humanity.

Here is the church in the main plaza in Cusco. If you look to the right you can see writing on the mountain that says something about Peru, I haven´t quite gotten the whole thing yet.










These are the people I spend most of my free time with. Dave from Australia and Laura from Michigan. I did her the great disservice in a past post of saying she is from Minnesota. She is from the UP in Michigan. I have loved almost every Michigander I have ever known and she is no exception. Also Dave is great and I feel like I am learning yet another foreign language.






Here we are in outside games class. They are playing a form of dodgeball, and of course, being "profe" and not quite knowing the rules, I was one of the first ones "out".













Here I am with Adear, not that you can see him because I was tickling him, but he is my most challenging and delightful kid at the school. I actually kicked him not only out of class yesterday, but out of school. We are doing English classes and our group has been given "family members" to learn and do a presentation on on Friday. All the kids have been drawing representations of people - grandma, mother, sister, etc. but Aldear just wanted to draw a fire truck. So we compromised and decided that grandpa could be a fireman and there could be a fire truck on the page. Well, he wouldn´t draw grandpa, only the fire truck. So the next day (yesterday) we finally had a fight about him drawing grandpa. If he would draw grandpa larger than an inch tall, he could keep working on his fire truck. This went on for a while, at least five different conversations and I finally told him that he could either draw grandpa or leave class, that if he colored on his fire truck one more time before working on grandpa, that he would have to leave class. He looked me straight in the eyes and colored on his fire truck. So I picked him up and took him out of class and we talked about it again. "you have two choice, either to go inside and work on grandpa, or go home." Well, much to my surprise he decided to go home. Then I felt aweful. But it really seemed like the only thing left. Remember that he is just a shit every chance he gets. So I was pleased to see him back in school today and made a point of telling him I was glad he was there and that I wasn´t mad at him.
He behaved much better today. I went over to him at one point and he was working on the firetruck and not grandpa so I took off my watch and told him that he had seven minutes - until the big hand was on the 10 to work on the firetruck, then he needed to draw grandpa, and he immediately drew grandpa, colors and all and came over and showed me and asked if he could work on the fire truck now. I was really proud of us both. So there is a story of me and Aldear.


Here is Aldear and the fire truck and grandpa. I think it turned out rather well, all things considered.










I wish I could feel comfortable taking the camera to the jail. As it turns out, I am really enjoying the jail. I think it has to do with loving an underdog. Loving someone who doesn´t know how to be trusted and loved. Until going to the jail, I would have thought it was the kids at the school. But that is not the case. At first, I hated it. I just wanted out. All I could see was the yelling and hitting and kicking and biting and pushing and all the violence and horrible things. But over the course of the week, you learn to see the backdrop to it. The kids that have just been abandoned or are orphans and are there because there is no where else to go. There is a kid who has been there three weeks and he is young and shy and sweet but he is just there because of being abandoned and his family is in a small rural town and they don´t know where he is so they can´t come get him from the jail and they wont release him until his family comes to get him. We are trying to work this out for him, but the police are just being kind of buttheads about it. It is so sad to see him there, knowing he should be out. Then there are kids, especially girls, who don´t want out, that things are so bad for them at home, they would rather be in the relative safety of the jail. And that safety is relative, let me tell you. But I guess at least they aren´t being raped in jail. Mostly. That´s hard to wrap your head around, cause jail sucks. That it would be better than home is amazing to me.

The other kinds of things I am seeing is that the kids really actually take care of each other. Even though they punch each other in the process. For example with breakfast, there is a big fight about the cast off bread they get every morning, establishing alpha dog status. But once that is established, the older kids made sure that the younger kids get enough to eat and such. It´s just a big show at first.

Also today a little kid was dropped off, no older than three. He exhibited all the classic signs of autism and couldn´t speak and mostly didn´t engage with anyone. But if you took the trouble to even clap hands with him and say "hola" over and over, he would just giggle and giggle. But he would also climb up onto the top bunks and over to the windows and places dangerous for him. The other kids, while not engaging him or being sweet in any way, would always go get him and keep him out of harm´s way and make sure he had food. So even in the middle of this really shitty situation they find themselves in, they are so human and so good that I am falling in love. More and more each day.

cause people are asking...

here is the address to where I am staying.

Aldea Yanapay
attn: Maryjane Hoadley
534 Calle Fierro
Cusco, Peru

If anyone wants to send stuff either for me or the kids. Any kinds of office supplies are useful, paper, tape, pens, pencils, etc. Tempura paint, markers, coloring books, things to play outside games, small balls, jump ropes, costume stuff, balloons. All sorts of things. Stuff is hard to buy down here even if there were plenty of money, which there also isn´t.

As to me, I would LOVE a pair of long underwear. It is already uncomfortably cold here, especially at night, and it is summer. I think that winter just might be miserable. (There is no inside heat here so as cold as it is outside is as cold as it is inside.) I bought a hot water bottle yesterday to put at my feet at night. Also books in English are always in great demand. Or, if no care package, then a postcard or note just to say hi is always super appreciated.

Don´t send anything of much value as there is no guarantee that anything will get through.
Also don´t feel like you need to send anything, people have just been asking for the address so I thought he would be the easiest place to post it.

love!
em

troublemakers and angels and those that are both

I am very happy to report that today went much easier at the jail. Some for not being in such shock, and some for already knowing some faces and names. There is one kid who is about nine and his name is Frank and he is just there because he has been abandoned, not because he comitted any crime. He should really be at the school, he is so smart and sweet. If he has to stay in that room for another nine years, there is going to be no saving him. He is the first of I am sure many that I just want to take home. His life is so unfair that it breaks my heart.

The oldest boy, named Tony, reminds me of Flip like you wouldn´t believe. Brought tears to my eyes today. The mischeivious twinkle in his eye, his sense of humor, his incredible pride. He is a shit, but I can´t help but love him and I hope I can get him to come around a little with me. He has already started today to make some small overtures - asking me for help with something he was clearly capable of doing himself, for example. But their pride is so sensitive, any wrong move and you start back over at the beginning with them. So there is this line to walk about being good to them and holding your own power so that they respect you.

The jail is also hard because you never know how much time you will have with a kid, they can be gone at any moment. Just when you really look forward to seeing them tomorrow, they may just never be there again. Like I am looking forward to seeing Tony tomorrow to see if we can get any further with trust, but then he might just not be there and it will be some other kid who yells at you not to touch him and you have to start all over.

The balance of doing what they want and holding your power for respect is true at the school as well. There is one kid Andear that is such a trouble maker but he really wants to be good and wants you to love him and when you get mad at him about something, that is when he melts down. Today I watched him take a little break for a minute and pull himself together before continuing his work. I told him I was proud of him and I don´t think that anyone has ever noticed that before in him, they just think he´s weird cause he´ll suddenly zone out for a minute for no apparent reason. He is my trouble maker. We fight more than anyone else, but he always makes sure to ask if I will be there tomorrow and manipulates the system to spend time with me, even if it´s reading, which he hates, just to be next to me, even though we spend a lot of time fighting about stuff. But we also spend a lot of time tickling and giggling and he is getting better.

The kids remember my name because I am Spiderman´s girlfriend and they ask where he is and when he is coming. I haven´t been able to quite come up with a good response to this yet. Sometimes it´s "soon", but that is a bad answer, because then they keep asking and want to know when. Today I had a visit with a little kid named Josua about the fact that there is no Spiderman, he is made up, but he didn´t believe me for a single second. He is attached to me all all times and I´m pretty sure it´s because he doesn´t want to miss Spiderman´s visit. I am curious about what better answer I will find.

It´s amazing that I´ve been here only such a short time and already find myself creating such relationships with these kids. I can´t imagine how it will feel to leave after six months. Luckily I have six months to revel in it before finding out.

Love to you all,
em

acutely aware of the abundance in my life.

So I spent the morning with the kids in the jail. What a thing to wrap your head around. They are the exact opposite of the kids in the school. Distrusting and ornery and heartbreaking. Breakfast was liquidy oatmeal and scraps of bread. They are dirty and have only the clothes they were wearing when they were picked up. Their immediate response to each other is to hit and kick and swear. I saw more hitting in 3 1/2 hours this morning than I have seen in years. They lie, they steal, they cheat. But they also want to be loved on. Eventually, if they come to you. Then they will suddenly get up and walk away and stand by the window or something. Like it´s almost harder to have somebody treat you nicely because you let down your guard and it´s easier to just keep it up.

The goal of the program there is just to give them something to do during the day. If you can figure out a way to teach them something as well, all the better on you, but mostly you are there so that they aren´t just sitting and doing nothing all day.

I am glad that I will be at the school this afternoon just to lift my spirits back up. I have jail and then school all week and I can already tell that it is going to be a very long week.

The truth is that I hated being there. I wished that I didn´t speak Spanish because only people who speak spanish can go to the jail. I wished I could just say "I quit" and leave and I know that I can. But it feels like one of those things in life that is so hard that you really want to walk away from it, but you know that if you do, you will lose so much respect for yourself that you can´t.

I am also curious to see how I feel after some time with it. I just feel kind of shocked this afternoon.

I have been living in my head for a while and was starting to get really tired of it in there and was doing some reading and it said that if you want out of your head, get busy saving the world, that aught to take enough time and effort to last you for a while. Well, this morning did in fact pull me right out of my head. I am grateful for that.

finally some photos. more to come soon.

Coming into Cusco on the bus. It really is stunning here.

Some friends from Canoa. James and Alia, they were a treat and super fun.

Puppies enjoying the beach in Canoa.

Rubys grandson, Leo, we were playing monsters.

Me being a monster, Leo taking photos.

brrrrrrr.

I am still enjoying Cusco, as I expect to. There is a weekly meeting on Friday nights for all volunteers with the director of the program, and that was interesting. Things are as disorganized as you would kind of expect them to be and my producer brain is working overtime. There were so many things that I was seeing in only two days that I have ideas about how to make better. But I will wait another week at least and try to set a coffee date with the director. Its no good to just walk in and say how to make it better.

I have made a couple of friends here that I am really enjoying. A girl from Minnesota is my new room mate and we get along really well. Also she plays guitar and sings and writes songs, so I am thrilled to have that as part of my daily life again. Also a guy named Dave from Australia. We all went to the market yesterday and have been cooking together and really get along well, its nice to have friends again. This evening we are going looking for a pool table.

I havent figured out the phone card thing yet, though to be fair, I haven´t spent much time trying, but when I do, I will start making some calls home. I will also find my camera cord soon and get some photos up. It just feels so good to be settling in to a life here that I haven´t felt like doing proper internet time.

It is really cold here. And its summer. I am thinking of going to buy another blanket for my bed. The heating system is a ceramic holder thing with a tin can inside that you put gas into and light. It makes me feel aweful and after the first day, we haven´t used it. So, more blankets. I cant imagine how it will be in the winter if this is summer. brrrrrrr.

Love to you all,
em

"profe, where is spiderman?"

Here I am in Cusco. I said that already, didn´t I?

The bus trip out of Lima was very uneventful, which is great. The part that balances caution with fear starts to get a little overactive on those night busses so I was glad to pass with nothing interesting.

Left Lima at 2pm after the adventure of finding a taxi. Not that there aren´t plenty, but there is no organized cab collective there so you never know if the cab you´re getting into is safe or not. I asked the guy at the hostal to hail me a safe cab and he said that he had no better way of knowing than I did. You just have to take a look at the guy and see what you think of him and if you don´t like him then send him on his way and hail another one. Hard for a first world mind to wrap around. But I made it to the bus station with no problems.

I accidentally bought a first class ticket which really only means that you´ve spent more money to be on the ground floor instead of upstairs and the view isn´t as good. That isn´t a mistake I´m likely to make again, but it was comfortable. I ended up sitting next to a guy from DC who has been living in Colombia for a few years and it was interesting to visit with him.

The scenery was really interesting, I tried to catch some photos of it, but I´m not sure they turned out very well. On the right side was the beach and the ocean and on the left side was what looked like high desert mountains and sand dunes. From one side of the bus to the other looked like completely different countries, it was hard to reconcile. No matter how many times I would look from one side to the other I would be surprised.

By the time we turned inland and started over the Andes it was dark so you could only feel the bus going back and forth around hairpin turns and up up up and down down down over and over. You got the feeling that the views would have been spectacular if it weren´t pitch black. Leaving Cusco, I will probably try to split up the journey and catch the piece in the daylight.

Cusco is at a little over 11,000 feet and really pretty. Ringed with mountains, I look forward to exploring it some more soon. The architecture is really interesting as many of the buildings are Spanish architecture but they left many of the original Inca walls so it´s a weird mixture.

The hostal is really great, it is mostly for folks volunteering at the schools so there is an immediate bond and everyone is really nice. I am meant to start at the school on Monday, but this afternoon one of the girls came and asked if I would like to go to the art class with them because their third person left today and she was the only one who spoke Spanish so I got to go hang out with the kids already this afternoon. They are so super cute. They are obviously used to having lots of "profes" go through but instead of letting it create a scenario where they are jaded and don´t want to get close to people, it has made them very open to every new face, with trust that this new person will be good to them as well. I had a great time with them. After our art project was winding down but it wasn´t time for the next class yet, we just sat and chatted. They wanted to know my favorite color and my favorite food and where I was from and I am back to being Spiderman´s girlfriend which is cute. One little boy who was a little shy finally came up and pulled on my sleeve and whispered into my ear, wanting to know where spiderman was. I told him he was busy saving the world but would try to come by. There is a meeting every Friday evening for the entire staff to figure out where everyone will be the next week so I will know tomorrow night what I will be up to next week.

Tomorrow I will go do some grocery shopping and get my stuff put away and try to get settled in which will be fun. I am not suffering too much from altitude sickness, I´m sure having much to do with spending so much time in Quito, though I didn´t ever have too much trouble there either. That is lucky, cause some people are down for days and days absolutely miserable. I am tired from so much bus travel, but having a hard time getting sleepy. I will watch a movie with some folks and then go lay in bed and hope my eyes will close soon.