Peru by day, Grass Valley Charter School by night. For the past four nights I have been dreaming about home and school. I am beginning to feel the first bit of homesickness dawning on me. I’ll imagine what time it is back in California, and what everyone is doing at the moment. Dad, golfing. Grandma, playing cello. Friends, school. Everything is so new here it is sometimes a bit overwhelming. Although we Scype my dad it almost makes me miss him more. The tug of seeing his face, but him not actually being here is a little bit crazy.

by Elena


Tug

Tug, tug, tug

My heart is being pulled
In different directions
Pulling, pushing
Moving, morphing
Hurting, healing
Connected by
So many
Delicate threads
Some of them
Are going to break
But others
Will only
Get stronger
Binding us
Gravitating together
When apart,

Tug, tug, tug.

House Visits
by Elena

I had my first house visit about a week after my family and I arrived in Peru. We had just been getting settled in with the Puma Marca school and the community, when our whiteboard schedule announced a house visit for the following Wednesday. We had been told that house visits were a way to become familiar with the community and families. Our van arrived at the school and we set out to find the family we would be visiting that afternoon, two grandparents whose lives had been changed by their kids. Their children were grown and were living in Cusco, but often came up to Puma Marca to take anything their parents had. They would take clothing, money, furniture, and even food. It’s hard to imagine they could take so forcefully from their own parents, not even caring that they were starving or dying, selfishly caring about only their own problems. The grandparents lives are so different from anything I have ever imagined that it is a little overwhelming. We brought the family some food and clothing and made sure there was someone who would cook for them. We walked up toward the streets, back to our clean house, back to a different place. We can go home and pretend we have never seen anything like this, or we can do our best to help these people. This is why we came here, even if we can only do something as small as giving them a bag full of food.



















Buying food for the home visit

Tears trickle as every kid comes and says goodbye and we will never see them again. I don’t understand, a month couldn’t have gone by. It’s impossible, I am already their family and they are mine. We will never separate, we will always be together, but I feel only half full. It is like I don’t have my sister with me. Or, my long lost brother is finally here with me, and then we break-up! I realize that the kids feel like us and they think why would we come help them? But my feeling is why wouldn’t we help them? They line up and start hugging us one by one, and tears trickle.
By Sinclaire

Normally, in California we applaud our soccer players as they go off the field. Here in Peru, it’s a little different. Last weekend my family and I went to a pro soccer game (at a cost of $2.20). When we arrived, we found seats and waited for the game to start. The stands filled quickly with die-hard fans. The game started... and if I had to describe it, these would be the four words: dramatic, aggressive, painful, and exciting. The fans get really into it. The halftime score was still 0 to 0 and everyone was just warming up. Cusco was in control of the ball most of the time, until the other team got so close to scoring a goal that a defender tried to kick the ball out and ended up scoring a goal on his own team. That got the crowd going. They screamed and booed at their own player. But, the game must go on, and so it did. Just when the crowd was giving up on Cusco, they scored a goal! We all jumped up and screamed, while some other fans shot off fireworks. The clock had moments to spare, when the game ends. Cusco gets ready to walk off , when the crowd starts throwing stuff at them. Water bottles, paper, trash, soda, hats, you name it. Apparently in Peru, f your team doesn’t win you are in danger of getting hit by flying trash.

by Elena

I remember the day Emily fell to the ground while playing tag in P.E. I didn’t know her yet, since we had just met the first grade class. She had slid while running and now had a long, bloody cut on her knee. She began crying, and before I knew it she was in my arms. I rocked her gently back and forth until we bandaged her knee, yet she still clung to me. The kids of Puma Marca aren’t used to being touched or hugged very much, so this was a new experience for both of us. I held this stranger close to me and waited until her sobs had subsided completely. She was still curled in my arms, so I took off my coat to keep her warm and started to sing every children’s lullaby I knew. After my third time of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" she had relaxed and curved her little body so that she was leaning into me, her tears were long gone. We stayed there for awhile, listening to rain fall. Everything in the kids daily lives they have to work for, nothing comes easy. Yet, if I can give her a moment of being a kid, I would hold her and sing until I lost my voice. Eventually, we both stirred and I helped her outside to finish her P.E. class. The day finished with my head still back at the school with Emily. We were halfway home when I realized I hadn’t learned her name yet.

by Elena

The fun part about today is cooking lessons, and after that Spanish, and after that Salsa lessons! Here I am writing and thinking about today with steam and yummy smells coming from the kitchen and our cooking teacher trying to understand what we are saying, and us trying to understand what she is saying. I cant wait to eat what she has made- it is DELICIOUS! Pip, Lauren, Nico and Memo are joining us and going to eat our yummy food. It sounds like we’re having steak and beans (frijoles) and some kind of soup and carrot cake for dessert, but I am not positive because I don’t speak Spanish very well. Later we are going to do Spanish for 2 hours (surprisingly it is quite fun), and then Salsa lessons. This is the first time doing Salsa lessons so I don’t know quite what it is going to be like. It’s at a club so we will get dressed up, but not too much so we can dance!

by Sinclaire

(this is our sauve dance teacher...)

This weekend has been awesome with nothing to do except explore and shop. On Saturday we decided we should go to the Plaza and shop so we took the bus and it was horrible! There is only two real seats lined up so my mom and Elena got to sit beside each other. I sat on the bench and sooner or later the bus got full and when I say full, I mean full! I was squished between two teenagers (at least they were girls!), but one of them had a fluffy hood so I had to keep spitting out fluff. The other looked like she wasn’t very happy so it was not a very happy ride. But finally we got there and I bought some fun souvenirs.

By Sinclaire