So now its time to describe how my life has been for the last 4 weeks more or less. We have been staying in on of the community centers, or Locales, right next to the soccer field. The building is usually used for visiting sports teams for games. We have one big common room, three rooms to sleep in (guys and girls separate,) and some bathrooms and showers. The showers only have one knob, cold. It doesn´t try and give you any false hope, you see exactly what you are getting. A cold shower really isn´t that bad, you just have to sike yourself up for it. Our building is actually the only building in town to some form of a septic system and I imagine one of few to have western style toilets. We have mattresses to sleep on and the only real bug problem is oversized beatles that fly all over the place.
A normal day starts off with breakfast around 7. In the beginning of the trip we organized ourselves into three groups for meal times: fetching the food, setting the table, and doing dishes. We have about a 5-10 minute walk to pick up our food at Señora Cela´s house. The setting the table group also gets the privilage of getting to burn paper as well as used toilet paper, since you are not allowed to flush it town the toilet in Peru. Burning poo is one of those things I can finally cross of my bucket list, glad I finally was able to do that one. Everyone morning as we walk to pick up the food, without fail, a little girl yells hi to us. Normally this is a very sweet and friendly gesture, but when you hear "HOLA GRINGITAAAA" at 645 in the morning constantly it makes you want to take action. Personally, I´ve though of putting her into one of our giant soup pots, but the plan is still in the works.
After breakfast we head to the worksite which happens to be a whole 100 meters from our casa. We work from 8-1 and then have lunch. A lot of the teenagers in the town have come and helped us out with the project as well. All of them know how to do the work 10 times faster than any of us. I swear all of them were born with the ability to mix cement, saw, and dig holes. I imagine its genetically passed down from the Incas, but I´m no anthropologist.
The afternoons have have involved a wide variety of activies. Some days we have different speakers come to talk to us about life in Lurinchincha or different non-profits. Other days we do AJWS learning sessions about social justice or just get the afternoons free. Lurinchincha, and Peru in general turned out to be a perfect place for me. Their favorite sports are soccer and volleyball. I have been playing lots of both with the younger kids as well as the older teens. As well, we have been helping out at the Ludoteca in the afternoons. I got to help with math homework as well as paint pictures. I made a lion, it was award winning.
After dinner at 7 we usually have an evening activity. Monday and Wednesday have been our cultural/language exchanges with the teens and other kids in the community. We have had a game night, to help facilitate learning languages as well as a bonfire on top of an ancient ruin for the 4th of July. The other nights we either have an AJWS learning session or have a different speaker. Fridays are different for shabbat. We usually have the whole afternoon free to hang out and prep. After that we have a brief kabbalat shabbat service with a planned oneg afterwards. My session included would you rather and crab soccer. Before shabbat started a few weeks ago we went down to the beach and watched the sun set. I had never seen a sun set before on the pacific, it was absolutely gorgeous. On sundays we have been going to different places around the area. We went to Chincha, the closest town, and also went to a majority afro-peruvian town called El Carmen.
So the computer froze and deleted the other part of what I wrote. To be continued....
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