Today was technically our first day of work in Cusco. While the past four days have been dedicated to more tourist activities and getting to know our host family, today we actually had some work to do. In the morning, we had our orientation for the different projects we will be working on, both in the schools and in the community of Occoruro. First, we had our orientation from Milagros (one of the staff at ProWorld) on the different projects we will be working on in Occoruro. She explained to us about what problems the community faces and what our roles will be as volunteers. She also tackled the issue of a language barrier. While we all speak relatively decent Spanish, many off the community members speak very little Spanish or none at all. Instead, many of them speak Quechua, the native language in the area. However, we were told that this would not be a problem in general, since the community leaders all speak fluent Spanish.
Next, we had an orientation presentation from Lalo. He told us about how we would put the refrigedoras ecológicas (ecological refrigerators) together and how we would assemble the alacenas (shelves) in the community. I really felt that Lalo gave a great description of our projects, but I know that we will never know what it is actually like in the community until we are there.
To conclude the presentations, Maria (another one of the staff at ProWorld) talked to us about public health issues in Peru. We learned about the major causes of death, relevant health statistics, and some of the possible topics we could discuss in the schools. After the presentation, we worked as a group to brainstorm topics that we could talk about over the next seven weeks in the schools. Our target age group is elementary school students, so we decided we should use a lot of pictures and have interactive activities to help them understand our message. In the end, we decided on doing our first lesson on nutrition. Some of the activities we came up with were asking the children to draw a plate of their typical meal, deciding which foods belong to individual food groups, and having them draw a balanced meal. We also will speak with them about the importance of having all food groups in their diet to help them live healthy and happy.
After our meeting with the group, we went back to our host family for lunch. Today, we had a pasta dish, with potatoes, chicken, and vegetables. The best way to describe it would be as a chicken soup with pasta. Like always, it was delicious. One thing I noticed again was how social of a meal lunch really is in Peru. When Jordan and I walked into the dining room, the table was already full, with six family members sitting there. As one person left, another person would sit down. But the person who left would never actually leave the area. He/she would only sit down in the living room, but the conversation would continue. Jordan and I did the same thing, and for this reason, lunch lasted about one and a half hours.
After lunch, I had some free time before my first Spanish class. I napped for a little bit before finally going to my class. I have class with one other person and the teacher. Today, we just introduced ourselves and reviewed some verbs in the present tense. Specifically, we looked at those verbs that have irregular conjugations. While I haven’t spoken Spanish in three years, I still feel that I know some Spanish. Thus, the class was a little repetitive and boring. I’ll give it some time before I make too harsh of a judgment though.
After class, I walked back home, since our house is only about a ten minute walk. However, it was somewhat scary, since it was already dark. As I have mentioned before, Cusco is a lot like India; thus, there are stray dogs everywhere. Whatever I did, I had to make sure not to anger the dogs or get bitten. On my way back, I started to walk down our street. When I heard some walking behind me, I quickly turned around, and saw some dogs running towards me. Like last Saturday, I quickly went to our door, opened it, and slammed it behind me.
For dinner, we had a fried egg over rice, with some fried bananas. Although this sounds a little strange, especially to those used to having fried eggs at breakfast, I really liked the dinner. The fried egg and the rice went really well together, and when I wanted a little change in my palate I would have a small bite of the fried bananas. Usually after dinner I would relax with the family for some time. However, I felt really tired today and knowing that I had to get up at 6:30am the next morning, I went to bed early.
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