Mariana Gledhill from Wellington, N.Z spent 7 months, in 2005, in Peru doing voluntary work. She shares her experiences.
My work is as wonderful as ever. I love the kids I work with and even though physically, I will have to leave in what seems to me so little time, mentally I will never be able to leave the hogar. The kids have left too much of an imprint on my lives. I had better tell you all about them as individuals so that you understand me better.

Mariana Gledhill from Wellington, N.Z spent 7 months, in 2005, in Peru doing voluntary work. She shares her experiences.

Mariana Gledhill from Wellington, N.Z spent 7 months, in 2005, in Peru doing voluntary work. She shares her experiences.

I have travelled a little… to Huacachina which is basically a lagoon in the middle of nowhere… a tourist resort. I went sandboarding and fell a lot. By the end of the session, I had sand in lots of places. I needed a shower when I got home (or rather a bathe… we don´t have a shower so I bathe from a bucket of water. It has taught me a lot… you dont need showers… However, I appreciate them more than ever now, believe me!).

How am I going? Well, great. I feel lucky, more lucky than I have ever felt in my life. I wake up each morning and have bread with whatever my family has on the table, avocado, fried cheese (yep, you read that right), butter or chicken, (fried of course). And as I walk to work, I see others struggling to get their breakfasts by going through garbage on the roadside,

I am in Chincha and I am enjoying it heaps. Sorry I have not mailed about it earlier. I was in bed with la gripe (the flu) all of last week, so I have not been doing much for my project.

My host family is lovely. My sister Maria del Carmen… we call her Marita, has been helping me out so much with the practical important things, and she is also getting me a social life. I have been here less than two weeks and I was sick for one of them, but I have already attended two parties, one a wedding. Did I know the bride or groom?…. no!

There are some things about Lima that I will not be sorry to leave. The traffic is shocking. If the NZ police were here, they would double the surplus in a day with the tickets that could be issued here under NZ law. Cars don’t need registration. Traffic lights and pedestrian crossings are a rough guideline, and conversations with horns occur every day. You flag down buses, and you don’t need to flag down taxis, they stop for you because taxi drivers always assume that Gringas (white girls) need taxis.

I am still living in La Molina and enjoying myself greatly! I had better talk about La Molina. La Molina is probably one of the safest places in Lima. It is quiet, secure and all of it looks pretty much the same- doors made of beautiful woods, carefully tended green grass and checkpoints seemingly everywhere.

Holas from La Molina, Lima. I am officially studying Spanish here at the moment, but I felt a bit unwell at Breakfast… turns out that over here, not eating means that you are pretty sick! In Wellington I would have gone to Uni anyway.

I am finally in Peru and I am really enjoying it. Lima is a city that is covered by smog. Seeing the sky is impossible. I have seen the plaza del armas, very nice part and numerous shanty towns. I have seen street kids sifting through rubbish.