Day 4 -First day of work!

Mayo cuarto 05-04-06

Today was the first day we beging working at the orphanages. We are assigned by specialty and preference, and I was assigned to INABIF in the afternoon- an all boy orphanage with children age 3-18+. I decided to take beginner Spanish lessons in the end, because I feel so powerless and unable to communicate without knowing ANY spanish!! I wont be working in the morning and my lesson is at 8-10am!! A lot earlier than what I had back in UMich.... sigh. It is really cool to see everyone freely conversing in español , translating for those who cannot understand a word, and to talk to the locals in general. Even after taking French for 4years back in high school, I Dnt think I´d ever be able to talk fluently even if I had gone to France/meet a French person!! I guess that´s what´s different abt American and British education system...

Well, today was cool but not half as exciting as everyone else´s day. In the morning after everyone splitted to their respective orphanages, Patrick Ali & me went to el centro, which is a huge plaza in the center of Huancayo city. We went to a tourist office looking for potential weekend excursions, but nothing fitted. However, there are 2 places everyone are interested to go. ¨Torre Torre¨which is a mountain/canyon attaction, and ¨La Merced¨which is a joungle. Kate, one of the independent volunteers who´s been in Huancayo for 2months recommended La Merced and said they had ¨butterflies as big as birds!¨ It should be really exciting to go on these excursions =)

After the tourist office, we decided to walk around the city and get awway from el centro, since it caters to tourist and we wanted to look around more!! Huancayo is like Bangkok in many ways, narrow streets with cheap food and yummy fruits, amigable (friendly) people who are warm and welcoming. Except tat the city is on 3200m and surrounded by mountains!! As you look at the end of the street, you will see mouintains surrounding the city! Truly amazing with clear blue sky, cotton-candy like white clouds and fresh air!! The food are great, Peruvian diet consists of mainly maize (corn), pollo (chicken), beef y fresh fruits! We´d go over to Donna (the volunteer prog director´s mom´s house) to have meals and they are SUPERB, she used to own a restaurant for several years!!

While we are leaving el centro, we witness at huge protest which lasted 6-8 blocks long, where high school girls held up posters protesting. We asked a local and apparently, there is a criminal who raped teenage girls and is currently in jail. But his crime is so horrendous that the protesters wanted him KILLED. It was surprising for me to see students so avidly involved in social injustice movements. According to Elizabeth (another girl on the trip), a 10yrs old niño (boy) at INABIF naturally spoke of ex-president Fujimari as ¨the man who stole $ from ou¨r country¨. There is also a retarded child, Brian at INABIF. Instead of shying away from Brian, all the other niños takes care of Brian, calming him down plus bringing toys & food, calling him their ¨little brother¨even tho he is older. We shld learn from these children...

Moving onwards, we marched down the streets for around 25min, taking in the beautiful view, strolling with no worries. It was my first free time for relaxation since I am a site leader, and we had meeting continuously for.. FORVER. We came across a shop where a man sculpted religious decorations out of stone and paints them in elaborate colors. We shook hand with the artist and I spoke my first Spanish phrase: ¿Ün foto, por favor? I was really excited that he understood me! The weather was beuatiful and mountains beyond every street... I am at a wloss for words evertime I see the rolling white clouds and snapped several fotos! I think I am ¨trigger-happy¨abt my camera, gotta head to Kodak shop soon to burn photos into a CD-ROM!

In the afternoon, our group met up in el centro again (all 24 of us! quite a sight in a city where everyone was short & had dark skin hehe) We had an aamzing meal at a small local resturant, with soup broth & rice, grilled pollo y papa fritas (chicken & fries!). Muchos delicieausa! I headed to INABIF afterwards and began
my first day of work. We had to go through administration tho.. so we didnt do much at all! At night, we went back to Donna´s house for yummy dinner! We had local delicacy ¨the jumping beef¨with rice and fries, and a cold dish of potatoes with creamy yellow sauce, made out of cheese, olive oil, milk and spices. It´s a Huancayo only dish! We had herbal tea which taste exactly like a Taiwanese herbal tea, so that was cool!!

Well, that´s my very long entry for the first noche (night)!! I will try to limit it from now on haha.

Buenas Noches!