Los Voluntarios

(Pic: Top, Plaza de Armas last night. Bottom, Some of us volunteers out and about in Cusco.)

January 18, 2009...
So, there´s Michelle and Anke both from Holland; Sophia from Sweden; Monty, Dulcie, and Katherine all from England; Julia from Scotland; Michael from Pennsylvania; Emily from Bermuda; Chad from Georgia; Sebastian and Jovana both from Australia; Talina from L.A.; and Morgan from Chicago. (This is a combination of teaching, care, and medicine volunteers.) Everyone seems really cool so far. We´ve all been getting along great, mostly getting to know each other this past week while at the Cusco Projects Abroad office, preparing our teaching lessons for the following day. There´s already a ton of banter and joking and giving each other a hard time. Especially about nationality. I´ve noticed alot of patriotism thickening the air. Makes things funny and interesting. I love that these people I´m becoming friends with are from all over the world and I´m not only learning about Peruvian culture, but about their´s as well. Lessons have been going amazingly well. I´ve been paired with Sophia and Katherine to teach the advanced English group. I was a bit bummed that I was placed in this class because it means I use absolutely no Spanish for the majority of the day. (This just in: as of Friday evening I was able to finagle my way into the basic English group. So I´ll be joining that class, with Julia and Monty, as of Monday. And I´ll be forced to use pretty much all Spanish. Yay!) But they are wonderful people, our student English teachers. Our first lesson was on the past tense, with some games and interactive exercises to go along. Friday, Sophia and I printed off the lyrics to ¨We are the Champions¨ by Queen and passed them out to the class. We read through them, reviewed the use of past, present, and future tense, and any metaphorical phrasing. And then, with my ipod and speakers assisting, we all sang it together. It was so fun, belting out that song with the student teachers! And they loved it!

After class ended on Friday and we finished preparing our Monday lessons, we ventured into the main part of Cusco, through the pouring rain, to find a hostel for the night. We needed to accomodate about twelve people and most hostels were booked up. But once we finally arranged our sleeping accomodations, we headed out to eat pizza and dance Salsa at a club in Plaza de Armas! It was awesome! We´d had a Salsa lesson Wednesday night, which I´m sure helped. These lessons and Friday night Salsa outings continue weekly, I´ve heard. So, I´m hoping I´ll come back home una bailarina de Salsa increíble!