More on Colibri

With all my exciting travels I haven’t had any time to talk about all the great work I have been doing at Colibri.

I headed to work yesterday around 4:00 pm and there was yet another event going on in the Plaza. It was a dance competition for school kids and they were all dressed in different costumes and dancing to the traditional music in the street. I think throughout the months of June and July there is always going to be something going on since these are their most festive months with two holidays. The Inca flag is hung all throughout the city on every light post right now as well.

Yesterday was probably the most fun I have had yet at Colibri. We did homework for the first hour and a half. I am having trouble getting the twins, Jose Luis and Elsa, to do their homework. They don’t pay attention and always run off in the middle to “sharpen their pencil” but instead I see them playing. Since I have been at Colibri the longest of all the volunteers now I have sort of taken on the duty to make sure they get their work done because I know how they are while the others don’t and might let them get away with things. They are only practicing cursive right now and it should not take them more than a half hour to finish all their homework in their “cuadernos” (workbooks), yet I find myself sitting there with them the entire two and a half hours trying to keep them focused.

My favorite to help with homework is an 11 year old boy named Salvador because he is very bright and a great drawer. His classmate and he had a contest yesterday to see who could finish their homework first and I helped the girl a little more so she could win because we all know girls rule and boys drool and I wanted us chicas to pull ahead, wink wink.

My poor Nicole had a tooth ache yesterday so she sat on my lap the whole time with her head down on the table. The director bought her a pain pill but I felt so bad for her because she looked like she felt miserable.

At the end of the day we all got in a big circle and played “Simon Says” and “I like when my friend has…” It is a game like musical chairs but the kids have to move when they have that thing and the one who ends up without a chair is then next to call out the following sentence. Little Juan was so excited to play he could barely sit still in his chair and his smile throughout all of it was such an amazing sight because I loved seeing him so happy.

We got four new volunteers yesterday as well who are all really nice and can speak Spanish too: Heidi from Virginia, Megan from Virginia (although they don’t know each other and go to different colleges), Erika from Canada and Emily from England.

After all the kids headed out, the director had a meeting with all of the volunteers to thank us for our hard work and dedication to the program and the kids. He asked that we try to bring in some more supplies for them like pencils and paper for school work and some toys for the younger kids and possibly set up a schedule of buying bread once a week because the luncha the kids get is not enough since for many as I said before it is their only meal of the day. She supplies the kids have now are limited and they usually write with the same dull pencils with no erasers and play with the same small building blocks every day.

Emily and I discovered that we live near each other so we decided to share a taxi ride home to the Marcavalle neighborhood. On the walk down to the Plaza I ran into some of my kids who were already back out on the street with their mothers selling products. It breaks my heart that these kids of such young ages have to go to school all day, then some to Colibri for a little free time and fun but then right after work until all hours of the night just trying to make a few soles. Juan’s older sister loves to take pictures with my camera so I let her take a few shots of the dance competition that was still going on and she didn’t want me to leave her after. I think they both have formed an attachment to me and I am really going to miss them when I leave.

Because of the games and the talk with us afterward we got done an hour late and I got home just in time for dinner around 8:00 pm. Unfortunately I think Cookie has found a new favorite room of the house because whenever I get home now he is sleeping next to my closet or playing with my boot shoe strings I have left out since they are muddy from the jungle. Totti gave him left over dinner last night which was spinach and rice and how wonderful for me, he ended up having gas and refused to leave my room before stinking it up and meowing up a storm as usual. That is one animal I could do without in this house, but he makes it humorous around here and Patricia and I always make fun of him.

I am speaking so much Spanish that I am now dreaming in it, talking to myself in it, and thinking in it. It has become part of my life here and it will be weird to come home and have to go back to speaking English with the people around me because for the past month all I have been speaking is Spanish with everyone except the other volunteers in my house.

The medicine the doctor gave me seems to be working and I am coughing a lot less now. I think I am going to try to go for a run this morning and then go out to Molino to look at their movies and possibly get a couple new, small toys for the kids. After lunch I am going to go to the Cocoa Museum for S5 and then heading to work.

Laura was sick after her trip to Arequipa this weekend so hopefully she will be back today and we can talk about possibly going to Pisco this weekend because there is a lot to do there including two animal reserves called Paracas and Islas Bellestas that you can take boats out to for very cheap and also sand boarding. It is on the beach as well so it would be warmer and I might actually be able to catch up on my tan with everyone else back home!

Adios and hasta luego! Only one month left until I am home. Miss you all... especially you mom and dad!

-Hillary-