It is actually hard to know where to start when I have not written for so long, it is strange to learn that the longer you leave it the harder it is. I am sitting in the kitchen, a stand alone building in our court yard, and writing after having just cooked breakfast. It is Monday and yet another day of vacation from the kinder-garden, Rumi Rumi. We seem to have come over here at a good time of the year as far as festivals and vacations are concerned as we have seen many. Looking back on our time here it is hard to believe that 5 weeks have gone and we now only have a matter of days left until we leave for Cusco. Yesterday we went to Senor Roberto Montoya's family home and cooked up a lasagne for them. It was great to see some other people (Peruvians) enjoy our cooking as we have cooked a few times at Rumi Rumi and the kids are really not a fan of all the vegetables that we put in the food.
How is life in Andahuaylas? Well, our mornings start with me getting up and getting things ready for our breakfast. Luckily we have heaps of fresh food here that is both cheap and easy to obtain so I squeeze our orange juice and get the kettle boiling. We have created our own cereal by purchasing different items from the markets like oats, seeds, grated coconut, roasted nuts, banana's and long life milk. Oh yes, we have no refrigerator so the long life milk is perfect. In fact there are little refrigerators here and I have not seen any fresh milk available to purchase. We then leave our little refuge at about 8:15am and hale a moto outside our house. There are plenty of these things cruising around, I'll try to put a photo in this for you to see. They are like a took took in Asia, and have little horse power. The driver asks “¿Donde?” and we reply with “Rumi Rumi, por favor” he generally asks if we wish to go one of two ways and we always choose the road that takes us up to above the kinder as the walk down from here is so much more peaceful. The driver puts his moto into first or second gear at times and always tries to up a gear when climbing a very steep road, it is interesting for me to sit and see the engine start to rev and then the driver slam it into a higher gear which only punishes the engine and he is once again forced to return to a slower gear. One thing that I have learnt is that the locals are not too keen on waiting and experiencing this gear shift with every driver proves to me that they are impatient. It takes about 15 minutes for us to get to the top of Rumi Rumi and two soles, about one Aussie dollar.
We then start our walk down a very rough road towards the kinder-garden and are greeted by the local kiddies with much enthusiasm. They yell out from their houses “Hola, buenos dias, que tal?”, their yelling breaks the silence as the place is so peaceful at this time of the morning. It takes us around ten minutes to walk to Rumi Rumi and we meet some of our students on the way. They are always very keen to see us and yell “Senor Todd, Senor Todd”, I think that it is a little harder for them to remember (or say) Senorita Prudencia.
When we get there, the professora is normally there and a few kids are playing or drawing pictures. There is no running water at the kinder so I climb to the neighbour and ask to borrow the water so we can fill up some buckets to get us through the day. The hose is shitty and has plastic holding it together, which I twitched some wire around to keep the water running through it. I sometimes get the kids to help fill the buckets, with the hose, and they enjoy playing with the water. Remember the kids are 3, 4 and 5 years of age. The water is used for the cooking, and cleaning the kids hands and the dishes once they have eaten. We then ask if there is anything else we can do to help and are often given tasks that involve cutting or writing on paper in preparation for the class. The teacher has no help, and 28 kids to teach and of all the ages between 3 and 5, she is glad that we are here to help but I fear for the future as I know there are no others replacing us. We have built onto the fence so that it is higher and harder for the kids to climb over, however I see the kids climbing higher now and think perhaps I might have created a bigger danger than before. By about 10.30am we clean the kids hands, as they are getting fed around 11. To clean their hands we sit on a chair and have two buckets in front of us, one empty and the other with “clean” water (it is not always clean). We then have about 4 kids around the bucket and they use the soap and request water to be tipped over their hands whilst cleaning. They fight amongst themselves for the soap and water and I am forever getting them to use words such as “por favor”. The kids do not get much discipline at home (if any) and I struggle to keep them in line (really struggle, fail?) as I am not able to speak their language plus I do not think they care too much about manners, we try. We help serve the food that is cooked for them which is either rice and potatoes or potatoes and rice, simple food and a staple for them. With the teacher they all sit thanking god for their food and then they tuck into it, quickly. We are usually given some food and do the same, as we then resume position to clean up the dishes as the kids finish. They are cute in that they put their empty dishes in a bucket and thank us for their food. Nearly always one of the girls helps clean the dishes, she actually seems to enjoy it. I think that the kids probably are quite use to cleaning up as I see them washing clothes in their houses. How can these kids be so more able to do these tasks than others in more developed countries? The kids then run riot for a while in the yard, making fun with simple things like a block of wood or a tree. Amazing to see how they do not need toys, just an imagination and a couple of mates.
So the dishes are done and it is close to midday, the kids are on their last stretch before going home. Once they leave we sweep and mop the classroom and clean up around the kinder ready for the mess makers the next day. The teacher is trying to explain that rubbish is best in a bin rather than the street so we have two bins, Organico and Inorganico. The kids use a lot of toilet paper, when we tell them to, for a tissue as they seem to constantly have boogers. Basically, the bin fills and by the end of the day we have a plastic bag of rubbish to take away (both inorganic and organic are put together). We walk down from Rumi Rumi toward Andahuaylas with the teacher and another lady that has one more month of practical work ahead of her. Amazingly we approach a rubbish pile on the side of the street and we ditch the rubbish bag on top of it. The feeling of letting go of a bag of rubbish onto the street is so awkward for me, not the locals.
Prue and I then decide if we are going to visit the local markets and have lunch there or if we will go home and then visit the markets later. So our days at Rumi Rumi are generally from about 8:45am until about 1pm and then we have the remainder of the day to do as we please. We have been going to the markets most days as we'd rather purchase the food “fresh” and then cook it.
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