Proffesor Nick

In the village of Uycho, there´s an orphanage for kids from about 6 to 16. This week, our team leader Dick arranged for us to start teaching there. None of us had had proper experiance of teaching before so it was a challange.  Being kids, are very excitable. In the first lesson, we gave them writing books to write down a few english phrases, but they ended up scribbling their own stuff in the books. Also, they all had different abilities meaning whilst some were still struggling to write down the english words, some had already finished and got pretty restless. The second day was particularly bad seen as they´d just had lunch, making them extra hyperactive. There were even a few fights we had to break up.

By the 3rd lesson, we´d gotten used to the kids and we had a better lesson plan. Letting them write in their books from the start meant that they spent the whole lesson just doodling, so we started off with just writing phrases and numbes on the board and getting them to say them. We also did a bit of role play. Caroline and Gill spoke in English and I translated. When it came to writing, we set extra tasks for those who´d finished early such as learning to say how old they are. We felt the kids had done so well in the lesson that we finished with a game of football.

That´s what we wer doing in the afternoons. In the mornings, we´ve been building a wall to defend the town´s resevoir. However, we were midway through the second week and we still hadn´t had any support from the locals. We were getting a bit tired of the whole ´si mañana´attitude. But eventually they came and the real work began. We first had to dig trenches which the walls would be built in. Next, we had to put rocks in the bottom of the trenches to act as the foundation of the wall. To keep the rocks held together, we mixed up mud, water, and a type of straw called ´wank´(no joke)! We had a couple of ways to keep our energy up. First, the was the Chinchua corn beer. It is traditional to pour a bit into the soil as thanks to mother earth before downing the rest and getting a buzz off it. Then, there was the Coca leaves which you can chew. At first, you feel like a bit of a chipmunk, but after a bit of chewing, you can leave it in the top of your gums and let it slowly release revitalizing juices.

Back to Cusco for the weekend. It´s rarely a quiet night out here, and this weekend was no acception. As we had a new group member, Alexandra, we decided to show her the eary white statue of Jesus which looms over the city. We were on our way back to the hotel, when a man from a nearby ranch came by and offered us a horse-ride. We decided to be spontaneous and go for it. Me and Alex were constantly trying to get past eachother whilst Caroline went along at a leisurely pace. They took us to the Moon Temple, where we had fun scrambling about on the rocks. On the way back, it was a spectacular feeling coming across the mountains and seeing Cusco spread out below us.

The last week out in Uycho has gone past scarily fast. Now it´s time for me to start a new adventure in Lima which will eventually take me to the Bolivian capital of La Paz. Already I´m missing the old group` with their teasing, their humour and their toilet talk. The last full day I was with them, we went up to the Hot Springs at Laris and had a pizza for our last dinner. It was hard saying goodbye to everyone. The last few weeks have been such an experiance for me. Unfortunately, one of the things that comes with travelling is lots of goodbyes. Still, now a new adventure´s about to start. Let´s see what happens!

Meeting the Mad crew

After a couple of days of acclimatizing to Cusco, it was time to get started on my project organised by the gap year group, Madventurer. On 2nd August, the group leader, Dick Turnbill came and took me to a local hostel to meet the rest of the team I´d be working with. He was only 23 been travelling so much his accent was hard to trace. At the hostel, I met Caroline and Jill who were both also suffering from Jet lag. Still, unlike most nights, I was able to stay up for dinner and a drink afterwards!

Being part of a group out here felt much better than wondering around on my own. The next day, we decided to go and see the Cristo Blanco, which we saw the night before, glowing earily, seeming to float in the darkness. After a conversation with the taxi driver on the way over there, I became the group´s translator. At the end of the day, Dick invited us round to his place for a BBQ! There, we met some more of the Madventure crew. There was Anna who was working in a local orphanage, Roy the Regional Officer, and Matt the rock - Roy´s bodyguard and Spike, Dick´s dog. The crowd was nothing like I had suspected it to be.  Within no time, there was some absolutely crazy banter flying! By about 9, I was ready to go to bed, but I ended up going out to the Indigo Bar with Roy, Anna and Matt. The chance of a good night out in Cusco was too tempting to miss. Indigo turned out to be a great lounge bar.

The next day, our group was joined by Alexis, a French student studying English and Spanish. As soon as I was up sometime in the afternoon (finally getting the hang of Peruvian times), we had some lunch and headed out to the Village of Uycho to start our project. It was a spectacular drive through the Andies. As we sped along the mountain roads and the crowded streets, I kept unconsciously putting town by break foot, but surely enough, the driver judged it right every time. Cusco quickly disappeared and rocky and snow-capped mountains unfolded around us. When we arrived the villagers gave us a local delicacy; Cuy meaning ´Guinea Pig´. It tasted a bit like salty mackerel, but I couldn´t stand the feeling of cutting into it, since it was still shaped like Guinea Pig! Kudos to Jill though. She got stuck in despite having two Guinea Pigs; Chaz and Dave back home!

At first, work was a bit dull. We were aimlessly moving rocks into piles in the field. But, on Thursday 7th, we got out the diggers and awakened the boys within us. We loaded the rocks into the lorries and had them taken away to the resevoir where we´d be building a wall to protect the town´s water. Riding in the lorry meant we had to launch ourselves up the sides and grab hold of things. It was pretty rough terrain meaning that we were occasionally flung into the air. When a wall stood in the way, we simply got out the digger to take it out. I wish I´d have brought my camera! The next day, we were clearing room for construction using pick axes and machetes. It was fun but prickly!

The days went suprisingly quickly. By no time it was our last day of the working week. We spent evenings simply playing cards and chatting. Our last working day was also Alexis´ last day in Peru! We headed back to Cusco for a night out at Indigo´s. I´m feeling a lot more at home now. The great thing about travelling alone is that I´ve been free to meet so many great people over here. It´s the same story for the other volunteers as well. I´ve gone from wondering how I´m going to survive 6 weeks out here to wondering where the time´s been going.

It begins

For a long time now, this Peru trip has seemed like some distant thing that would happen sometime in the future, but now I´m here, writing this blog on the balcony on a hotel in Cusco.

It hasn´t been an easy transaction from that homely field in Bransford. On Tuesday, I said goodbye to my fellow campers who, over the last few weeks have become like a family to me. The night before, we´d had a literally magical feast in which I played music on my flute and we had singing and dancing and wine.

As I left, I found myself questioning why I was going. The longest I´d been abroad away from my family was a week at the end of last year in Barcelona. But now, I´m going further away from home than I´ve ever been for 6 weeks! But I feel that it´s time I launched myself into the worlde. I´m at the age where I should be making my own way in the world and getting distance from my protective family cocoon. After wanting to escape for a while now, parting with them at Heathrow proved incredibly difficult. I kept turning and waving, but in the end, I had to force myself through that gate. I sympathise with anyone else starting travelling alone for the first time.

When you´re in a strange foreign land, it´s always a comfort to connect yourself with home (although not too much otherwise you´ll never get anything done). Even just noticing the grass and straw from Green And Away mixed in with my luggage was enough to put a smile on my face after my long day of travelling from Heathrow to Miami and then to Lima. A degree of confidence is also good. This doesn´t mean showing off. Silent self-confidence is good for establishing yourself as someone who knows what they´re doing. Think of all the great things you´ve done that have made you feel on top of the world. I think back to the feast at camp, where I was surrounded by great people having the time of our lives and that makes me feel more than just a boy stuck away from home. Also, when it comes to preparation, I don´t think you can prepar yourself enough. I was lucky in that my father kept persistently pushing me to sort myself out. I didn´t really appreciate all that he did until I was actually out here.

But now that I´ve been here in Cusco for three days, the place is starting to grow on me. When I first went walking in the streets at first, everything seemed strange and unnatural. I didn´t much want to be out in this strange place with its narrow streets and irate drivers. When I did go out to get lunch, I went to this Irish bar! But now the place is growing on me. Now when I see the shops, I´m thinking about what to buy and what my friends and family might like. In fact, I´ve just gotten myself one of those classic Peruvian hats! Yesterday, I had a massage to calm myself down. It worked a treat and I got chatting for a while with the girls who work there as they smiled at my attempts to speak Spanish. I´m staying in a hostel called ´Home-Sweet-Home´where I´m really being looked after. Despite the tiring walk up from the city!

There are quite a few sellers on the street but I´ve got some experiance with dealing with them from the Gambia. I´m just getting used to saying ´No Gracias´. Apparently you have that printed on a t-shirt for you. I´m still adapting to the time difference, since Peru is 6 hours behind the UK. Also, the fact that it´s so much colder when the sun goes down in the evening doesn´t help. So far, I haven´t been able to stay up past 8 in the evening, which has been annoying since the message grils said I should go with them to see the night-clubs.

This has been a rambling blog partly because it was written over a few days and partly because I keep having mood changes. So, if you feel confused imagine how I feel! The main thing about starting travelling is to persist and have faith. It´s completely natural to feel lost and confused for a fair while and it can seem like you´ve made a big mistake, but the bad times will pass. I´m beggining to see that the exciting thing is that so many different and unexpected things could happen from here on now that I´m finding my feet. In my next blog, I´ll tell you about Madventurer as I´ll be meeting them soon.

Ciao!