Wow, where to begin!!
It has definately been a while since i have done my last blog that is for sure, and so much has happened in that space of time! So i will keep my adventures short, sharp but sweet :)
In my final weeks of volunteering in Ayacucho i asked if i could volunteer at a couple of
the other placements, to get the feel of things and to also see what its like. First off i went to the `kuna` with Alexandria. This is her placement for the full 3 months that she is volunteering, and boy its hard work! Firstly i should explain what the kuna is all about. Its basically like a kindergarten in the prison for the children who live in there with their mothers. In Peruvian jails, children are allowed to live in prison with their mothers until they turn 4. Once they are 4, they must go live with family members or be placed in the orphange (which i also worked at for a couple of weeks in the afternoons after placement). So there are roughly between 6-12 children who come to the Kuna everyday, ranging from 1-4 years old, although im sure one little boy is 5...think they changed this birthdate because he suffers from severe attachment to his mum. So i went in one day and helped Alexandria run this little kindergarten in the prison, which by the way is a very old building inside the prison, with wet floors and zero resources. And by zero resources, i mean nothing, nada. So alexandria has to entertain/teach these children everyday with nothing to do it with. So its a challenge, but Alexandria has just finished college in America, so is a trained early childhood teacher, so she is very good at what she does, its just tough with no resources and children in nappies. Ew. Not cut out to be a primary school teacher i tell you that. It makes me admire my primary teacher friends even more than before! But it was wonderful, helping her teach colours and animals to the children and just seeing them smile and be happy and away from the mudanity and monotony of everyday prison life. Plus some of them have gone years without even having a single days education, so what CCS and Alexandria are doing is wonderful, i just hope it continues after she leaves, because education is so important. (well i would say that, im a teacher aren´t i).
Every friday we take these children of the prison out on an excursion, which is great because its not good for their physical or mental health to be cooped up in prison all day long, all week long. So on Fridays they get some relief. We have 3 excursions over the time i was in Ayacucho, and we took the children to the zoo, the plaza and the river. It was amazing how such simple activities can put such a wonderful smile on these childrens faces. I loved the river activity. We were in the fresh air, throwing rocks into the river, looking at pigs and dogs and birds and just laughing and running around. The children had an absolute blast and just seeing the smiles on their faces melted my heart everytime, and it doesnt hurt that they are just the most adorable children ive seen!! So cute. So i loved Fridays, because we got to do something really wonderful that the parents and children really appreciated.
The high school. Steve from Florida, an older volunteer plus our only male in the house was given the placement of the high school and i went to spend the day with him. I absolutely loved it. I kinda wish i couldve spent more time there actually, although it was good to get out of my comfort zone and do things i am not trained in. But i felt right back at home there in the classroom helpìng out in english lessons! I had a wonderful day. We helped assist the teacher with the english classes she was teaching- which is also great that at a public school they have teachers teaching the students english. And the students just loved us, and it was really helpful for them to hear our pronounication of words and also the difference between the american and the australian accent, which can be quite different on certain words. Plus it was also helpfu
l for my spanish, which i am rapidly improving at, but still have a long way to go with. We also helped her mark a student teacher, who i thought was brilliant. She had all these wonderful resources, that she handmade herself and they were very effective with her teaching methods, so i obviously rated her highly and the actual teacher took my opinion into account!! The students were immaculately dressed as well, and had beautiful uniforms on. They are very proud the Peruvian people, and it showed at this public school, it was a very high standard. Overall it was a fantastic day and i definately realised that my love of teaching lie in secondary, it was fantastic and i would definately see myself teaching english here in Peru!
The orphanage. For a couple of weeks i spent 3 afternoons per week at the orphanage in town. It was really great to go and help out the teachers with the children but gosh was it hard work! On my first time there, my spanish was terrible and the teacher was just a relief. So she couldnt care less what the children were doing- which was in fact running around hitting each other with trucks, crying, screaming, pulling hair...all the sorts of things children do and it was out of control!! Different if they spoke english or i spoke spanish so i could say `dont do that` or sit down, but i had no idea and the teacher clearly didnt care. So it twas tough and i spent most of the afternoon just hugging the ones that were crying, which they liked. It must be so hard for them to get any hugs, or love or just tenderness from someone when you live at an orphange where everyone wants it! So i think by just hugging them and cuddling them when they were upset was pretty good in itself! Obviously i was working with the little ones again, and although they are difficult, i just adore these little peruvian children!! So i spent a couple of weeks helping the teachers in different classrooms throughout the orphanage, whether with their homework or hugs, i hopè it made a small difference. if not i was actually considering adopting 2 of them. I know you arent supposed to have favourites, but these 2 little boys, Angel (An-hel) and Dennis were just adorable, and i wouldve loved to have taken them with me and just loved them!! Oh they melted myheart thats for sure, just adorable. Angel had the same jumper on everyday with little scotty dogs on it, and i just love him. I think he is about 2 and Dennis the same! So it was very rewarding and i just loved my time there.
Last but by no means least, my last day at the old peoples home. Wow, just thinking about it nearly making me cry. Chabella, the lady that works in the kitchen chopping veges with me and then does puzzles and colouring in later, just broke my heart when it was time for me to leave. I managed to tell her in the days leading up to my last, in poor spanish, that i wasnt coming back. At first she didnt understand, she was like `oh yes your going to lima and iquito
s` but when are u coming back?? I kept telling her i wasnt coming back which didnt go down too well. So on my last day there we were, i stayed later than normal so i could say goodbye after she had eaten lunch, and she just looked up at me with tears in her eyes and said in spanish ^please dont go gringa^. (She always called me gringa too, never millie, just gringa, gringa, which i loved). So her eyes were full of tears and she is hugging me and not letting go and asking me to please stay and my heart just broke! I bursted into tears too, and i gave her a couple of puzzles to keep- even though you arent supposed to leave resources, which made her cry even more! And in turn made me cry even more. I just cannot impress on you the saddness i felt when i was saying goodbye to her, after spending nearly every day for 6 weeks with her, and seeing the saddness in her eyes, it just got to me. And as i hugged her goodbye i could still hear her calling out to me, gringa, as i walked away.... 
I think that image of her looking at me, with tears and pleading in her eyes, like what a child looks like when they are saying goodbye if their mother goes away, that sort of look, will definately stay with me forever. She was such a lovely, lovely person and i am so glad that i got to spend time with her and i hope that i made her happy for even one day of those 6 weeks, because then to me its all worthwhile.
xoxo millie
It has definately been a while since i have done my last blog that is for sure, and so much has happened in that space of time! So i will keep my adventures short, sharp but sweet :)
In my final weeks of volunteering in Ayacucho i asked if i could volunteer at a couple of
the other placements, to get the feel of things and to also see what its like. First off i went to the `kuna` with Alexandria. This is her placement for the full 3 months that she is volunteering, and boy its hard work! Firstly i should explain what the kuna is all about. Its basically like a kindergarten in the prison for the children who live in there with their mothers. In Peruvian jails, children are allowed to live in prison with their mothers until they turn 4. Once they are 4, they must go live with family members or be placed in the orphange (which i also worked at for a couple of weeks in the afternoons after placement). So there are roughly between 6-12 children who come to the Kuna everyday, ranging from 1-4 years old, although im sure one little boy is 5...think they changed this birthdate because he suffers from severe attachment to his mum. So i went in one day and helped Alexandria run this little kindergarten in the prison, which by the way is a very old building inside the prison, with wet floors and zero resources. And by zero resources, i mean nothing, nada. So alexandria has to entertain/teach these children everyday with nothing to do it with. So its a challenge, but Alexandria has just finished college in America, so is a trained early childhood teacher, so she is very good at what she does, its just tough with no resources and children in nappies. Ew. Not cut out to be a primary school teacher i tell you that. It makes me admire my primary teacher friends even more than before! But it was wonderful, helping her teach colours and animals to the children and just seeing them smile and be happy and away from the mudanity and monotony of everyday prison life. Plus some of them have gone years without even having a single days education, so what CCS and Alexandria are doing is wonderful, i just hope it continues after she leaves, because education is so important. (well i would say that, im a teacher aren´t i).Every friday we take these children of the prison out on an excursion, which is great because its not good for their physical or mental health to be cooped up in prison all day long, all week long. So on Fridays they get some relief. We have 3 excursions over the time i was in Ayacucho, and we took the children to the zoo, the plaza and the river. It was amazing how such simple activities can put such a wonderful smile on these childrens faces. I loved the river activity. We were in the fresh air, throwing rocks into the river, looking at pigs and dogs and birds and just laughing and running around. The children had an absolute blast and just seeing the smiles on their faces melted my heart everytime, and it doesnt hurt that they are just the most adorable children ive seen!! So cute. So i loved Fridays, because we got to do something really wonderful that the parents and children really appreciated.
The high school. Steve from Florida, an older volunteer plus our only male in the house was given the placement of the high school and i went to spend the day with him. I absolutely loved it. I kinda wish i couldve spent more time there actually, although it was good to get out of my comfort zone and do things i am not trained in. But i felt right back at home there in the classroom helpìng out in english lessons! I had a wonderful day. We helped assist the teacher with the english classes she was teaching- which is also great that at a public school they have teachers teaching the students english. And the students just loved us, and it was really helpful for them to hear our pronounication of words and also the difference between the american and the australian accent, which can be quite different on certain words. Plus it was also helpfu
l for my spanish, which i am rapidly improving at, but still have a long way to go with. We also helped her mark a student teacher, who i thought was brilliant. She had all these wonderful resources, that she handmade herself and they were very effective with her teaching methods, so i obviously rated her highly and the actual teacher took my opinion into account!! The students were immaculately dressed as well, and had beautiful uniforms on. They are very proud the Peruvian people, and it showed at this public school, it was a very high standard. Overall it was a fantastic day and i definately realised that my love of teaching lie in secondary, it was fantastic and i would definately see myself teaching english here in Peru!The orphanage. For a couple of weeks i spent 3 afternoons per week at the orphanage in town. It was really great to go and help out the teachers with the children but gosh was it hard work! On my first time there, my spanish was terrible and the teacher was just a relief. So she couldnt care less what the children were doing- which was in fact running around hitting each other with trucks, crying, screaming, pulling hair...all the sorts of things children do and it was out of control!! Different if they spoke english or i spoke spanish so i could say `dont do that` or sit down, but i had no idea and the teacher clearly didnt care. So it twas tough and i spent most of the afternoon just hugging the ones that were crying, which they liked. It must be so hard for them to get any hugs, or love or just tenderness from someone when you live at an orphange where everyone wants it! So i think by just hugging them and cuddling them when they were upset was pretty good in itself! Obviously i was working with the little ones again, and although they are difficult, i just adore these little peruvian children!! So i spent a couple of weeks helping the teachers in different classrooms throughout the orphanage, whether with their homework or hugs, i hopè it made a small difference. if not i was actually considering adopting 2 of them. I know you arent supposed to have favourites, but these 2 little boys, Angel (An-hel) and Dennis were just adorable, and i wouldve loved to have taken them with me and just loved them!! Oh they melted myheart thats for sure, just adorable. Angel had the same jumper on everyday with little scotty dogs on it, and i just love him. I think he is about 2 and Dennis the same! So it was very rewarding and i just loved my time there.
Last but by no means least, my last day at the old peoples home. Wow, just thinking about it nearly making me cry. Chabella, the lady that works in the kitchen chopping veges with me and then does puzzles and colouring in later, just broke my heart when it was time for me to leave. I managed to tell her in the days leading up to my last, in poor spanish, that i wasnt coming back. At first she didnt understand, she was like `oh yes your going to lima and iquito
s` but when are u coming back?? I kept telling her i wasnt coming back which didnt go down too well. So on my last day there we were, i stayed later than normal so i could say goodbye after she had eaten lunch, and she just looked up at me with tears in her eyes and said in spanish ^please dont go gringa^. (She always called me gringa too, never millie, just gringa, gringa, which i loved). So her eyes were full of tears and she is hugging me and not letting go and asking me to please stay and my heart just broke! I bursted into tears too, and i gave her a couple of puzzles to keep- even though you arent supposed to leave resources, which made her cry even more! And in turn made me cry even more. I just cannot impress on you the saddness i felt when i was saying goodbye to her, after spending nearly every day for 6 weeks with her, and seeing the saddness in her eyes, it just got to me. And as i hugged her goodbye i could still hear her calling out to me, gringa, as i walked away.... 
I think that image of her looking at me, with tears and pleading in her eyes, like what a child looks like when they are saying goodbye if their mother goes away, that sort of look, will definately stay with me forever. She was such a lovely, lovely person and i am so glad that i got to spend time with her and i hope that i made her happy for even one day of those 6 weeks, because then to me its all worthwhile.
xoxo millie
What a week it has been with Semana Santa!!
Much to the amusement of our night guard, Walter, who thought we were hilarious!
