First week as a volenteer at Aldea Yanapay

On Monday i started working as a volenteer at the Yanapay schools. It has been very challenging, but definately also very fun. I've been working in the games room in school 1. That is a place where the smallest of the kids come from 3-5 in the afternoon and play a lot of different games. It can be everything from Twister to memomy games or puzzles. The two hours are divided into two sections though. The first hour and 20 minutes the kids can only play games that are educational in some way. After that they can play exactly what they want.
After the games room all the kids from both schools gather for "el circulo", it is a time where the kids get important messages and if someone wants to say something they can do it then. The last 1-1½ hour I've been working with the family cielo. It is a class consisting of kids that are around 6-7 years old. We have been working with Mexico this week, and we have taught the kids some different facts about the country, and then we have made some different drawings that we used for the show on Friday. The show is something we have every Friday, and it is a time where all the kids sit down, and each group presents a small show to show everyone what they have learned the past week.

 The logo of Aldea Yanapay.

 Miguelito painting some beautiful Burritos for the show.

 Brian and Hipólito painting cameras.

 Leidi and I making a Puzzle in the games room.

 At the show on Friday some of the kids needed a little help with their lines.

Besides the time at the Yanapay schools I have also been taking spanish classes. And I decided to only have grammar classes, because it was way too much to have 4 classes of spansih every day. But in my last practical lesson I went with my teacher to the marked, and here are some pictures of what you can see at the marked:

 Delicious fruit from the juicestands.

 They have meat like this all over the place.

 This is very tipical. Women from the country come to the markeds around in Peru and try and sell the stuff they have been producing back home.

The first week at Hostal Mágico - Cusco

The last week has been amazing. I have really had a good time and got to know the city better. I have started on my spanish lessons which are really good, I enjoy it very much. I've taken cooking classes at the language school too, and that was great fun. As you also can see here on the blog I went to a big celebration in San Sebastian which also was a great expirience.
Friday I went to the weekly meeting with the other volenteers, and the guy who runs this project is really inspiring. He has dedicated his whole life to helping the kids in Cusco, and is working his ass of for it. That is cool! If you wanna read more about the project you can check out the homepage: http://www.aldeayanapay.org/
The other volenteers seem really nice too and I'm looking forward to get to know them better. This week I'm gonna work in the games room and teaching the kids about Mexico, that's gonna be great fun and for sure also a great challenge.
Every Friday night there is a buffet at the organization's restaurant, and all the volenteers are welcome to come. We went, and it was so amazing with the buffet with italian food. After the food we went out and I had a really good time dancing and talking to theother volenteers.

Here at the hostel there is a dog called Yanapay. It is really cool, because it is just wandering around and having a good time, and it seems like everyone loves it. But the coolest part about it is that is walking around in leopard clothes.

I've been spending a lot of time with a girl named Lydia from Germany who is also starting volenteering tomorrow (Monday) and a guy from Canada called Chris. We are really having a good time, and enjoying our time together.
Today we went to the marked in Pisac. It was great, but also overwhelming. There was a fruit part with tons of really delicious fruit, and we bought a lot of fresh fruit and vegetable to cook with in the kitchen at the hostel. We also went to look at the other things at the marked. I bought a ring, a little wallet/bag something that I can just have some money in when I go to school and when I don't want to bring a whole lot of stuff with me, a necklace and last but definately not least an alpaca sweater.

 They have a million different types of potatoes here. And they use them for all different kinds of dishes.

All kinds of different corn.

Street restaurant. They have them a lot of places here, and it is often very cheap and very good food.

 Today we had some kind of stuffed pepper with pasta and salad. Delicious! And it only cost 10 kr.

 Lydia, Chris and I.

It is normally really easy to get from one placeto another around here. It is like 6 kr. for a taxi in Cusco and to take a bus from Cusco to Pisac (1 hour) is 10 kr. but when we wanted to take the bus home it was impossible to get a bus, and there were so many people waiting to go to Cusco, and they don't always have the best waiting sistem, so Lydia and I ended up sitting in the boot of a car all the way. But we had greatfun, and we could take a lot of really good pictures of the landscape.

It might look uncomfortable, but it was actually really good :)

The bus behind us drove like crazy, but it passed us at some point, so no problems.

 Beautiful view!

Doritos and Oreos are the solution to all your problems, and a perfect way to enjoy a trip like that.

 Everything is good here, and I'm looking forward to starting my work tomorrow at the school.

La Fiesta de San Sebastian

The last two days there has been a big celebration of a catholic saint in the part of Cusco that's called San Sebastian.
San Sebastian was a saint that helped the sick and the poor as far as i have understood. The people here are very religious, and therefore there has been a great celebration.
They are all serving the same food at street vender restaurants, and that was guinea pig with some kind of corn tortilla, sea weed and papas.

Other than the food there was a huge parade of dancers. They all danced to show their love to the San Sebastian. And as you can see on the pictures they were all dressed in fancy costumes. The parade was divided in 19 groups of dancers, and in the middle of the parade a lot of men were carrying a statue of San Sebastian.

 Even the small kids were in the parade.

A man dressed as a woman.

The statue of San Sebastian.

The men carrying the statue are having a hard time.

Beautiful hair.

Beautiful shoes - but the girls were complaining about them in the end.

An amazing expirience in San Sebastian.