*sun, fun and ....MUCHO to do*

These past two weeks have been relatively busy! Well I guess, it's not like any of my other weeks are NOT busy ;) But this one especially - or maybe I just like to think so.

Last week we finished our crochet project with the 'sordos'. Now the seriousness of life is back in school. Well at least most of the time. ;) Nevertheless there is always a little bit of time to fool around. What happens if we fool around? Well see for yourself:

J. trying on my sombrero

Milene also came up with a new teaching method. Always two kids had to come up front. She would then ask them a question. The goal was to get the right answer before the other one did. If the answer was wrong or if you lost --- well this is what happened (not sure this teaching method would be accepted in Switzerland, haha) :

In the afternoons we continued our 'wall-project'. It's starting to look really cool! Together with each child, we make a painting of them. It's really awesome and I hope the kids are having just as much fun as we do. =P As for the people who work there at the orphanage- well we don't really know what they think about it. They never really say anything about the things we do... But we kinda decided for ourselves just to go on and do it for the kids. As long as they can have a smile on their faces - it's all we need! 

Judge for yourself, but I think they did an absolutely amazing job!

By the end of the week we had 8 paintings done!

Also this week my auntie left for Switzerland. We are very sad to have her gone - but we are very grateful that she lets us stay here anyways. As you can tell from me still being able to write this blog - we haven't starved to death yet - tho we are pretty close, I would say. ;) We definitely miss her amazing cooking skills !!!

Well yesterday we tried to make Rocoto - the end of the story was - Ursina crying at the lunch table because of the Rocoto. Ajajaj, but somehow we will survive - be it with just bread and water  ;)

On Thursday was my birthday. The teachers at the orphanage were super sweet! They brought me a cake. After singing a birthday song for me they said, that it was a tradition here, that I would have to take the first bite directly from the cake. Well I can officially cross of 'having a cake smashed in your face' from my bucket-list now... ;) 

After a long day of work, Ursina then invited me to go eat dinner at this super yummi place! I had poulet de orange - riiiiiiiiico!

We even had these little peruvian guys with the big sombreros playing in the background. They technically were there for somebody else, but they played just right next to our table - so this was like an extra treat for my b-day!

So as you can see - I'm not getting bored here! We are always finding ways and times to make sure that the fun of life is not missing.

Wish you all a faboulishious week! Be safe ye all and make sure you go have FUN!

Mucho trabajo and even less sleep!

I can't believe how fast time flies by! I just realized today, that I'm already half way thru - pretty soon it will be July - and there is still so much work to be done! But well I guess, one only has two hands and we just take it day by day. But we definitely won't get bored, so that's awesome!

These past two weeks have been pretty crazy. First of all we threw a party on the 1st of May. All the teachers had off (to go party;) ). It's pretty awesome - in Peru it seems - people use every excuse they can get to throw parties. That's why they also have 'pharmacy day', 'secretary day', 'cebiche day' and soooo many more! Really I don't think there is one day, that is not dedicated to something or somebody! Anyways, when people have labor strikes on May 1st in Switzerland, Peruvians go out and celebrate. Gotta looove Peru! =D
So anyways, as everybody else was partying and having a good time we decided to party as well! We drank coca cola, ate snacks, sang and danced all afternoon!

Oh yeah we are party animals!

We also finished our first project - YAY!!!! It turned out really great and I'm so proud of these kids, with how much love and patience they painted these! Long live Barney and Minnie!

first time putting in a screw! Great job!

hard work!

our dear fans stayed true to us till the end!

We also started a new tradition of reading stories every week! So far we read a bunch of car stories, Peter Pan und Hänsel und Gretel! Haha, this is definitely great Spanish practice for me!

In the mornings we are still with the deaf kids. Right now we are doing a crochet project. They've already made little hair thingys and now we are making sombreros. Always great times! Alonso tells us at least 3 jokes every day - tho we haven't really understood one yet x) But we still have 1.5 months to try, right ;) We still need to tell them to slow down while talking, but we are catching on better and better. Sign language really fascinates me!

Also we took a trip up to Yura, to visit the thermal baths. Unfortunately pretty much everything is under construction. So only one of the 3 baths was open. First we hiked a little bit thru the village - well it isn't much more of a village than Guggisberg is ;) But it was still cool - beautiful landscape!

Ursina and I also went in the one bath that was open! Well let's just say - I don't think the water is really supposed to have this color x) I don't know how much hair I fished out of this tub - well I think it would have nearly been enough for a wig ;) Yuuuuu! Haha.

Also in this whole time I've been here, I've never had so many mosquito bites like I had after this trip! Ouch! It must have been the chocolate I ate the day before! Still I love you SWISS CHOCOLATE, I will always be true to you! =D

Yup this is my crazy busy life in Arequipa! Definitely enjoying it! 

Hola chica!

Hi guys!

As you can tell from the date when I wrote my last entry - WE haven't gotten bored yet! Yes, I can  officially say WE now. Last weekend Ursina arrived in Arequipa. She is another volunteer from Switzerland and we will both stay in Arequipa till the middle of July.

It even happened to be so, that she lives with us now. Since she didn't know where she was gonna stay until she left Switzerland last Tuesday - my auntie offered to let her stay here. So here we are now. Ursina lives with us and it's kinda cool to know, that I won't be living by myself once Clarita leaves to Switzerland.

So this has been my third week working at the orphanage. Crazy how time flies by! This week we were able to finish our first project! We painted two 2m x 1.5m pictures of Minnie Mouse and Barney and his amigos. It was sorta messy at times - little Fernando walked around with white hair for 4 days, because he messed around with the paint. But hey - at least it seemed like they were enjoying it quite a bit. They did a pretty amazing job! I will post pictures as soon as we will have put them up on the wall.

Our new goal is to craft some things the kids can play with. So far the afternoon program only consists of taking a nap for 2h and then watching tv for 3h till it's dinner time. People seem to really be trying, but it's incredibly hard to change something if you only have 1 person watching 35 kids all afternoon. As I mentioned before, handicapped kids are still not accepted here. Therefore it's extremely hard to find personnel. So we just try to come up with super easy things, with which the kids can play by themselves. Right now we are making memory cards with the kids.

I really love working there! It's not always easy, especially since the Doctora (boss) is still at the hospital. It's still a pretty big chaos. But the kids are just too adorable! It's great to see them smile and to get hugs from them all the time. They are all wonderful kids and I'm grateful to know them all. One of my highlights this week was, that every morning when I entered little Jahir (about 5 or 6 years old) came up to me and said: "Hola chica!". Just too adorable!

I also got the chance to take more Spanish classes. Two times a week I get to go to Spanish class in the evenings. That really helps!

Ya life is crazy here, but at the same time super good! Lots to do and most of the nights I fall in my bed drop dead tired. But the experience is definitely worth it! So if you ever have some time on your hands and you don't know what to do (I know I know, it's rare - but it's supposed to happen every once in a while) - something like this is definitely an amazing experience!!!

laughter, dancing and gratitude

Hi there folks!

It's been a while since I've written my last post. But here we go now. This was my first official week of work. Little sleep and lots of Spanish, but nevertheless I had a great week.

On Monday, I was supposed to start work at 8.30 am. Since I thought that there might be a lot of traffic at this hour I already left my house at 7 am. Well.... let's just say I underestimated the peruvian way of driving by a LOT! I arrived at work at 7.45 am (normally it takes about 1h to get there). So even though there was twice as much traffic, we got there 15 min. faster than usually. Since I didn't wanna be waaay to early for work, so I decided to stick around the placa and read for a while. But at 8.15am I was tired of waiting and so I went in.

I helped the kids eat their breakfast. Although I kinda felt like I was more in the way than being a big help. But hey it worked out somehow =).

Afterwards I got to go to Milene's class. She teaches the 13-15 year old kids, who are deaf. It's pretty cool to watch them communicate thru sign language. This way of communication has always fascinated me. And I can't believe how fast they can talk!!!
I've been able to join them in the mornings all this week. The kids were super sweet and taught me a lot of words in sign language.
It's pretty funny, that whenever the teacher turns around to write something on the black board they start talking like crazy. So one might have the impression - oh how nice and quiet- but in fact they are just as talkative as any other students ;)

In the afternoons I usually am with the kids in the aldea. The aldea is the actual orphanage. Only 35 out of all the kids stay there. There are only kids with multiple disabilities. They are all super sweet. Even though they don't really have anything, they are always smiling, giving you hugs and tell you how much they love you.

All of these kids were abandoned by their families. A lot of them were found on the street and therefore many of them have severe traumas.
But for me, I found that it is important to understand, why their families abandoned them. It's not because they are all cruel, but these people from the slums are just incredibly helpless, so that they can just really see no other way.
Next to the fact, that they have no means to provide for these kids, it is still the case - that kids with special needs officially don't really exist here. The government only provides very little help for these kids (or better none).

So often times, if families do keep these kids at home, then they hide them inside their little hut all their life. So the project made it to one of it's goal to help families. They want to make them aware, that having a kid with special needs is no shame and they help them provide the means so they can take care of these kids at home. One example is Carlitos. His grandma is taking care of him. His mother and father had a severe accident. Due to the help of volunteers from a near university, they were able to build a little hut with a bed, where Carlitos can sleep now. Regularly the therapists drop by their habitation and have some therapy sessions with him.

I kinda felt bad when we left because the grandma looked at me really sad and asked me if I brought her some bread. Of course I had none with me - so I didn't have anything to give to her. But this shows how people are grasping just for the most simple things like bread.

This week we also had visitors from a University. They came and put on some music. Some of them dressed up. They danced with the kids. It was great to see how much fun the kids had. I had the opportunity to dance with a kid, who can't really walk. He is only like 5 or 6. But he's already got the rhythm down! =) Awesome!

Ya, all in all things went a little crazy this week. The coordinator from Switzerland came to visit us. I had the chance to spend some time with her daughter and we came up with some projects for the kids. For starters we will paint two 2m x 1.5m pictures to put up in the living room. I'll put up pictures once we will start.

Also things kinda went crazy, because the Doctora, who is in charge of the orphanage, had an emergency operation on Monday. She probably won't come back for another month or so. Nevertheless it was great to see the kids smile and making my day bright and beautiful! They are all super sweet and I'm really grateful, that I have the opportunity to be here. 

As for the weekend I had some time to relax. We took a little trip out to a tower in the barrio of Sachaca. Great view all over Arequipa! Incredible how BIG it is! The pictures don't really do justice.

I really had the chance to think about gratitude this week. How grateful we can be to always have enough to eat and to drink, to have a home, to have a family, to live in beautiful countries and to have everything we need. Looking in these kids faces, knowing they don't even have half of the things we do and still being happier than most people are, really amazes me and there are definitely so many things I can learn from them. Truly: GRATITUDE IS THE BEST ATTITUDE!
I am grateful for all the many blessings in my life.

Surfin' - whoooo!

We only got back from Colca on Wednesday, when all suddenly on Thursday morning we felt like - hey let's go down to the sea today!
That was pretty cool - random - but awesome!

So we got on the bus in Arequipa around lunch time. It was about a 2.5 hour drive. Again, the landscape on the way was incredible. Going down to the sea, it is mostly just desert. But since it only stopped raining a couple of weeks ago, there are these random lakes now - in the middle of the desert!

Also we got into a little traffic jam on the way down there. So because it was lunch and mainly because I was bored I started eating some crackers. It didn't take long until this little peruvian girl with her huge black eyes stood right next to me pointing at my crackers and then mumbling something to her mom. I took some of my crackers and handed them to her - she took them quickly with her little hands and sat back on her mommy's lap. She was just adorable!

Later on we ate lunch in a restaurant at the beach. For the rest of the time we took a walk along the beach! LOVE the beach!
The water was really freezing because of the streams down here... But it still felt amazing just to put our feet in. 5000m difference in altitude in only 3 days - phu - quite the adventure!

Oh and in case you were wondering about my little statement in the last entry about how many people can fit in a bus - depending if peruvian or non-peruvian way : Well on the way home we had to take one of these tiny little mini vans to the next village. Normally there fit about 10 people in that bus - that would be the non peruvian way. But in Peru there is about 25 people in that bus! Just try not to breath and you are fine!

A glimpse of Heaven

Early Tuesday morning we were picked up at our house. It was a tiny little bus and only about 15 people fit in there (well at least in the non-peruvian way). We were greeted by a young man called Gonzalo Pizzaro. He was to be our guide for the next two days. Since we were only the second group to be picked up, we drove thru the city for about 1h hour more, until we finally had all the passengers on board.

Then we started our journey up up up to the Vally of Colca. Frist we drove thru the slums of Arequipa. That was really interesting to see, since here in the city you basically don't ever see any of it. Thousands of houses have only been started to be built. Often there are only 2,3 or if they are lucky 4 walls standing. But then most people don't have enough money for the roof. So there is all these half way done houses, that nobody lives in. I asked, why people wouldn't start working together - so that one family builds the walls and the other the roof. It would be packed, but at least they would have a home. But they told me, that people don't mind. It's also a way of saving the space for later. And once the government will provide electricity and water, they will finish it.


For about 2h we drove up the mountain, before we made our first stop. On our first stop we got to see some Vicunias. They look like Lamas, only a bit smaller. It was interesting to learn, that contrary to the Lamas and Alpacas, one can never have a Vicunia as a pet. They have to live in the wilderness or else they will die. Also we learned, that their wool is really expensive and only a few farmers, wo live up there are allowed to cut their wool. The way they do is, that once a year all the 5000 farmers gather and make a huge line holding each others hands. They then walk thru the whole valley, gathering the Vicunia. They cut their wool and then let them run free again.

Later on we also stopped to look at some Lamas and Alpacas. Tho they didn't seem to be so happy about us taking pictures of them. Luckily we had the necessary distance, so they couldn't spit at us! Oh and fyi - they all spit! So next time you go up to an Alpaca or a Vicunia and think, oh they are so cute and ya right, it's no Lama so I'm safe to cuddle it - YOU MIGHT REGRET IT! ;)

At 4100m we made our third stop. Gonzalo told us all to go inside and have some Coca tea, because the next stop was at 5000m. So we did. The tea was actually pretty yummi and also they had a cute little market outside. Tho, I think what I liked most was the rock formation. There were these funny looking pillars. It looked simply amazing!

After this stop we drove about 1h more, till we finally got to the top - 5000m. Wow I think that's the highest I've gone so far. I was really surprised tho- I expected to feel worse. I think that Coca really helps ;) I tried walking up the hill, to the bathrooms (which is about 50m or so). Haha -  afterwards I felt like I just ran a half marathon! 

There was also a market. Gonzalo told us, we could only stay 10min. because of health issues. I looked at these ladies, who sit up there all day long and I really admired them for how fit they must be!
We also build little stone man. Apparently this is a old tradition. Different people used to worship different volcanos. So the tale goes, that if you build a stone man that looks like a volcano you have a free wish. haha, not so sure this is gonna work, but hey at least I can say, that I build a stone man on 5000masl.

I also learned, that we picked the perfect time to go up there. Normally it's all brown- really more desert like. But since the rain season only ended about 2 weeks ago, everything was perfectly green! I'm so grateful, that we had the most perfect weather! Blue sky all the time!

After our short stop on the top we drove all the way down to Chivay. It's one of the biggest villages in the Colca valley. This is also the place we stayed for the night. After a delicious lunch - for which I ate Alpaca meat for the first time - they took us to our hotels. At the hotel I had a slight shock, when I went into the bathroom for the first time.

Yes my dear friends - it's no joke! Apparently that's the rule in most parts of Peru (except Arequipa, phu - lucky me!). Naturally my first reaction was like - oh no, they hired somebody who sucks at translating - maybe I should go tell them. So I walked out and told it to this other women. She looked at me confused and said - no it's no joke- never flush your toilet paper down or you'll have to clean the mess! Oooops!

Anyways, after this little lesson about hygiene we went for a walk thru the village. They had the cutest market. There were so many delicious looking things there. Only sad, that one can't eat most of them, because it's way to dangerous. But we did try some sort of Cactus fruit. I've never had anything quite like it. The fruit flesh was super sweet, but then I bit on one of the little seeds inside. It was super spicy!! I looked at the lady - and apparently I looked a little confused, because before she said it was sweet. She started laughing and said: 'You shouldn't have bit on the seeds - they are spicy'. Well thanks - tho a little too late now! ;)

Only after a little while me and my auntie met the other guys from the tour again. We went to the hot springs, which were near by. WOW! Best thing ever! Only the sulfur sent is a little distracting at times ;) But truly it was amazing! I really enjoyed it!

 In the evening we went to a dance pub. There was a band who played traditional music and two people danced for us.

The next morning we had to wake up at 5am to go to the place where the Condors fly. It took us another 2.5 hours or so driving thru a rocky road - well let's say it was a road for the most part, but sometimes it resembled more to a creek. But in the end we got to see these HUGE birds. It was pretty cool, because we got to see the adult birds, but also the baby ones! Amazing!

Sometimes they flew only 2m above our heads - incredible feeling- I'm telling you.

On the way home we got to see some more of the beautiful landscape. I loved all the little terraces cut into the mountain.

Just like a little piece of heaven!

We also took a group picture! It was a fun group and we really had a great time together. I love to meet people from all over the world. There were people from France, Germany, Columbia, Peru, Switzerland (YAY:) ), Canada, Mexico etc. Good times!

 It was a great trip to the Colca Valley and I'm so grateful I could be part of it. If you ever come to Peru, this is something I would definitely recommend you!

Gourmet

This week we went to one of the biggest markets in Arequipa. I learned, that if you go there you need to have a strong stomach (so please if you decide to read on, make sure you either have one too or you have a bucket near you). Especially if you walk thru the 'meat section', you better not be sensitive to the smell. Haha!

But it was super pretty and so big! This is a view from the top floor down - and I didn't even get the whole thing on the picture!

First we went up on the first floor! There were flowers everywhere! They had the most beautiful bouquets there! I love all the different kinds of flowers here. I'm so happy my auntie has this paradise like garden! Eating breakfast in the morning, looking at all the beautiful flowers is just heavenly. 

Then we went down to the main floor. She showed me the section with all the magic-stuff. Well it's the stuff for the Inca-rituals etc. People buy these things to bless their fields, houses and whatever else. If you were wondering if this was a real Lama in the picture - yes it's a baby lama and it's real! I told you, one needs a strong stomach to go to the market! Poor little lama!

Later on we went to the meat section. Mh, lets say, if Migro or Coop kept their meat like that, it would have to be thrown out immediately. But it's fine here! It's actually really good meat and you don't get sick from it.
For lunch we then had something called chupe de camarones. Basically you throw the camarones, that you just bought on the market, plus fish eggs (like kaviar, but yellow), corn and potatoes in a soupe. While eating the soup you have to peal the camarones- because you just throw them in as a whole! Oh and as a yummi extra for all you out there - I learned, that you don't just eat the tail of the camarones but you also suck out the brain! Haha! Peru live! But it's actually not too bad, as long as you don't think about what you are eating X) Also the fish eggs are really yummi (in the picture - the yellow heaps)!

But then you also see things like this in the meat section (oh and by the way - you eat the feet as  well - apparently they taste like gum):

Next to the meat section was the queso. Delicious looking, but again, there is no such thing as a fridge:

I think my most favourite part was the fruit and vegetable section! I love all the colors and also the smell is just fabulous! There are so many different kinds of fruit, that one can try. I think one of my most favourite fruits so far, is the cactus fruit (green). It's super sweet, but at the same time not too much. You buy it and they cut it open for you right away - so basically like take away - but super fresh! Me gusta!

Yup, crazy market day! But definitely one of my favourite places so far! I love Arequipa!