My first week in Huaran

I have been in Huaran now for a week and three days and it is so good to come to Urabamba and use the net and hear about the outside world! The bus ride here was so squashed but i am getting used to the bus rides here where people don´t know the meaning of personal space or of personal hygiee sometimes. Buthten again i can´t really talk because this week i wore the same clothes three days in a row. at least. For the first week here i had no hot shower. every morning i tried and every morning it was icy cold. Pplus i was sick this week with a cold so that didn´t help. But then, one grand fine day i tried turning on the sink tap at the same time and the shower came warm and suddenly the world was a beautiful place again! That trick has now worked every day without fail. There is still the problem of getting my clothes washed. I hand washed on monday and the clothes got wet everyday as it is the rainy season still. So today four of us dragged our laundry bags onto the bus and found a little hole in the wall where we had to knock because appparently was a laundry and someone finally came to the door and we said lavanderia?? so my clothes are now being washed for three dollars. yayyy!

My roommate has typhoid! She got taken to the hosptial and no one knows how she got it...but apparently we can´t catch it from her. But it was a shock to find out the next day that she has typhoid. it is lucky they caught it early.

On sunday we got the bus to Pisac where there are some ruins and a town etc. It was a fun day but very tiring with a lot of walking up terraced hills to get to the ruins. On the way home we got off the bus about ten minutes before Huaran where there was a sunday arvo communtiy soccer game being played. There were a few hundred people there and everyone just stared at us as 13 gringos sat down and began watching. I have become very careful about taking photos around the local children because they are serioiusly ferocious with the cameras. On the request of two little kids i had to tka eabout twenty photos of them and they grab the camera off you and try to look at the photos and just won´t take no for an answer. There were about 40 or 50 kids eventually crowding aroiund us all and eventually i hid my camera! We then ran on the field at half time andplayed a game with the kids. Rathjer than actually playing soccer they just hold your hand and run around with you. One little boy attached himself to me and followed my everywhere and then gradually there was a string of 5 kids holding on. Naomi had a bag of oranges she had bought at the markets and she got the bag out and within 15 seconds she had been smwamped by all the kids and then suddnely they were gone and Naomi was lying flat on the ground with only the torn shreds of a plastic bag where the oranges had once been. I was shocked. When we eventually tried to leave all the kids were jumping on us and pulling us down and two kids jumped on me and i fell over backwards, did a somersualt into the mud then got up and ran for my life! All the adults behind were watching and laughing their heads off. It was really fun though and the kids are really cute.

On monday we started work on the Hacienda finally. I have never worked so hard physically on anything. By wednesday i could barley walk because my muscles were so sore. So far we have cleared the huge front garden artea of weeds. I did the pick-axing and shoveling. On tuedsay the guys and me were outside again compacting the path. we tried standing in aline and linking arms and then jumpoing along the path to flatten. Eventually the maestro got some huge rockes and tied a stick to them so we could lift them in pairs to flatten the path.

That reminds me, the head construction local guy is called maestro...we have to call him that out of respect! It reminds of that Senfled episode.

Every day after working from 9 till 1 we have a big lunch made by the community that we have paid for. They always serve a soup, a local main course and it is always the best part of the day...we are working so hard that i am always hungry!

By thursday we were mixing concrete for the front path for which we had constructed formwork for and i even got to do hammering with the maestro, hehe, and he said muy bien to me.

I ended spending two hours wheelbarrowing barrows of of concrete 100m back and forth for the maestro to shovel on to the path. All the guys and had gone inside because they were too tired so i was out there going back and forth and it was really fun. I think i am getting some muscles! That day we had a leadership change (in pairs we are taking turns being leaders for week) and the two outgoing leaders gave everyone a ¨certificate¨ and they gave me the ¨quiet but deadly¨award .

On wednesday we had our official first meeting with the communtiy to plan the lesson timetables. A lot oif people turned out fro mthe five communtiies that make up Huaran. There were about 60 kids, 20 youths, and 15 adults. We are going to teach english through tourism (a lot want to get into tourism) , art, sport, games and theatre. To introduce ourselves we did a fifteen minute theatrical performance that we had rehearsed. We acted out the story of how we came here and aboiut australia and sang waltzing matilda and other songs. There was alot of impromptu singing where they would just say get up and sing us a round, so got up and sang! Not something i would usually do but somehow didn´t mind because we were all together.

We have to take turns in cooking and whenever we cook the lady who owns the house always insists on being in the kitchen. I understand her point of view but it is really frustrating because i know exactly what i´m doing, but she comes along and starts and doing everything for us. We tried to make potato bake last week...but she didn´´t understand so it turned into potato stew or something grr. I end up standing aroiund with nothing to do while she does it sort of wrong. But she is a very nice lady and has welcomed us into her home and is kind to everyone. Every morning she boils up some milk from the cow and it tastes really good. The other day we had some really good meat and as we were all eating and going hmm öne of the cows appeared next to the window and she casually says in spanish ¨this meat is that cows baby¨- we all groaned a little but kept eating of course! It was so good hehe

Last night we went out for dinner to this local restaurant that is in the middle of nowhere. It is connected to a small but nice hotel .We had to walk there in the pitch black and freezing cold for about hlaf an hour. Walked through a cornfield in the dark and then suddenñy ended up at this beautiful restaurant overlooking a fast flowing river and with eerily lit mountians towering above the huge glass windows. We were all stunned as we had been living very basically for the past week. The food was really good and we even had dessert!

Tomorrow we are getting up at 5 and trekking up to Cancha Cancha which is a mountain communtiy that is one of the five Huaran communties. apparently they are the pooorest so we are going to strap all our donationsd onto some horses and walk up there. It will take 3.5 hours to get there. I think it will be a long day.

It is frustrating that i haven´t learnt as much spanish as i would like. People talk to you and all i can do i stare and say pardon. I defintley undeerstand how people feel when they come to australia and can´t speak english, it must be so hard, and you feel so stupid even though you aren´t!