Off to work

Here´s a quick overview of the projects I´ve been involved with so far ...

Wawa Wasi

Last Tuesday was my first day at the Wawa Wasi. Let me introduce you to my new working environment, which is just a little different from Oxford University Press! Here is the equivalent to Walton Street - this is typical Wawa Wasi country. And yes, there are two pigs wandering down the middle of the street!

And here is the Main Entrance - no Reception or Porter´s Lodge, though there are usually a few kids waiting to pounce! Welcome to Wawa Wasi Wayra. This is where I´m going to be working for about 2 mornings a week - 8.30-12.00. For those of you who know me well, you´ll be shocked to hear that I´m getting up at 6.30 nowadays; I´m shocked myself - must be the altitude!

And this is the path just outside the Wawa Wasi - lots of lovely mud! It´s all pretty basic here, with no electricity or running water, and the room we work in is tiny - there´s a dusty floor, a small bookshelf for a few toys, a low table and small wooden chairs, and it has an iron roof with holes in, and gets quite dark when it´s cloudy. There´s a potty just outside the room - I haven´t yet enquired as to what I´m supposed to do, as I don´t really want to know the answer - just try not to drink too much before I start work! And we also try to wash the kids´hands out here and the challenge is to get them back into the room before they try to play in the mud!

And here is my new team, on a milk break ... the milk and lunch is provided by the state, and it´s probably the only good food the kids get each week day. This is Vilma, the mother who runs the Wawa Wasi, plus 9 cheerful, but very wild kids, ranging from 9 months to 4 years old. Quite a handful!

And here they are before we went on a research trip to the local park this week, to get them out into the fresh air ... we just about managed to get back all in one piece, though the main road, a dead dog, and several very muddy gutters provided a few challenges that I could have done without!

Orphanage
I´m working in a girls´orphanage a couple of afternoons a week. The orphanage also takes boys up to the age of 5, and I´m mainly working with the babies and toddlers as that´s where most help is needed. Here´s Jimena and Jose, both about 7 months ...

This orphanage was set up by nuns in the 1980s during the horrendous civil war between the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the military, when there were thousands of orphans in Ayacucho. Now those orphans are grown-ups, but because of the poverty here, there are still a lot of orphans, or children whose families just can´t afford to keep them, or whose parents are alcoholics or in prison for drug-trafficking. There are about 180 orphans here, and there´s also a boys´orphanage that I´m yet to visit.

This is quite the opposite from the Wawa Wasi where the kids have parents but very little else. Here the children are very well looked after, fed well, and have clean clothes, and the orphanage is light and clean. The babies are fed and changed regularly, but there just isn´t enough staff to give them lots of individual attention, to play with them, so that´s where we come in.

I´ve also been feeding babies and getting quite good at getting most of the food into their mouths, and am happy to say that I´ve managed to avoid changing nappies so far! Here are Javier, Eliseo, and Leandro - all about 7 months ...

And here are the 3-4 year-old boys´- I went to play with this group on my first visit. We made origami hats and planes, sang English songs (The Hokey Cokey wore me out - must be the altitude), and we also helped feed them before they went to bed. By 5.30, a couple of the 3-year-olds had fallen asleep while eating their soup ... maybe it was the Hokey Cokey?!



And here is the newest member of the orphanage. Enrique is only 2 weeks old and was found abandonded - it´s so hard to understand how he could just be abandonded, but it´s going to be good to give him some love and see him develop over the next few months.

Yanamilla Primary School
Remember I mentioned a really poor school that I visited on my first day? Well, this is Yanamilla Primary School, and I´m going to work here 2 mornings a week - in a 2nd grade class with 42 children ranging from 7-9 years. There´s just the one teacher and me and this is going to be another interesting challenge!

The school consists of 2 blocks like this, plus an outside ´kitchen´where some of the mothers cook lunch for the under 5s and warm up the milk for all the kids, a toilet block fitted by CCS (but the doors and rooves have been stolen), and a waste-land of a playground.

And here´s my class - I´m going to be helping the teacher, Carmen, and she´d also like me to introduce a little bit of English, building on concepts that they are already familiar with, like colours, numbers, names of basic vocabulary, simple greetings ...

Socos village

The final project that I´ve been involved with so far is out in a village called Socos - about 30 minutes´ drive from Ayacucho. On Thursdays quite a lot of the volunteers go out to work in the Wawa Wasis, kindergartens, primary and secondary schools in Socos. The community asked CCS to come and provide some help in educating their children. I think this will be a weekly event for me - this week I worked in one of the kindergartens with a few other volunteers, 1 teacher and about 18 under 5s.

This is the area around Socos - beautiful countryside, and very remote ....

And here´s the outside of the kindergarten, with a playground built by some of the parents ...

And here´s the class - we were working on the numbers 1-5 in Spanish, which was hard work as the kids are all Quechua speakers, but the parents want them to learn Spanish too. I only have just enough Spanish to do this, but I´m learning fast!

And as in the Wawa Wasis, the kids get lunch here, provided by the state, and cooked by one of the mothers. They had lunch at about 11.00, so I guess they get up very early to get to school, and because the parents are out working in the fields - we saw several people out planting and ploughing as we arrived. And I guess they go to bed early as there´s no electricity up here and it´s dark by about 6.00!



So that´s it so far, only 2 weeks in, and I feel like I´ve been here a lot lot longer, as there´s been so much to get my head round! More details on the work placements as things evolve ...

Hope all´s well at home! Would love to hear some news!