a massage at the place Carlee and Joseph went to on Thursday. It wasn't super awesome, but it cost 30 soles (about 15 AUD) for two and a half hours and I'm definitely going back next week some time. Maybe on Friday again before my bus trip. After that everyone was having beers, so for the first time, I hung out with people kind of. I mostly was with the parents. I'm planning on getting at least a bit shitters tonight for the first time in quite a while. Old Leslie Smith will be here for a few days, and an afternoon in the sun at the beach with one, two or seventeen beers will be delightful. I initially planned on not drinking much so I would keep a clear head, allowing for better acquisition of the Spanish language, but that's been failing pretty hard on account of I'm lazy, so I might as well have a few tonight. The Future is The PastI have written more since this point, but it's already way too much so I'll put up a bit more at the end of the week or summin'.
1 Comment
Lilly
4/11/2015 07:39:20 am
:D
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Chris JonesJust a guy going for a bit of a documented ride. Archives
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