My Experience at Huancaro

I remember feeling nervous on my first volunteering day at Huancaro - I thought the kids might be shy or not interact with me because my Spanish wasn´t great. However, I had nothing to be worried about because as the taxi was driving up the big hill up to the school, I saw 4 or 5 kids running right beside us with huge smiles on their faces…and they were so excited to give us hugs and kisses as soon as we got out of the taxi – even me, even though I was new! After that, the day flew by.

The general day goes like this:

We arrive at the school (at 9:00) and the kids wash their hands and faces…

They eat breakfast that we bring for them…

They grab their toothbrush & brush their teeth…

The kids bring the benches back in…

School begins…

Breaktime!

School time again…

School ends (at noon) with the students getting in line and

answering a question to receive a piece of fruit…

...and we walk down the hill to get a taxi, but still have fun along the way!

A couple of my favourite memories so far:

Some kids in the class were having trouble with their ¨right¨and ¨left¨. So, Berta (the Peruvian teacher) tied yellow string on each of the kids´right wrist...after that, when she said ¨right hand!¨ or ¨left hand!¨, the kids knew which hand to put up. I loved it. And so did the kids.

Obviously it is difficult for kids to concentrate for a ong time. So, when Professora Berta feels the kids need a break, she puts on a song (always the same song so the kids know it well!) and we have a dance break – walking around the tables in a circle, jumping up and down, waving our hands in the air, etc. Sometimes the kids get so into it that they end up yelling the words which is tough on the ears, but always puts a smile on our faces.

During play time, the kids have grown fond of me playing tag with them. They love running away from me and (of course) I love being able to run around with them! I also tried to learn how to play marbles with the boys in our class...I sort of understood the game – not quite – and my accuracy with the marbles was definitely not as high as the boys.

The kids, as may be expected, are in love with cameras. As soon as they see one, they want to get in the photo...once they are all grouped up, instead of saying ¨cheese¨ to make themselves smile, they say ¨Whiskeyyyyyyy¨and start waving their hands at the camera.

New Christmas Campaign

Some of our previous volunteers came up with the idea of another campaign to help get some donations for Christmas to the kids. Actually December in Peru it is also the last month of school year. Right before Christmas two month summer holidays start for the kids. We would like to have a graduation party and at the party give little presents for the kids. We have already quite a few from our previous events but still need some. Last weekend we have designed the poster below and got it printed in a very nice format. We kind of became experts in getting great posters printed. Our Sandra is again going to be all over the town :))

The idea of the campaign is to get 40 hotels and restaurants as partners where people will be able to leave their donations. Once in a while we are going to pick up the donations. Since there are nine volunteers at the moment it should not be that big of a job. The first reactions from prospective hotels and restaurants are very encouraging.

We have also managed to agree to have a party at one of the more popular venues in Cusco where some part of the proceeds will go for our cause. Perhaps we will also manage to introduce Beer Pong in the place where we hold our pub quizzes with the proceeds going to us.

About the donations:

We have to say we are VERY PROUD of all the people who have donated money to our kids. Thanks to you we make their lives a little bit less miserable and give them a bit more chances for the future! It is kind of amazing because all in all we have collected almost USD 4800. Just as we have targeted. Honestly we did not really believe it will be possible and here we are - in the beginning of November and we have reached our target!!!!!

It is almost the end of school year and we are preparing the kids for the entry exams to the state schools. It also means that we have to pay a small yearly fee, get uniforms, notebooks and pencils for kids. Since during the break of January and February we will have to recruit new kids for our summer school - condensed program helping kids who would probably not make it to the 1st grade without our 2 months preparatory summer school - we are also going to have new expenses.

But with all our new events in the pipeline, new volunteers and their networks we hope to raise still more money therefore we have increased our target on our fundraising page!!!

Moving schools in Puquin

So we have 3 schools in total in Cusco and about 40 kids. One of our schools is in an area called Puquin and a few weeks ago we were given notice and told that we would have to find another hovel to teach in.

After a bit of coming and going, the teacher in Puquin, Roger, and our social assistant Haydee found an alternative location for us. It´s an equally glamorous hole with 4 walls, no water, no bathroom and no windows! It´s got great views though!... and it's not next to the road like the old school.

There was a timely strike in Cusco a few days before we had to move schools so we spent our time decorating and preparing it for the kids and turning into a virtual aquarium.
We had help from our new volunteer Severine and she brought a friend too. In the end there was 5 of us, plus a little help from a local boy that Nelly befriended. We got it all done in a few hours, all ready for the move on the friday.

The new school and the old school aren´t actually that far away from each other, but as luck would have it the road was blocked that day with roadworks so we had to move the furniture and everything on foot. The first thing we saw was lots of little people on the horizon, carrying a table. From then on the grown-ups took over and for the next 2 hours lugged tables, chairs and a lot of 'stuff' from one to the other in the mid-day sun. I felt like was in the world's strongest man contest....until I realised I was carrying two children's chairs!!

When the kids saw their new classroom they went nuts, and all the cutting and sticking and painting had been worth it!

Judgement Day

So Saturday 27th September arrived and ran me over. Rita and Tomek left for the shores of Brazil on Friday. Rita announced their departure on Friday afternoon at the weekly meeting with the teachers and the room fell silent and so my three weeks as 'la directora' began. My first full day was the event we've been preparing for for weeks at Club Cusco.

Here are the edited highlights.... At 6.30 myself and the little chef, Joel went shopping for the fresh ingredients he needed for the lunch. We bought fish for the cerviche, and then got in trouble with the police bnecause it turns out that 4 months of the year in Peru it's illegal to buy that kind of fish!?! We spent over half an hour in a police van answering questions and filling out documents....for buying fish! Things carried on in a similar fashion the whole day, but from the outside looking in, it was a success. Club Cusco gave some invitations out for free by mistake, ten they only set the room up for 60 people, when we expected 150, then the chef left the building just as we were about to serve the lunch and then we ran out of food an hour and a half before the event finished!

Having said that, the teachers were all fanatastic! Everyone worked so hard. Roger even had his haircut especially so he could fit in with the elegant dresscode!



Nelly and her daughter set up a jewellery stall to display all the many beautiful things we made. Unfortunately the rich people of Cusco are too cheap to buy any of it, but we have other plans for the fruits of our labours...



Everyone seemed to enjoy the food. I didn't manage to get any pics of a plate of food, but I guess that's a good sign...



DJ Didiez Cruz played all day for us for free, bless his soul and also took some complaints from Bruce and Ana Tere in good spritis.



The Salsa dancers came on at the beginning of the event and really opened it with a bang! Everyone was transfixed by them and they really looked beautiful.


Afterwards eveyone ate the lovely food and enjoyed the toned-down music and begrudgingly parted with two soles each to take part in our spectacular raffle. Our brave teacher Saida got up twice wiht the microphone, once to announce the raffle and once to thank everyone for coming. She was really brave becasue you could see she was nervous, but she did it anyway.


Somehow we didn't raise very much money (largely due to the stingy members of club cusco who paid half price for entrance and then claimed that the small crowd they brought with them were all family members who were also entitled to the reduced entrance fee). On the bright side all the money we made was profit and goes directly to helping children and we also got bags and bags of presents for the kids, which we're saving for Christmas presents. We also made alot of great contacts with people in Cusco....of which my favourite is the lovely Christian, one of our sponsors from a local club called Roots...he has a very special, low voice...hamanahamana!


The day was a success and everyone enjoyed themselves. I don't count myself in that category, but personally, I feel like grew a a good few inches that day. I'll never forget our day at Club Cusco and I am so thankful to everyone who helped Bruce Peru Cusco that day...you all have your place in heaven!

Swimming pool day

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Before we made it out of Cusco we had taken the kids from all schools to the local swimming pool. It has been our first time since we came to Cusco that we took the kids out (generally due to financial reasons). It has also been Peruvian kids day - so a good reason to undertake something special. Of course it required lots of coordination and we were quite concerned how we are going to handle our quite hyperactive group.

The task proved not as strenous as we have assumed in the beginning. All in all we ended up with around 25 kids which showed up with signed permissions from their parents and we set off to the swimming pool. One group ended quite late at the pool due to a minor accident of the bus they were travelling on. Nothing at all happened to them but they arrived an hour late. All the kids happily went to the dressing room though two did not reappear from it - there was no way to make them stop crying and agree to come to the swimming pool. Already in the swimming pool though the kids were very obedient and did not require excessive amount of attention. Everybody had a small sandwich after the event and we took the kids back to their homes...quite funny that you can fit around 12 kids into one taxi in Cusco...


All in all no casulties - except one kid with bleeding lip (happened still before she made it to the swimming pool). The bad thing was that the father of this little girl was especially worried about her going to the swimming pool. I guess it is some kind of Murphy's law...Nothing else comes to my mind when such things happen.

In the center Chaplin has been at work - working hard to make sure that the rabbit of one of our teacher's gets back pregnant. I must admit that our Chaplin is much more fit and smart than Chaplina :))) In fact everybody is looking forward to her departure next Monday...right now Chaplin lost all interest in interacting with us and she was making a mess in the patio...

Countdown for the show

The good thing about this week is that we were having all teachers in the schools. At least one of the teachers is very good - the other is better than the teacher that we had before but we are not sure she can manage the whole class in case she has nobody to help her... at least she has great respect in the eyes of the kids...this definitely helps to keep order in the class. Volunteers are generally abused by the kids - the kids do with them whatever they want. I am the best example of it - unfortunately.

Rita on the other hand is now fully immersed in creating jewellery - our kids are supposed to start putting together necklaces and bracelets which we are to sell at our culinary event. So far though it seems that Rita takes most fun of it - and secretly told me that if we cannot sell them at the event she will appropriate them for herself :))

There has been lots of work that had to be done for the Club Cusco culinary event - and our next week does not seen any lighter in this respect. Hopefully, everything will go right next Saturday... As to the event - on Saturday we should have received the invitations and A2 posters for the event from the print house. It has been quite a battle with the print house to get what we want and when we want - honestly we are helpless what concerns not keeping promises. Anyway it is our own design and we will try to post both here on the blog though they will probably look not as nice as in reality. We will have them printed on nice glossy paper (poster) and excellent paper especially for the invitations (no idea what it is called in English).

Next week in general will be full of extracurricular events. As mentioned on Monday Chaplin the bunny is going to have a date - our new teacher brings Mrs. Chaplin so that . On Tuesday we will have a Peruvian Children's day so we decided that we are going to take the kids to the swimming pool - I suspect that it is going to be adventures for two reasons at least: first previous directors told us that last time there were quite big problems before they let the big group in as the kids were not exactly clean looking so big washing took place. Secondly controlling those lets say 30 kids at a swimming pool might prove quite challenging. On Wednesday we have a pub quiz and a visit of Bruce Peru founder and his wife. It came as a surprise for us...can say that we provoked it as we have written quite a long email addressing the problems we face here and we think the whole organization faces - we got a very positive response to it and request to meet and discuss how can our proposals be implemented... The great thing is that they will be able to personally participate in the Saturday Culinary show.


On Thursday then we will probably visit all the schools with our visitors...On Saturday as mentioned before we will have our culinary event in Club Cusco. In the meantime of course we have to sell 70 tickets to the event, go over our problems and accomplishments with the founder of the organization and make sure our Peruvian Chef does not forget anything for the event.

At the event we are planning to make an exhibition with photos of the kids - that is why we have asked people who have formally had experience with us to join our flickr group and add their pictures. We will choose the best and make an exhibition - of course giving credit to the authors of the pictures. We are looking forward to all pictures and more comments from all of you.

A day in the life of a volunteer

My name is Amelia and I am a volunteer with Bruce Peru Cusco. In this photo I am with Maribelle, helping her to get washed before lessons start.

It's difficult to describe a typical day here because no day is the same. There are some things that we must do every day though, starting with getting up at around 7. One of us must then start preparing a Peruvian breakfast drink for the kids called 'desayuno' (breakfast), which is made with different types of flour, water and sugar and is pretty disgusting until you get used to it. At the same time, we have to make 40 sandwiches, usually with something sticky in them, to complete the children's breakfast. After having our breakfast, the teachers arrive here at 8.30 and we go off to three separate schools around Cusco.

I've been to all three and I like all of them. They all have their separate personalities because of the kids that make up the schools, but I enjoy being in all of them.


Officially I don't have favourites because that would be wrong. Off the record however in the three schools there is always at least one child that you really look forward to seeing and often think about adopting to make a Brad and Angelina style family!

In the Puquin school that child is Livia. She is so beautiful I think she will grow up to be a Disney Princess. She's also very shy so when she gives you a smile or laughs with you, it's a real treasure.


In Ticatica, top of the sprogs would have to be Jesus. He's always got such a massive grin on his face, that is until you ask him to write the letter 'A' or the number '8', then her grabs his hair and pulls a face, but they're both equally cute. In this picture he has covered himself in moisturizing cream.Each mornign at the schools, after breakfast we ask the children to brush their teeth and wash their faces. Because of the climate here the children's skin is usually very dry on their face and hands so we give them cream after their wash. Some kids like Livia hate the cream and you have to chase them around with the bottle. Other kids like Jesus can't get enough and slap it on with a trowel totry and look like 'fanatasmas' (ghosts).

Jesus is also very sweet when he prays. We used to have a very religeous teacher in Ticatica called Marina and she'd always do a big prayer (like the lord's prayer) each morning with the kids and Jesus would say it word for word with his hands clasped together and his little eyes screwed up......


Geraldine comes in a very close second in the cute stakes. She's 4 I think and quite worryingly always has a pair of earrings in. She was the favourite of a previous volunteer here, Alanna and she is naturally very sweet. Unfortunately, one of the only things she has learnt to say is 'no pueeeeeedooooo' (I caaaaaaaan't).



Finally in Ticatica, I have to mention Rosita. I like her because she has a really strong personality. She's funny, feisty, cheeky and very beautiful. She's a real character.


I've only spent a few days in the Huancaro school, but this little chap made a real impression on me. His name is Casimiro. He's very difficult to deal with in a classroom, but I still found him to be very charming in his own way, and I love his middle-aged hair too!


The schools are only open from 9-12, which is a blessing because you really work hard for those 3 hours. The kids are very affectionate almost immediatley which makes it very easy to become attached to them, but if you can speak Spanish it's even better and you soon feel like you're getting to know them. I can't speak Spanish very well, but this is a sure-fire way to learn fast!If you want to improve your Spanish then volunteering here will do it in a hurry....you learn a lot and you learn quickly.

After lunch the rest of the day is your own and if you're a volunteer then to a large extent it's your choice how involved you choose to be in the rest of the centre's activities i.e. fundraising. It's great if everyone can contribute something, but if you only have a week in Cusco it's understood that you mould probably want to see the city and the sights.

I love it here, it's hard work and its frustrating, but I wanted the chance to be a part of something that feels necessary and this is it. This is the only education these kids get....we're not an after-school club, we provide their only access to education and, in many cases, we manage to get them into state school the following year.

Stop reading and come and help....in two weeks Rita and Tomek go on holiday and I NEED YOU!!!!

Not so typical week in Bruce Peru Cusco

Things change very quickly even in charity organizations that in theory should be operating in much more stable environment than private enterprises. Somehow this is not the case. Perhaps it was only last week and a change that could be associated with the rainy season seems to have arrived in Cusco. Actually it feels more like hailing seasons as half of the time it hails instead of raining.

To start with we had some great success in fund raising. As mentioned earlier we are working on a culinary event in one of the most fancy places in Cusco - Club Cusco. It is actually only members club which lets us organize the event in their premises for free. Our Peruvian chef and his friends will work for free doing all the cooking etc. There is also going to be Peruvian handicraft and salsa dancing. You can see the plan of the event here - unfortunately only in Spanish.

All the proceeds from the event are going directly to our organization. Last week mostly due to Rita we have managed to secure 10 sponsors for the event (pubs, restaurants etc.). Now we just need to print and sell 80 tickets but we are quite optimistic. In addition thanks to our efforts now we get everyday excellent food for free from La Retama restaurant for the kids and we have an agreement to bring our kids for arts classes to one of the local museums. Rita's Spanish is by now incredible!!! Hard to believe that she made such huge progress.

One unexpected result of the tours around the city is the fact that we have managed to find lovely restaurants and cafe's and additionally got to know their quite eccentric owners - perhaps also some underground Cusco :)) There is hardly any night club, pub or restaurant in the center of Cusco we have not been to so walking around means you stop every 5 minutes to greet someone and pretend that you are best friends :)

In addition we have received lots of money through our online donation page - in total USD2630!!! (excluding the culinary event)...VERY BIG THANK YOU TO ALL THE DONORS!!!

Considering the current successes in fund raising this week we finally intend to introduce books to the kids - it is a bit more complicated as it sounds because our kids are not on the same level (not to mention age). Therefore each school will need at least three different books which we are actually compiling on our own.

In addition we are overhauling how the classes are led to increase the effective time that kids learn (in a more structured way) and to teach them a bit of discipline.

On the negative side we are missing teachers for our schools. Two of our teachers have quit and we are in the process of finding new ones. For the time being we have managed to find temporary solutions but we need to have a more permanent setup. Rita has talked to the director of two collages specializing in preparing people to become teachers and we had some applicants from them but so far did not manage to get anybody to fill in our vacancies. Keep your fingers crossed for this week. This is critical but also a great opportunity for us to improve the quality of education our kids get.



Another problem that we are facing is lack of volunteers. It would be much easier to run the show if we had more people. Unfortunately this week there will be only three of us. Next week another volunteer will arrive to us from Belgium but in October we will be down to two people. This is quite worrisome. So far we have not been too successful with our fliers so we will change our campaign a bit - from more subdued to playing more on feelings - lets see whether this will play out better and we have more suitable people knocking on our door. On the other hand we are going to tackle this problem by trying to partner with agencies which specialize in recruiting volunteers (we know from other centers that it can do miracles). With those two new initiatives we hope to get more people to help us.

Once again thank you for all helping hands...

A typical week

Some time has passed since we have created this blog. Since then many things happen and we have had quite good response from Bruce Peru Cusco friends. We hope to build on it to further develop our organization and the way we help the kids.

Here comes an overview of the current situation:

We have three schools at the moment; one in Ticatica, one in Huancaro and one in Puquin. All of them are about a 20 minutes drive from the center of Cusco in the poorest suburbs of the city. We work with three Peruvian teachers, Jessica in Huancaro, Marina in Ticatica and Roger in Puquin. Haydee, our social assistant works with the families, problematic kids and continuously looks for more children.

Now we are at the final three months of the school year, which begins in March and ends in December. During this time we prepare our children to be able to enter the state school the following year according to their age group or capabilities. These children have all passed the age when normally kids must enter the primary school, which makes it quite a challenge to catch up with what they missed. In some cases we have kids who dropped out from the state school and we are helping them to get back. During January, February and March we have a so called summer school, where we use the vacation time of the state schools to prepare as many kids as possible to be ready for the state schools during three months. In this case we lower the age limit to 6 years, as kids here enter the first grade at the age of 6.

Depending on our resources we have one or two international volunteers helping each Peruvian teacher, but more volunteers are always welcome as kids need a lot of attention. Besides working with the kids in the classroom from 9 am till noon volunteers are preparing food for the children every day and helping them to receive medical assistance during the afternoons.

We have we introduced some reforms recently: (the four of us - as on average we were four volunteers in the center).

First of all our schools start nowadays at 9.00 o'clock instead of 9.30 as earlier. There is a weekly meeting on Friday's where the teachers plan the week - we will still revamp it a bit but we have some coordination nowadays... We have also introduced everyday reports from school with attendance lists etc. So we know how many kids are in the school and what is needed for the next day. The teachers are responsible for filling in those reports. This will also help our social worker to follow-up and talk to the parents in case they do not show up in school.

We have uploaded lots of new pictures especially from our Ticatica school. Most of the new pictures were made by Alanna and are just excellent!!! We have not succeeded with making Bruce Peru friends upload the pictures to flickr so this week we will continue with sending personal invitations to join the group. For the time being you can see our pictures. Check the Huancaro and Puquin pictures.



We will also shortly have meetings with kids that have graduated from our schools last two years. Unfortunately we will be closing one of the schools as we do not have enough kids there...this will probably take place next week... We will try to move the kids from the closed school to our Huancaro school. At the same time we will start looking for kids either at the same location or at a new location to reopen the third school next year when the new school year starts.

We have also restarted the pub quiz - for the time being at The Real McCoy pub with full house and to our own surprise with a full blown success. Last week we have also had our first which was a great success - mainly thanks to the queen of the night - Amelia - our new volunteer made a great show and we have managed to raise 140 USD. As of now we have altogether raised in total USD 1220 which is more than GREAT!!! The biggest amount of it thanks to Alanna's dad...We are really happy that there are people who are willing to help like this. We and all the kids are greatly indebted to them and everyone who has helped so far.


We are also in the middle of organizing a big party and the most fancy club in Cusco - where we will have a cooking show, dancing etc and all proceeds from the tickets will come to us - not to mention that everyone who comes will have to bring some clothing as donation - it will take place on the 27th of September...

We will also get a short story in the next South American Explorer's Club (SAEC). We should also introduce a little perk for the volunteers. Whoever will sign up with us for at least one month would get the membership of SAEC for free.

So things are moving : our next biggest task is to change to certain extent the teaching plan since it seems still a bit chaotic...introduction of individual books for each child is high on our agenda...it is a bit difficult since we have such a big age difference between kids and different goals...Of course we do face challenges with the health of the kids, and we manage very well with the dentists but do not have any good clinic that we provide optical services to our kids.

This is more or less what has recently happened and the challenges we have. We are looking forward to your pictures, and comments...