Totally behind with the blogs I´m afraid, here´s one I started earlier.
I´m working in two places at the moment: one is the orphanage in the city, the other is an after-school project in one of the villages, where I help some poor and often neglected children with homework, teach English and play games. Recently one of the children was complaining of hunger, so the teacher (who works there permanently) and I went to make a home visit.
I´m working in two places at the moment: one is the orphanage in the city, the other is an after-school project in one of the villages, where I help some poor and often neglected children with homework, teach English and play games. Recently one of the children was complaining of hunger, so the teacher (who works there permanently) and I went to make a home visit.
Home visits are to find out if children have problems, and if we can do anything to help, such as send clothes or food. The teacher tries to visit all the children who come at some point.
After the project we headed up the hill and into the village centre, and turned off down a muddy, orange-coloured track. This part of the village was postcard-perfect, taking us through tall eucalyptus groves between fields of maize and purple potato flowers. A little boy ran out of a field ahead and called for his brother, the boy we were visiting.
At the house we got a fairly cold welcome, apart from the little brother who spotted us coming. Big sister was outside washing pans in a bucket. When she appeared, the mother wasn´t keen to let us in, and didn´t speak much Spanish. Frankly, she looked exhausted.
The house looked from the outside like a small farm building, made of crumbling sandstone. The impression didn´t change when we went inside with our little boy running about taking pictures for us. We stepped back in time two hundred years.
There was a large courtyard inside, with a brown pool of liquid in the centre. Chickens jumped out of our way and herd of sheep was resting at the side. Rabbits were stacked in cages and on the washing lines in the courtyard were joints of meat. Apart from a small area at the side, this was the house.
The small area was for all five in the family; there was one bed and a stove for burning wood. No electricity or water of course, and a toilet outside in a kind of makeshift tent made of plastic sheets.
With no other adults to help out, the Mother was left cleaning clothes in a big bucket and looking after the animals to scrape together money for food. We got a packet of bread, biscuits and some bananas and the kids were beaming.
When you walk around Huancayo, and even when you walk around the villages, the houses that face the main roads are modern, and modest but comfortable looking. Local governments have worked hard to beautify squares and churches but in every part you only have to walk a few hundred metres to find people living right on the edge, with every comfort of the modern world and the work of the government passing them by.
On the whole, Peru appears to be developing but there are many who get left behind. This hits you hard when you meet the people, or when you work with them, play with them and know them as real people.
At the house we got a fairly cold welcome, apart from the little brother who spotted us coming. Big sister was outside washing pans in a bucket. When she appeared, the mother wasn´t keen to let us in, and didn´t speak much Spanish. Frankly, she looked exhausted.
The house looked from the outside like a small farm building, made of crumbling sandstone. The impression didn´t change when we went inside with our little boy running about taking pictures for us. We stepped back in time two hundred years.
There was a large courtyard inside, with a brown pool of liquid in the centre. Chickens jumped out of our way and herd of sheep was resting at the side. Rabbits were stacked in cages and on the washing lines in the courtyard were joints of meat. Apart from a small area at the side, this was the house.
The small area was for all five in the family; there was one bed and a stove for burning wood. No electricity or water of course, and a toilet outside in a kind of makeshift tent made of plastic sheets.
With no other adults to help out, the Mother was left cleaning clothes in a big bucket and looking after the animals to scrape together money for food. We got a packet of bread, biscuits and some bananas and the kids were beaming.
When you walk around Huancayo, and even when you walk around the villages, the houses that face the main roads are modern, and modest but comfortable looking. Local governments have worked hard to beautify squares and churches but in every part you only have to walk a few hundred metres to find people living right on the edge, with every comfort of the modern world and the work of the government passing them by.
On the whole, Peru appears to be developing but there are many who get left behind. This hits you hard when you meet the people, or when you work with them, play with them and know them as real people.
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