Starting the project and mourning the Pope
Mariana Gledhill from Wellington, N.Z spent 7 months, in 2005, in Peru doing voluntary work. She shares her experiences.
Hola Todos
Chincha continues to be enjoyable. have had an adventurous week: been bitten by a dog (not rabid, My host dad is a vet), been put on a diet by a doctor, and tomorrow I am off to the beach with the project I am working on.
The death of the Pope was big here. There are still shrines all over town. 4 channels were trained on his house for 3 days before he actually died. When he died, is was covered on every channel. It was like Easter Friday, when all of the channels were about Jesus, oh except forgive me, channel 2 was about moses. People here reacted to the Pope´s death as if they had lost a family member.
My project is good. I am helping with English homework (mainly correcting the errors that the TEACHERS make), and talking a lot with the girls. One is 15, and wants to learn to read. She cannot at the moment so they won´t let her go to school. I plan to help Isabel when I can speak Spanish better. Maria Claudia escaped from the Hogar, so security is tight at the mo. They even search the young kids, like Gabriela, who is 6 and who is not trying to escape. She is one of the lucky ones, who is there because her parents have no money, but they visit her and her sisters a lot. Maybe Don Brash can come down and check out this alternative to giving out the DPB (howl of sarcasm). There are so many sad people here and so many ways to help them. I pretty much do what I can. I don´t have set work at the moment.
What am I missing… getting ideas about development and not being able to thrash them about… I think I will go back to Uni when I go back home.
Anyway, you all keep smiling
Love Mariana
