Cycling in Peru

This is a very brief entry especially for Liz and Clive ... and Nick might be interested too!

Just to prove that there are cyclists up here ...

But most of the roads are unpaved - there's only one paved road from here to Lima for example. And I wouldn't fancy cycling on these unpaved roads - the good ones look like this, and they can be much worse ...

But then I'm not a serious cyclist, so what do I know, maybe it would be fun?!!

Yanamilla Primary School update 2

Last Thursday and Friday saw the culmination of the Clean Classroom competition at the school. On Tuesday we'd been to the school to check that each class understood the competition that we'd set up the week before and to remind them that we were coming back on Thursday to judge the classrooms, and then for the prize-giving on the Friday ...

We were really pleased with the response! Every class, except for the Head's class had made a real effort to tidy up and improve the cleanliness of their classroom. As for the Head, well he hadn't bothered, and what was worse he wasn't even there that day, so the 1st grade A class was left all alone - rather sad. He really should be sacked!!

We went round to each class and asked them to present what they had done and we took notes and photos. We had also been asked to judge pre-primary separately, which was fine, but we had only reckoned on 1 main prize for the winning classroom and another small prize for the winning teacher - budget didn't really stretch to 2 lots of prizes - we were going to need to be creative!

Here are some of the highlights ...

5th & 6th grade - new rubbish bin and tidied teacher's area

5-year-olds - clean desks and tidied back of classroom

5-year-olds - new wash and bin area

3- and 4-year-olds - new rubbish bin

4th grade - new garden area

4th grade - new wash area and bins for different rubbish

3rd grade - tidied-up classroom

3rd grade - cleanliness wall display

1st grade A - new wash and bin area

Back at the CCS house, after a lot of careful checking against various criteria and looking at the 'before' and 'after' photos, we eventually came to a decision and awarded 1st prize to the 5 year-olds for pre-primary and to the 3rd-grade class for primary. With the donations from my parents and their church, plus a bit thrown in fom me, we had enough to buy a lockable cupboard as first prize, and for pre-primary very luckily for us Andrea's books from Leo Paper had arrived the day before, so we used all the Spanish books suitable for 5-year-olds plus various crayons, pencils, etc. that other volunteers had contributed, to make up a box of goodies as the last-minute pre-primary prize. We also had a few more donations from Ayacucho, giving us enough money to buy a small present for each winning teacher, plus lollipops for each of the winning children.

See next update, coming soon, for the very grand prize-giving ceremony ...

A trip to see waterfalls and Inca ruins

I've been so busy with the Yanamilla Primary School in the last week or so that I'm having trouble keeping up with the blog and I haven't had time to write about a great trip to Cangallo, waterfalls, and Inca ruins a few weekends ago! This trip had been postponed because I'd gone down with another nasty stomach upset, but when we finally managed to go, the good news was that some of the new volunteers came too. So instead of it being Pancho, Phil and myself travelling round on local buses, in the end it was Claire, Katie and Angie too, and this meant we could go in a private van - much more convenient. And even though I liked the idea of taking the collectivos (local minibuses), I must admit that the private van was much nicer! And Alejandro was our driver, so even better. Alejandro works as a driver for CCS and hires his own van out at the weekends.

Phil, Katie, Claire, Hazel, Angie, and Pancho on tour

We set off early on the Saturday morning and headed south for 3 hours, along tiny, unpaved roads, and over some pretty impressive mountain scenery.

We then stopped in a small village, left Alejandro to drive on and pick us up later, and we walked for an hour or so into the coutryside to find some waterfalls. En route we passed several remote farms, and at one we stopped to say hello to a woman who Pancho knew. She agreed to show us the cheese she was making ... it was rather surprising to see that she was using the toilet supplied by an NGO as her cheese-making unit!! Apparently this is not unusual. I must admit the cheese looked very tasty, but having just recovered from stomach problems, I didn't think it would be wise to try some.

The countryside to the south of Ayacucho is much more lush and fertile than to the north. We saw lots of herds of healthy-looking cattle here - hence the cheese-making. And I found out that Peruvians wouldn't dream of making cheese from milk from sheep or goats! The fields are cultivated a lot more - much larger fields of potatoes than I'd seen before, and with enough for campesinos to eat themselves, plus surplus to sell.

Then we reached the first of several waterfalls on this trip. Time for a rest and a chance to sit in the sunshine ...

We then walked back to the road where Alejandro was waiting for us in his van - great - wouldn't have been able to do this on public transport! And we headed on up into mountains again. En route we visited the 'Misky Queso' cheese farm that had been helped by an NGO to produce more widely marketable (and safer-to-eat) cheese, so we got our cheese-tasting afterall! And then we left left the van again and headed off for another waterfall, this time down into a pretty impressive gorge.

And again, there was time for another welcome rest!

We then followed the gorge for a few miles further - and at well over 3,000m a few miles was enough - it was very hot and sticky, and the air feels so thin when you're doing any kind of exercise! Blame it all on the altitude ...

The great news was that at the end of this walk, there was a very welcome swimming pool waiting for us! No photos of that bit, though - our white bodies caused quite a bit of amusement for the locals ... And then we went for yet another walk - Liz, hope you are proud of me! This time along part of the Inca Trail, and as it was by now late afternoon, the temperature was lovely, and everything was a very lush green. We then finally headed for Cangallo, where we were to stay that night - right down in a valley, surrounded by mountains, but even so still at 3,500m!

The town was pretty quiet, with a very basic hostel to stay in - only cold showers, no toilet roll, very curvy beds ... and so we soon went out to find the night life. There wasn't much, and the liveliest place seemed to be a children's birthday party in a town hall (!) but we did find a restaurant with safe-looking food and settled in. The waitress didn't seem in much of rush to serve us, and the huayno music on the video was way too loud, but we did eventually get a good meal and there was beer, so all was well! We then looked for a bar, but couldn't find one, so investigated a couple of 'recreos' that Pancho knew - these are kind of back gardens with bars as far as I can tell. The first was closed, which was a shame as apparently you can build fires there , and the second one was totally empty and lit by very harsh strip lights, so we bought more beer there are resorted to sitting in the park instead ...

The next morning we were up early, and after a hearty breakfast of omelette and chips, we headed out of the valley and north over some very high mountains. After an hour or so we left the van and Alejandro at a remote spot at about 4,000m and headed off across very wild countryside, with lots of weird cacti that live for a hundred years, flower once, and then die! It was quite tough walking even though on the level, as it was so high. I reckon 1 hour of this walking is worth a good 2 going up hill in Wales!!

Pancho didn't have a map, and there was no obvious path, but we eventually reached a ridge with a fantastic view out over another valley and across to Vilcashuaman, the Inca capital.

And when we got to the view point there was one lone shepherdess standing on the hill. Once she saw all of us coming she said hello in Quechua politely and then scuttled off in the opposite direction - could't resist this photo!

We then headed along another part of the Inca Trail, and steeply down into the valley to Inti Huantana to visit our first Inca ruins ...

Inca Trail

Inti Huantana ruins

This was very exciting as I'd seen so many pictures of Inca ruins, but had never experienced them for real! This site was built as a resting place en route along the Inca Trail from Vilcashuaman to Cuzco, and the Incas built a lagoon plus very large temple - not that much of it in tact, but absolutely loads of Inca stones lying around - if only there was money to renovate more of it it! But there was definitely enough of it left to appreciate the stone work - all the angles in the stones so that they all fit together so perfectly - very impressive!

Inca bathroom

Rock from Inca Temple - supposed to give you energy if you stand here!


Count the angles!

Inca sacrifice stone


Inca sun-dial

We then headed off up over more hills and after an hour or so reached Vilcashuaman across the valley, to visit the Inca ruins there. As this had been the Inca capital, I'd been expecting quite a lot more than was there, but unfortunately the Spaniards had destroyed quite a lot of and used stones for other buildings. Even so there were some impressive ruins which have subsequently been turned into a Catholic church ...

And there were also some impressive temple ruins. The Inca town had apparently been built in the shape of a falcon (falcon = huaman in Quechua), but I must admit that this would have been lost on me if I hadn't been told. There are also some nice Inca walls around the town, and on some of the stones there were carved pumas still visible. Hunt the puma became an entertaining game before going for lunch.

Lunch was in a very quirky little restaurant! As it was Sunday, there was very little open in the town and the dish of the day on offer would probably have started off the stomach upsets again ... so Pancho managed to persuade the restaurant to cook chicken for us if he went and bought one! Pancho is very resourceful. We'd had to give the restaurant an hour to cook it, and so we had gone to visit the ruins first, but it was worth the wait - probably the best chicken I've had so far. And believe me, I have tasted plenty of chicken here ... won't be eating any for several months when I get back!

Back of the resturant - best not to see before eating!

The 4-hour journey home was via a slightly different route, and along a very scenic valley, with yet more weird cacti, before heading back up over the hills and getting to Ayacucho just before dark.

Thank you to Andrea & Leo Paper

After well over a month battling with Customs in Lima, 2 wonderful packages of books finally arrived this week! The packages were sent by Leo Paper, a Chinese company who print all sorts of children's books, with an office in Reading, where Andrea works! A big thank you to Andrea and to Leo Paper!

Andrea had told me before I left for Peru that Leo Paper was looking for some charities to help, and that they often just threw away sample books as they had far too many. So she started saving appropriate children's English and Spanish books for me. And once I was here and I had checked that it was ok to have books sent, 2 packages were prepared and sent off by courier. They reached Lima within 3 days, but then sat in Lima for over a month while we sorted out how to get them to Ayacucho and what taxes had to be paid.

First I was asked to supply a receipt of purchase and Customs would not accept that they were gratis samples and that there was no receipt. And at one point I was told I could go and collect them in Lima - somehow a 9-hour bus journey each way just to collect books that were supposed to be couriered to my door didn't seem quite right! And then we never really understood why we had to pay taxes on books that were gratis samples and were not going to be sold on, but tax still had to be paid and the books were not going to be released until the money had been received. In the end Leo Paper paid the taxes too, which is fantastic!!

I've now sorted out the books and we're keeping the English ones in the CCS Resource Library for various volunteers to use in schools, Wawa Wasis, street kids centres, etc. And we packaged up all the Spanish books that were appropriate for 4-5 year-olds, and donated them to the Yanamilla Primary School, as there are hardly any books there at all! The school was really grateful - see blog entry on Yanamilla Primary School party for more details ... coming soon!

Giving the pre-primary books to Yanamilla Primary School

Many thanks again to Leo Paper, and especially to Andrea for all her patience and determination to get the books through to me!

A tour of the CCS house

This entry is especially for Kelly, who requested a detailed, multi-sensory tour of the CCS house! I've been working on this one for a while; sorry for the delay!

What does it look like?
The following photos should answer this one! It's basically a 3-floor house, with CCS office, kitchen, dining-room, living-room, bedrooms, and roof terrace with washing machines and where we can have drinks and bonfire.


CCS house - now being painted green, but I prefer the yellow!


The dining-room, with select few

The living-room

On the roof, semi-inside

On the roof, outside


View from the roof

Another view from the roof

My room - no. 401

My room-mate, Gillian, in our room

Walter, one of the day doormen


Emerson, another day doorman

Clever, day doorman and driver

Alejandro, our main driver, and the CCS van

Beatriz, who keeps the place lovely and clean

Vicki and Nieves, who help in the house

Gisela, who helps in the house too

Saul, part-time driver

Roberto, night doorman

If you want to see more, see also Phil's photos - link on right column - in the 'Around the Ayacucho house' folder.

What does it sound like?
Depending on the number of volunteers, it can be noisy or very quiet in terms of human chatter - at the moment it's too quiet, with only 6 of us rattling around! At times there has also been musical accompaniment - Matt used to whistle, Ian and Sarita played guitar ... and noise echoes up through the house via a central 'skylight' that goes from outside the kitchen on the ground floor (or 1st floor if you're speaking Peruvian Spanish) all the way up to the roof, on the 3rd floor (or 4th floor). It's a very effective way of spreading noise all the way round the house anyway, and this is fine as long as it's nice noise!

And then there are the bells. There's the front doorbell - this goes continually during the day, as the front door is kept locked and is opened by a doorman when people want to get back in. The other bell is Rudy's bell - this is rung at meal times (12.30 for lunch, 7.10 for dinner) - and whenever else Rudy can find an excuse to ring it, e.g. when there a van is leaving, talks are starting, Spanish lessons, etc... We hid it for a while as it was being used rather too keenly early in the morning, and we provided a set of pan pipes instead, but this didn't seem to catch on, so we eventually returned the bell - Rudy is the Programme Director afterall!

Rudy, Programme Director, with his precious bell

During the day Rudy, Marisol and Trudi are at work in the office which is also in the house, so there's quite a buzz down on the ground floor. I'm in and out of the office a lot as we can use the computer for work and it's been busy especially since the Yanamilla School project has taken off - we've been phoning, printing off letters, etc. in the lunch hour, and it's been a bit manic - just like office life back at OUP!

Marisol, our lovely Programme Manager

Trudi, Programme Administrator and part-time hairdresser!

And there is plenty of noise from outside to keep us entertained, especially at night! First there are the dogs. There are a ridiculous number of dogs in Peru, with a disproportionate number of them living around our house, on adjoining and neighbouring rooves, and they so love to howl at night. The rooster also likes to join in, regardless of time - doesn't seem to know when dawn is! And then there's the music coming from various bars - sometimes all night, or so it seems - and the 'huayno' music is especially whiney! And then just when the music starts to calm down, the rubbish collectors get started with a particularly annoying tingly bell, from about 5 a.m!

We also get lots of fireworks in Ayacucho, for no particular reason as far as I can tell, and they go off at regular intervals at night. And there are lots of parades and processions, cars with loud speakers advertising all sorts - people like to make plenty of noise outside, that's for sure.

And my favourite noise is the buzz of the moto taxis - these are silly little 3-wheeler vehicles - smaller than a 2CV, that take you around the city for 1 sol (aout 20p) a journey, though you can only get to within 2 blocks of the main square, for some odd reason. Gillian described the moto taxi journey as like sitting on the back of a washing machine while it's on full spin - fairly accurate description! Others have described them as sewing machines ...

What does it taste like?
Well I can't say that I've tasted anything other than the food in the house, but I can tell you about the food! Paulina is our cook, and she produces a good variety of pretty healthy food - and it's great being cooked for every day!!

Paulina, our cook, in the kitchen

Breakfast is standard yoghurt, cereals, bread rolls (like mini pitta breads), and occasionally we get scrambled eggs or cooked apples for a treat. Lunch and dinner are always a cooked main dish, followed by fruit. There's rather too much chicken and rice though, and this can get a bit tedious if we get it twice on the same day, but chicken is cheap here and from the amount of chicken restaurants I've seen, I guess the amount we eat is pretty typical for Ayacucho! And I'd been expecting to eat a lot more potatoes, given that there are thousands of varieties here, but we do get different coloured ones from time to time, or yucca sometimes. The fruit is very healthy, and we get a good variety - I don't even know what some of the fruit is in English! At the moment mangoes are in season so we get a lot of those.

And then we can help ourselves to bread, cheese, ham, etc. - and if anyone feels the urge to do some cooking of their own, that's fine too! And there's tea and coffee available at any time. We're all getting a taste for coca tea - it helps bad stomachs and altitude sickness - though we'll have to stop drinking it 2 weeks before if we want to ensure that we'd get through a drugs test without it testing positive! And I didn't realise that there were coca leaves in Coca-Cola until I came here - how embarrassing is that?! Though I wasn't the only one! And there's also botttled water available on every floor - all very well organised.

What does it smell like?

There are mainly good smells! The house is kept very clean by Beatriz, and so it generally smells very wholesome. And there are often lovely cooking smells wafting out of the kitchen and all the way up the 'sky-light' to my room - my favourites are (but not all together) - garlic, cooked apples, and chocolate when Phil makes chocolate crepes ...

And the only bad smell is occasionally from the drains, particularly bad in my bathroom on a wet day! They've tried to repair the problem but for some reason it's not possible to do any more about it up on the top floor. Roof views are fab, but the smell from the drains sometimes makes me wish I was on a lower floor ...

What does it feel like?

Not sure what to put here ... well, the beds are cosy; most of the floors are tiled, so clean and cool; the shower is usually nice and hot, though I have had the occasional cold one when it's been busy; there can be a draft from the 'sky-light' in the evenings, but as it's summer here, it never really gets very cold. Overall it all feels very comfortable and homey!