Rumi Rumi

Wednesday 7^th July – Andahualyas

I sit in 'our' casa writing on my laptop with the intent to copy and post on my blog in good time. The past few days have been interesting, we have found somewhere to help and we have other options on the horizon. We are spending our mornings, from around 8am to 1pm, at a kindergarden that is about to have it's first year aniversary. The area is called Rumi Rumi and I think that this is one of the poorest areas in town as the children have signs of malnutrition and they are fed during the morning. I find it hard to see the children looking so sleepy when they arrive and then see them bounce back from a quick trip to the cociner (kitchen) for some milk. We sit with the children during class and hep out where we can, which we are finding a little hard due to our lacking in the mastering of their language. Interestingly the children have Quetchua as their home language and spanish as their school language, I think they find it strange that we are not able to understand them or communicate like their teacher. We help out with getting the food and we wash up the dishes there are about 28 in the class but we only ever see about 25 at a time. Today we managed to communcate our request to make lunch for the children tomorrow, so we went to the local market and picked up heaps of vegetables that we will cook with some mince meat and serve as sandwiches. Our plan is to pump some vitimens into the little blighters, as their teacher explained to us theri general diet is maize, potatoe, rice and some other basic food that I cannot recall (remember, it is all spanish here). NOTE some of the photo's in this blog are from us helping with the food. The ninos were most confused about what to do with so many veggies, we were told they are not used to having them at all.

Tomorrow we will be planting some plants to help keep the hill, next to the fence, from erroding. I have also managed to communicate that I'd like to make their path in the play yard a little better by cementing it. The path at the moment is boardered by large rocks and then has smaller rocks as the path, rocks are plenty here as that is what the area's name means (Rumi = rock, in quetchua). Anyway, the path (rocks) is currently quite rough and I am sure if we cement it then the kiddies will have no trouble walking along it. NOTE: again "tomorrow's" shots are below (I wrote this blog last night and have uploaded today, hope you're still with me)

The teacher, profesora, has been teching the children how it is important to clean themselves and also to keep the environment clean. On our first day we walked down the street and collected heaps of rubish from the street. The streets have rubbish everywhere, however there are no bins on the street to put the rubbish. The current situation is not sustainable, so I can understand why the teacher has this as a push. Some of the children might arrive, still a little dirty, and the teacher will speak with their older sister/brother and explain how they must clean themselves at home. One child was dirty on Monday and his sister was given the stern words, she was also not clean. This child arrived clean today and it is just amazing to see the difference the teacher is making.

I purchased an Aussie Rules footy for the trip over and have left it at the kindy for the children, they have not got the concept of Australian rules and watching them kick it around like a soccer ball just makes me smile. Still, they are happy to play with it and, I think, enjoy something different.

I write with a fire in the corner of the room, music from my computer and a hot meal on it's way. I know that a hot shower is available and that I have all the comforts that I need, something that I am understanding not everyone has. The children are remarkably strong, thanks to Rumi Rumi and the Profesora.