Christmas for the Children in Prison

Dear Friends and Family,

I can’t believe that it is time to start preparing for Christmas! I have had so many amazing experiences in 2010; it doesn’t seem possible that the year is coming to an end already. My adventures have taken me to a new continent and enlightened me on new cultures and ways of life. I think the biggest learning experience I had was when I lived in Ayacucho, Peru for 3 months. I went with an American based volunteer program, Cross Cultural Solutions.

They placed me in a volunteer job at the local prison. It turned out to be the most enriching experience that I have had in my life. At first, I had reservations about working at the prison. I went to Ayacucho to help the 2^nd poorest city in Peru and after seeing all the poverty and need that the city had, I wasn’t sure how I felt about helping people who had made a wrong decision in their lives and are now dealing with the consequences.

In the Peruvian correctional system, if a woman is incarcerated and has a child under the age of 4; that child is able to live with his/her mother and share a bed in their cell until they are 4 years old. With the reservations I had about working with the ladies in the prison and my natural draw to children, I quickly started to focus my time on playing with the children who live there with there mothers. I was awe-struck that children were allowed to live in this environment with no seeming worries about how this lifestyle will impact the children’s lives in the future. When I arrived there was no programming set up for these children. They spent their days sitting next to their mothers who had to sew and embroider to make money to pay their rent to the prison.

Cross Cultural Solutions asked me to start up the “Cuna” which is a preschool that had been used in the past but due to funding it had not been running for a while. I took on the challenge and brought the Cuna back to life. I spent 3 wonderful months teaching the kids 4 days a week and taking them on fieldtrips outside of the prison on Fridays. As I worked with the kids, Liliana (a teacher who was incarcerated and helped me teach in the Cuna) and the moms, I learned more about their lives and how they ended up in the prison. It was shocking to me to learn more about these ladies lives. Many of the ladies come from small pueblos in the jungle and the drug cartels used their low levels of education to help their business of moving cocaine out of the jungle. Drug Trafficking in Peru carries a hefty sentence of 5-20 years, which you begin to serve while they are investigating your case. It was a common story to hear the women tell me they had been in prison for over a year and not even had a meeting with their lawyer or seen a judge to have formal charges brought against them.

I was thrilled to be able to help the 15 kids who lived in prison with their mothers get a start to early education and hopefully spark a life long interest in learning along with breaking the cycle of lifestyle choices that might result in the children coming back to the prison as adults. While gathering supplies to stock my bare (literally bare, concrete floor, no electricity and a few days on rat alert) classroom, I learned how hard it was to find books. Books are a rare luxury in Ayacucho and most of Peru. The books that are available for purchase are expensive and poor quality.

As I am writing this letter one of my fellow volunteers is back in Ayacucho for six months where she is working tirelessly to paint, lay a new floor and fix up the classroom, so that it meets minimum working criteria. Once the classroom has a floor and other basic improvements the government will provide a teacher and continue to have a daily classes where it is mandatory for all children who live in the prison to attend daily.

After six months of living and traveling around South America, and coming back to the holiday season, I am realizing just how privileged we are as Americans. I would like to take this season of giving and pay it forward. This Christmas I would like to ask my family and friends that if you were already planning on getting me a Christmas gift, please get me an Amazon Gift Card. I will be using the gift cards to buy appropriate children’s books and send them to a friend who runs the Maki Foundation. She has graciously told me that she will bring them down in her suitcase when she visits again in a few months. If you would like to know more about the women and children that I worked with in Ayacucho, please visit the Maki Foundation website at www.makiinc.com, on Facebook, Twitter or the March Issue of O Magazine.

Thank you and Merry Christmas,

Alexandria

Last Day in the Cuna

Monday was full of tears. Today was my last full day in Ayacucho as well as my last time at the Cuna. I spent the whole weekend making a video full of the pictures and a few movies of all the different activities throughout my 3 months there. I burned enough copies for all the kids and the other teacher Liliana. I knew that Monday would be tough, but had no idea how tough it was going to be.

The last week we have been trying to coordinate schedules with the Social Worker to have a meeting with all the moms. The only day that worked for the Social Worker was Monday. As we were rounding up the moms and kids to go down for our meeting, we were waiting like always ( I have come to decide that the guards have a little game they like to play, who can hide for the longest time.) As we were waiting Davis brought me a plastic bag. I didn’t think anything of it at first but when he brought it to me the 3^rd time I looked in and saw a purse that the moms had made me with all the kids names emboradred on it. I was already fighting the tears away as I was walking into the prison knowing that this was going to be the last time I see my Cuna kids. Once I saw the purse I lost it. Standing in the middle of the women’s pavilion I started crying. Let me tell you that is not the place you want to be crying. As son as one tear dropped, Marlene one of the inmates, started making fun of me and calling me a cry baby. The kids that were standing around me as I started crying just looked at me like I had 3 heads or something. I had to pull myself together pretty fast in a quick attempt to not start a crying epidemic among the kids. Luckily the guard came and let us out right after so I was saved a little more humiliation.

It was bittersweet having a meeting with all the moms for my last day. Bitter in the fact that I didn’t get to spend the whole morning playing with the kids. But sweet in the sense that I was able to see that the prison is getting involved in the Cuna to make sure that it is going to continue when I leave. Liliana also talked to the moms about how they need to take an active role in the cuna both during the mornings when the kids are there and in the pavilion all other hours. They also decided to start having the kids eat their lunch in the cuna instead of in the pavilion. The kids have not had a chance to learn how to sit down and eat their food like most people do because there is not a table or any form of routine in the prison. The ladies and the kids get there food then either choose to go to their rooms to eat or find a place in the pavilion to sit down and eat. Also on the agenda was cleaning routines. It seems like 90% of the time that we bring the kids in the room the moms are just starting to clean the room from the day before. We then have to take the kids out to the broken swing sets and entertain them while the mothers finish. It has been hard to get them focused when we start with playing and goofing off then go to learning mode. The mothers are also getting together this Friday to have a work party to clean up the Cuna room, children’s kitchen area and play yard. Monday a fence will be built to make the play yard safer for the kids.

During the meeting I was presented with my purse officially and once again broke down. I was asked to talk and I had all these wonderful things that I would have liked to say to the moms about their kids, but I couldn’t even get a squeak out. It seems like the last week I had really started to see the difference in the kids and now I have to leave them. I was no longer called “gringita” but “Senorita Alex”, “Senorita Alice” or “Senorita Jandra” depending on the speaking development of the child. The kids were also sharing their food and toys with the other kids, and I didn’t have to constantly remind the kids that “our hand are for hugging, not hitting” or “our mouths are for giving kisses, not biting and saying bad words.” These things might not seem like big developments to everyone else but they are huge milestones in the lives of these kids. I have absolutely loved my time that I had the privilege of spending with these kids. I hope that they will have all the options in their lives that all the other kids in Ayacucho have. It has been a fast 3 months but I have enjoyed every minute of it.

Rata!

Yep thats right, take the a off and you have the word in English. Rats! In the last 2 weeks we have had 2 different episodes of rat sighting and killings in the Cuna. The first time happened as we were all playing outside with the kids. I was pushing a few kids on the swings, and Liliana was playing with a few other kids in the grass. She started screaming and I looked up just in time to see a huge, giant, ugly rat scurry across the grass. Liliana called the cook and the moms who were in charge of cleaning the cuna that day out to try to find the rat and kill it. We took all the kids inside while this was happening. One joy of working with kids ages 1-4 is they have really really short attention spans and like to wander off. Jherson had decided that he had enough of whatever we were doing at that moment and wanted to go outside to play. He walked himself out of the classroom with me following behind him to corral him back in. Just as I caught up to him, I saw one of the moms picking baby rats out of the garbage.

Apparently the moms had found out that the rat had a nest and decided to throw the babies into the garbage. Later realizing that this would not solve the problem. They were in the process of picking out the babies and putting them back in the nest. The nest was then set on fire, to kill the 10 or so baby rats. I was slightly traumatized by that episode, hoping that that would be the end of it.

Not so lucky! Friday we had encounter number 2. The prison had an amour fixed up so that we could store and lock up the supplies and toys that we use in the Cuna in the room. We had just gotten everything moved into the amour Tuesday and loving not having to lug all the supplies as well as the kids down to the Cuna everyday. As the kids were eating their snack Friday, Liliana opened the amour to get out something to talk to the kids with while we had a captive audience. She opened and shut the amour in about 5 seconds. After shutting the doors, she ran around the room hyperventilating and flapping her arms. I asked her what happened and she told me she couldn't say. I ask if it had 8 legs, thinking it was a spider, but she said no. She took me outside and told me there was a rat in the amour. We didn't say anything to the kids, let them finish their snack then shoved them all outside to play. Stacie (the other CCS volunteer) and I were going to play with the kids outside while Beatrice and Liliana took care of the situation inside.

Just my luck as soon as I got the kids outside 2 of them needed to go poo. I told them to hurry and we went inside to use the bathroom. They hurried and I got them outside. There is no running water in the Cuna so we have to take a bucket and fill the back of the toilet with water from a tub in the shower to flush the toilet. I was in the middle of doing this when Beatrice and Liliana opened the amour! I heard screaming and whack, whack, whack of the 2 by 4 piece of wood Beatrice had armed herself with and the broken broom handle Liliana had. I freaked and figured if I shut the gate fence that we have to keep the kids out of the bathroom I would be fine locked in the bathroom. Not exactly true. Liliana shouted to me that the rat was coming for the bathroom so I stood on the lip of the shower screaming just watching the rat squeeze through the openings in the fence thingy. I was now locked in the bathroom with the rat. It came towards me and hopped in the shower. Needless to say I sprinted out the the bathroom as fast as I could and stood on the tallest bench I could find. I stayed there until the whole ordeal was over. I kept telling the ladies let's just lock the rat in the room and get a guy to come kill it for us. They just laughed at me and Beatrice said, "we can take care of this." I then decided that from my perch, I should just take the job of telling the ladies where the rat was running to. After a good 3 or 4 minute chase they finally corner the rat and beat it to death. Lucky for me this all happened right next to my safety perch, so I got a front row seat to all the action.

As soon as the rat wasn't moving anymore I gathered enough strength in my shaking legs to run out of the room. With a pounding heart I was bombarded by all the kids who had been standing on the other side of the door with Stacie worried that their teachers were getting hurt inside as we screamed bloody murder. Stacie told me she had to do all she could to try to keep the kids from not opening the door and running in to save us.

While I was safely outside they ladies found another rat and repeated the cycle. We now had 2 dead rats on the floor of our classroom. We all decided that this was enough excitement for one day and called it an early day. We left the Cuna an hour early and just hung out in the women area until our ride came to pick us up.

Come Monday as we were walking to the Cuna I was telling Liliana that I hope we don't have any rat incidents today. I think that I jinxed us because as soon as we walked in there were the 2 dead rats laying in the same exact spot as they were 3 days ago! Oh if I can't get a teaching job in the states with this kind of experience I don't know what it will take!

Liliana

Liliana is my teaching partner at the Cuna. She has been with me since my second week in the Cuna and is a wonderful asset to the program. I honestly don't think that I would have been able to run the Cuna daily without her. It has been 2 months of seeing each other 4 times a week, however I have realized lately that we don't know very much about each others lives. Back when we started the Cuna, I asked her if one of the kids belonged to her. She told me that she only had a 8 year old son, but he lives with her parents. I never really asked to many more questions about her life, 1 because we are always acting a ringmasters in the craziest 3 ring circus of all time and 2 if I were in jail, I think I would be a little embarrassed to talk about why I was there. I kind of let that conversation be in her court, if she wanted to share I would listen, but I would not push the subject.

Well that was my plan at lest until today. Knowing that this weekend was Mother's Day, I asked Liliana if her son was going to visit her. She told me that her son didn't know that she was in prison. Saying. "if he knew he would be really sad. He thinks that I am working in the countryside as a teacher. I co

uldn't find a teaching job in the city 2 years ago, so I went to the country to teach. While I was out there I went to visit my uncle's house for the weekend. While I was there the cops came and busted his house for having drugs. I didn't know anything about him being involved in the drug business." She continued to tell me that she has been in jail for a year now, and has to wait for another 5 months until she gets her 1st hearing.

I am not a judge nor have an extensive background in criminal law or profiling. However, the look of sincerity that was in Liliana's eyes as she was telling me her story made me believe that she might have just spent the last year of her life in jail for no reason. I could not imagine being an innocent person in a law system that believes that everyone is guilty until proven innocent!

Mother's Day in the Prison

It has been 2 months since I have set up the Cuna preschool program in the prison. I have finally gotten the kids to not hit, bite or throw things at each other with the help of Liliana (the inmate teacher) and a few volunteers to learn a song and dance. I have spent the last 2 days making animal coustumes for the kids. One of the main songs we sing is called La Ronda de Animales, the animal circle. I made ears and tails for 7 different animals that the kids have learned the corresponding sounds too. We have been practicing and practicing our song and dance to put on a little show for the women during our Mother's Day Celebration.

Lets just say that the kids practiced and practiced but when show time came. They all got stage fright except one girl and the teachers. The video that one of the new volunteers took of our stellar performance just makes me look ridiculous. The little girl, Sadia, who

was the only one who remembered the dance is unfortunately blocked by my big bum. Oh well what we do for the kids, I guess. after dancing to a few songs with the kids it was game time. We had the kids and moms play balloon relay races and stomp your moms balloon (not as successful as we were thinking it would be.)

After we tuckered out the kids it was let Alexandria make a fool of herself part 2 start.

Marisol had a "great" idea that we would have a dance competition between the moms for a prize of chocolate candies. Well this wasn't just any dance competition....I had to dance and

then the mom that was able to follow me the best would win. One would think that this competition would last a song and no more. Oh boy was that wrong, 5 songs later and I was completely out of moves we finally ended the competition.

We also had clothes to give away to the ladies. The ladies who won musical chairs got to pick out an outfit. All in all it was a fun day. The kids danced, the women danced, we all danced together. We were able to pass out clothes, candies and sweet bread to celebrate Mother's Day. It was a bitter sweet day though, the ladies were able to have a fun day but you could tell all of them were a little depressed that they would have to spend Mother's Day alone in

prison. Most of the women who are in prison are in there for drug tracking. They were forced to make a tough decision to not be able to provide for their families or take the risk of carrying drugs out of the jungle once to make enough money to live on for a year or two.

Flying Solo in Ayacucho

The first and only time in my 3 months here in the CCS house that I have the whole house to myself. This meant that I had my own personal chef, housekeeper, 3 front office support staff and driver all to myself. Talk about living the high life! Was I lonely? Well it was a week without rules so don't you fret! I talked Rudy into not having any rules this week (which wasn't that hard.) There are normally strict rules against the staff members hanging out with the volunteers outside of the house and their working hours. This week however I was able to visit a few homes and hang out with the staff.

The first day, Friday, I went to Marisol's house and her family was hosting a wedding reception that night so I stayed for that and danced the night away with her family and Gustavo (the Spanish teacher who is also dating one of Marisol's sisters), he wasn't so excited about the dancing part but was a good sport. Marisol's house is very Marisol! It is a little 4 room cottage, that could pass for a NYC apartment. She has it decorated very cute, mix of Peruvian culture as well as mini flags from different countries that her husband made tacked to the ceiling. Her family is opening a restaurant in the yard between her house and her mom's so that is where the reception was. It is going to be a really good restaurant with good food. Her brother will be the chef and he cooked for the reception. Finger licking good chicken.

Saturday was Walter's (one of the night guards) birthday so he came to the house to pick Viki (one of the cooks) and me up and took us to his mom's house for lunch to celebrate. I meet his wife, 2 sons ages 4 and 8 months, and a few of his friends. Then that night I went to the plaza with Nieve's (one of the cooks) to a concert that was on to celebrate Huamanga Day.

Sunday Beatrice (the housekeeper) stayed after work and played card games with me, Walter and Viki. It was really fun and got to talk a lot about life here in Ayacucho.

Wedesday after the orphanage Alejo (the driver) took me to his house to meet his wife and daughter. He has a really, really nice house. He lives up by the mirador and rents the bottom half of his house to Gigi, a lady from Oregon who has moved here and runs an after school program. It was fun to talk to her and hear how she is making a huge difference in the lives of the 60-80 kids that pack into her after school program each day. She has gotten so many kids that she runs classes in the room that was meant to be the classroom as well as her bedroom (The teacher's desk is her bed! While the kids sit on mats on the floor and use a bench as a table) and in Alejo's backyard. He has a spacious 2 bedroom house with a huge kitchen and dining room and then Jasson (his son and a fill in night-guard) has his own "bachelor's pad" which is another house that they built in the backyard.

Thursday I visited the home of Nieves (a cook and sister of Alejo). She shares a house building with one of her brothers and his family on one side then a little patio and on the other side is where Nieves lives with her 2 girls, ages 11 and 1 1/2, and her dad. Her dad is super cute and sweet. He had so many questions about the states, he talked my ear off! The four of them share a bedroom which has 2 double beds in it. Then a living room with really comfy couches ( I wish we had some of them here at the CCS house) a TV, kitchen table and play area for her girls. They also have their own bathroom but share a kitchen with her brother's family.

Friday Beatrice, Jesus and I went out dancing to celebrate Jesus' birthday and went to a Cumbia concert at a local club. I was the only gringa in the whole club! I got my fair share of stares but had a great time dancing the night away to Papillion. We shut the club down and finally made it back home at 4 am.

Thats been it, very busy but fun. I didn't take any pictures of the houses because it just didnt feel right to ask and take them. Although I am sure that they would not have minded at all, it just didn't come up in conversation.

Lima round 2

I have reached my halfway point. Six weeks down and six to go. Unfortunately this also meant that I was losing 2 girls that I have become really close to the last 6 weeks, Millie and Laura. Saturday morning Millie, Laura, Sarah and I got up and caught the plane to Lima. Laura and Sarah had a flight out that night to the states. Millie and I stayed until Tuesday in Lima. For our final day together we did what girls do best, shop and pamper ourselves. After getting some breakfast, which was something other than a bread roll, which made us all VERY excited. After a hardy breakfast we took to the streets to shop. It was more window shopping for me (the thought of carrying anything else in my backpack gives me the willies.) After shopping we were allowed to check into our hostel, then hit the streets of Lima to wander. As all good American girls our radar took us straight to the mall. After a little more window shopping we decided to treat ourselves to manicure and pedicures for a whole 30 soles. That changes into about 10 USD and that included French Tips at no extra cost. Oh how I LOVE Peru!!! It was so much fun to sit in the nail salon all afternoon with all the girls and have one last girly time before we all parted our ways. After we all got beautified we had to have a tearful goodbye with Laura and Sarah. It is so weird to think that I will be going back to Ayacucho and will be the last "old" volunteer.

Millie and I went to meet up with some people from Lima that we had met in Ayacucho during Semana Santa. Aft

er meeting up with Allie and her friends we headed out dancing and danced the night away. Then repeated the cycle every night after that until it was time to leave. There were some really fun people staying in the hostel with us that we made friends with. There was one guy from Arequipa, Peru, a couple from Israel and another couple from California. We all went out together and made our mark on the city. It was a great way to spend the last weekend with one of my best Ayacuchan friends! Until Tuesday morning came and we had to say our final goodbyes :( I think that I will have to visit Australia and North Carolina soon!

River Time

My favorite day is back, Friday!!! This friday we introduced the new group of volunteers to field trip day for the prison kids. We took Steve, Shyama and Sarah along with the old volunteers of Natalie, Laura and Millie to the river with the kids. We had tons of kids this week! Finding the free stuff to do around the city with the kids is getting a little harder. This week we decided to take them to the river by the prison. At the river we let them throw rocks into the water. I was a little worried about this activity, I have spent everyday at the Cuna telling the kids that they can not hit, bite or throw things at each other. To not regress after this field-trip I gave the kids a very intense talk about how they can only throw rocks into the river. I am glad to report that it worked. We didn't have too many incidents, the ones that we did we stopped before the rock left their hands.

We spent time playing with the water, talking about what a river was, playing chasing games

and eating our snack. I also took the opportunity to become truly Peruvian. I carried one of my kids in a manta. I was so scared that he was going to fall out I never took my hands out

from under his bottom. The way the manta works is it is a thick blanket, more or less, that doubles as the carryall backpack. The people here use it to carry everything from firewood to newborn babies. Beatrice, the cleaner, gave me a lesson on how to use a manta. I learned how to put a kid on my back, transfer it to the front if it is a newborn and needs to be feed, hang them in a tree, etc. I put my new knowledge to the test and put o

ur chronic crier, Jherson, in a manta to test it out. The manta calmed him down and he was chillin' like a villain, but then I felt bad he wasn't playing in the river so I took him out. Oh that didn't set well with him at all. After a few minutes out of the manta he was fine again and playing with the other kids.

Dar La Luz

So my time here has come full circle. Before I came to Ayacucho, I got my placement email. This email told me that I would be working at a health clinic. I had a minor panic attack thinking there must be a mistake. I even emailed the New York office back telling them there must be a mistake in the email, I received some other volunteers placement email by mistake. I know for a fact that I listed that I had no interest at all in working in a health care setting. In fact I am still haunted by my childhood fear of needles and blood. After being told that that was not a mistake, I started trying to think of everything possible I could do to not have to be in the room with the doctors and the nurses. I decided that I would be the entertainment for the patient in the waiting room. I could read to the kids, find a clown nose and make them laugh, anything but watch shots be given. Well much to my relief I got here and found out it was a mistake. Actually all of the healthcare placements where not operating because there is a city wide health care strike ( It has been going on for close to 3 months now, only servicing life or death emergencies.)

Well today I bit the bullet in an attempt to overcome my silly childhood fears, and lets face it shear curiosity. There are now only 2 healthcare interns in the house, Natalie and Laura. The rest left for home last weekend. As luck would have it there were all these options for observing different sections of the local hospital as soon as most of the healthcare interns left. One day Natalie went with Millie, a Australian high school teacher, to observe the ER and watched a appendectomy, removing someone's appendix. The next night there was an option to do an overnight in the Emergency OBGYN ward of the hospital. Laura wanted to go, she wants to be a midwife in the states, but didn't want to go alone. Somehow I got the nerve up to say I would go with her.

At 8pm Marisol came to pick us up and take us to the hospital. We met up with Dr. Salinas, a friend of Marisol and also the supervising doctor for the night. He showed us around the ward, which included jumping in with both feet. The first room we visited was the labor and delivery room. First 5 minutes into the night I saw it all! A lady had just given birth and they were sewing her back up. WOW! That's all I could think then reality set in and how much pain she was in and the massive amounts of blood everywhere. We then were told that there was another lady who was just a centimeter away from her dar la luz aka giving birth.

After the rest of the rest of the tour we dropped our bags and headed back to the labor and delivery room. It was quite and interesting experience. We watched 6 babies be born. One of breached, which was really scary! Laura and I were just starting at the baby on the heating try trying to see if his chest was moving. Finally he gave out a cry, and you could feel everyone in the room sigh with relief. There was one mother who was 15 years old, walked in the the hospital all by herself, no parents or friends to lean on in support. She didn't have a job and wasn't going to school. I felt so bad for her. She had a hard labor, I am judging this by her screams and facial expressions while she was in the room waiting to be ready to deliver. She also didn't really know what she was doing and naturally completely frightened. When she was ready to give birth they kept telling her to push. She would push a little but not enough. She was able to push half the baby out then gave up, the doctors were panicked and a visiting doctor who was there to observe had to go and actually push the girls stomach to help the baby come out. It was a very tense experience!

I also got called into action. Remember how I am scared of all thing medical basically??? Well I had to conquer that fear real quick when all the interns were busy and the doctor was all scrubbed in. The doctor was calling for the interns to help her, but they were all in sterile gloves with other patients. The nurses had been so busy that they were off finding more clean sheets and other supplies that they needed for the next round of craziness. So how was left but me and Laura. I was the closest to the doctor, so she called out "Gringa ven y ayaudame." White girl, come and help me. So there it was, I was asked to get the bottle of water and pour it on the lady, to clean her up. Then I had to go find the green bottle of iodine and pour it on her too. So I can now say that I have assisted in the Ayacucho Hospital.

The night was full of activity, in the past most of the volunteers watched for an hour or so and then were able to sleep the rest of the night. Not us, it was madness all night! We had 4 births in the first couple of hours we were there. Then it slowed down, a bit. We practiced our Spanish and lying skills with the nurses. I was told to tell people that I am a nursing student. Considering that I know NOTHING about medicine, I decided that a better lie would be that I am preparing to take my exams to get into nursing school. We met some really nice nurses and male nurses that were eager to make sure we knew everything that was going on and were we should go to see everything. They also insisted that we get closer to the moms to really see what is going on and learn everything that we could. Needless to say, I politely refused. About an hour later I was so glad that I did, because the doctor was later sprayed by one women's water breaking! YUCKY!!!! It was so crazy all night!

In the end we stayed up all night watching 6 babies be born, 3 more in labor when we left at 5:30 am and being called to action by the doctor. What a night in Peru!

A Little Taste of Home

After a month of living and eating Peruvian culture Laura, Millie, Natalie and I decided that we should share a little of our culture with the staff. We invited all the staff members over for dinner Saturday night. We spent all afternoon preparing our menu for the staff which included appetizers of salsa, deviled eggs and garlic bread. Then a main course of BBQ pulled chicken sandwiches, what's in that rice, roasted veggies and caprese salad. We even had a request for desert pancakes (a staff favorite!) It was so funny to watch the staff eat and try to understand the food that we were serving them. It all started with the deviled eggs. Being in a very Caltholic country, they did not approve of the food's name. Alejo, our driver, decided they should be called huevos de Jesus (Jesus eggs) not huevos diablos (devils eggs, the closest translation we could come up with). That started quite a fun conversation :) When we brought out the main dishes everyone loaded up their plates, then again and again. We finally decided it was time for dessert but the staff wasn't finished with the main course. They were taking the extras and wrapping them in napkins to take it home. It reminded me of when I go to the elderly home and they shove potatoes in their pockets in case they don't like lunch. The pancakes came out and boy could these little Peruvians put away some food. I think everyone one had at least 2 pancakes on top of their 3 helpings of main courses! All in all it was a great night sitting and talking with the staff and seeing them outside of their work clothes. They let loose and we had a wonderful time talking, laughing and sharing about our cultures. The only sad part of the night is we were to busy talking and eating we forgot to take a picture of all of us together :(

The Cuna goes to the Plaza

Today the volunteers and I took the prison kids out to the plaza for a field trip. We had 5 voluteers and Marisol, our program director, with 8 kids. We collected them from their moms, which is getting easier and easier. One little girl, Miriam, was adamant that she didn't want to go with us. I then told her, "No quiero ir a la calle?" You don't want to go to the street. She perked right up and ran away from her mom and towards us. Oh how one little word, street, changes a whole kids outlook. We took them to the plaza, fed the birds, chased the birds and then went on a walk around the plaza pointing out the different plants and what color they were. It was a really fun day just playing with the kids and watching them get so excited about chasing pigeons. They all dress up so stinking cute to go out of the prison too! Oh how I love fridays!!!

Easter Sunday

After our siesta we headed back to the plaza to dance the afternoon away and wait for the fireworks. True Peruvian time was apparent here. We were told that the fireworks would start at 7 so we waited until 7:30 and saw that they were still setting up so we asked again this time we were told they would start at 10p.m. well around 11p.m. the fireworks started. It was well worth the wait thought. Ayacucho sure knows how to do a firework show! It was about an hour show. Fireworks were shooting off these bamboo structures as well as being shot into the air. The bamboo structures had intricate pinwheels that would move when the fireworks where lit, other fireworks would trigger a banner to fall down reveling a Biblical reference.

After dancing more through the night we ended up waiting the plaza ALL night for the resurrection procession to start. A

t 4a.m. the plaza went from completely empty except for about 100 hardcore Easter celebrators who had stayed out all night to completely pack in a matter of minutes. I swear the Peruvians came out of the woodwork all of a sudden like cockroaches. This procession is the largest of the whole week. The float it self takes 400 men to carry it around the plaza. The procession starts inside the church and when the float gets to the doors of the church Jesus resurrects f

rom inside the float and get paraded around the plaza. This float was the most gorgeous by far! It had millions of little candles flickering as well as larger more modern light-bulbs for when the candles went out. After the float passed me by I headed home. Come 6 a.m. I was back home and in bed, just before the new group of volunteers arrived.

Pascua Toro

What better way to celebrate Easter than to chase a bull through town? Not sure, because this is what I did today. This is one of the biggest events of the week, everyone has been talking about it in anticipation. Today started early with saying goodbye to my housemates as they left for the airport at 6am. It was back to bed for a few hours before heading to the plaza for the day. While we were sleeping Courtney arrived to the house. She will be here for just a week and left a note on the dining room table to wake her up before we left for the plaza. Boy was she thrown into the deep end of Ayacucho craziness. We had gotten very strict instructions from Rudy on what to do today. He told us, "you must get to the plaza by 10am, buy your Pascua Toro shirts, then find a place to wait until the bulls come. After the bulls have run you will need enough money for 3 beers, then go home for lunch and rest then come back to the plaza to dance and party in the plaza until the sun goes down. " We followed his advice and set out to buy our shirts first thing then found a spot to wait for the bulls. The bulls were run from the Mirador, a look out of the city high on a hill, where a cattle sale was happening across the city to the opposite end of the city. There were 2 men on horses riding in front of the bull warning the crowd that the bull was coming and one who was pulling the bull on a rope. As the bull ran through the plaza madness broke out as people were yelling TORO! and pushing and shoving to either get closer to the bull or farther away from it, all at the same time. I had great intentions of running with the bulls but after seeing the madness of the first bull I quickly determined that the bull was not the dangerous part of the activity but getting trampled in the stampede of people were more likely to cause bodily injury. It took a lot of time in between each bull coming through the plaza and we passed the time by dancing in the streets, drinking beer and screaming for the firefighters to spay the water our way to try and beat the heat from the blaring sun at 11am! After Rudy assured us that the 4th bull was the last bull to come through I felt brave enough to go the center of the street and really join the party. We met some new friends from Lima and were dancing the morning away when all of a sudden a 5th bull came out of nowhere! I ended up being pretty close to the bull which turned out to be good because it was the only time we got good pictures of the bull. One of our new Lima friends did not move out of the way as fast as the cowboys would have liked and got whipped. Ouch! After a few more hours of dancing in the streets we called it a morning and headed home for lunch and siesta.

Viernes de Doler aka Good Friday

Another workless day that I managed to fill with relaxing, shopping, watching flower carpets being made and of course a procession. Man it is going to be hard to break this cycle come Monday and no more public holidays. Ayacucho is known for its celebration of Semana Santa, which in turn means more tourists. (It has been weird for our house to not be the ONLY gringas in the city this week!) More tourists means more handicrafts being put out for sale. This afternoon I spent lazily walking around with Kate and shopping at the street fairs. After dinner we all set out to the plaza to watch the procession. Today's procession was to mourn Jesus' death. He was paraded around town in the glass coffin with his crown of thrones resting on his chest. The Virgin Mary was following him in mourning. It was a very somber procession with all the lights turned out in the plaza. Each of the processors carried a candle, while a guitar band played as Jesus entered the church. Not too much to say about today...but that was kind of it. Everyone called it an early night as we were losing half of our house (4 girls) on the 7 am flight to Lima. Sad to think that the house will be changing tomorrow. We will get one more girl arriving tomorrow and 3 more Sunday. We will see what the next group has in store!

Peruvian Rodeo and Killa

Thursday marked the first of two public holidays to celebrate Semana Santa. Being a public holiday meant that we were not going to volunteer today, so we followed a lead that there was a big festival out at the arena by the airport. Being near the location of the Palm Sunday party I was in the mind set of being more or less like the party Sunday. A huge free beer tent and making new friends as you shared your bottle of beer around. Well I was a little wrong. We got out of the taxi paid our entrance fee and enter the Peruvian equivalent of the county fair. We walked around displays of different animals as well as an entire both devoted to raising cuy aka guinea pig and how to keep them healthy (only in Peru would this be the main attraction). Loads and loads of fruit and vegetable stands, souvenir stands, clothing stands, as well as a roulette wheel in the middle of the aisle. After checking out the goods and doing a little damage in the shopping department, we headed over to the horse arena. We meet up with our Program Director, Rudy, and all of his family to watch the horse show. The show started with little kids showing off their horses, then moved into horse trainers showing off their handiwork with breaking in a horse to ride at different stages of training. After the horse trainers came the main event... horse dancing. Horse dancing you might ask, yes you read that right. This art form consists of one person riding the horse while another person is on the ground dancing and the horse prances around them. I don't know very much about horses but Rudy informed us that the horses in Ayacucho are born and bread to walk differently than most horses. I couldn't really see a difference but I will trust that he does. The horse dancing was interesting to watch and see how the dancer on the ground interacts with the rider and the horse.

Thursday is a day of no processions, so what to do with the night...hit up the newest dance club in Ayacucho. We rounded up all the girls for one last good girls night in Ayacucho before a majority of them left Saturday morning. We had a great time dancing the night away at Killa. Killa was better than normal as everyone who had traveled to Ayacucho for Semana Santa all filtered to Killa for the night. The place was packed, for an Ayacucho club, and we had a blast dancing to the few English songs they put on for us when we walk in. My favorite so far was when they played a Grease remix of all the songs in the movie and we were the only people in the club who understood the songs, while also thinking this isn't really club music; but appreciative of a little taste of home.

El encontro de la Semana Santa

Tonight's the big night! This is the night that we heard the party goes until 2 or 3 in the morning partying in the streets, living the Catholic life :) We were prepared. Took naps after lunch in preparation for a late night. We got all ready and went to the plaza early to take pictures of the flower carpets before they were ruined. (Last night it rained so we decided to stay in the house than go out and watch the procession in the rain) We were hoping that it wouldn't rain again tonight. However we were not so lucky. As were were walking around it started to drizzle, except Millie (the Australian) was convinced that the drizzle was a complete downpour. I was teasing her that she would never be able to survive in Seattle if she thought this drizzle was serious. We decided to go to a restaurant that has a balcony that over looks the plaza, Via Via, to have a drink and wait out the rain and for the procession to reach the plaza. As we were sitting there enjoying our wonderful desert and drinks and the rain picked up and washed away all of the flower carpets. We kept asking our waiter if the procession would still happen in the rain and he assured us, while looking at us a little crazy, that of course it would.

We continued to wait and wait and wait

until around 9 p.m. the police truck drove around the plaza announcing over a loud speaker that the procession was postponed until 3 am the next morning. At this point it had been raining cats and dogs we made the decision to just try to go home and hopefully find a taxi that would take us. Funny story, we were not the only people that wanted taxis. There were no taxis to be found anywhere. We bit the bullet and ran home. Literally. Rolled up the pant legs

and crossed what use to be streets that were now rushing rivers and ran the 10 minutes home. Ayacucho doesn't have a storm drain system so when it rains like it did, the roads turn into rivers. A few of the girls were wearing their flip flops, lets just say that there were a few times when the Ayacuchan men were running down the street to retrieve one of the lost flip flops for the girls. We were quite the show to say the least. 6 gringas running through the streets

of Ayacucho, without rain coats, sopping wet and losing their shoes as they tried to cross the streets. The water was up to my knees on the larger streets, just sheer madness. I have never seen so much water in the middle of a city / had as much fun running home in my life.

Once we were home it was s

hower and warm pjs then to bed so that I could wake up at 4 am to go see the procession that I had heard so much about. We knew the procession was suppose to be at 3 am which in Peruvian time means it might start at 5am. So my roommate, Kate, and I made it to the plaza by 5 am. We made it to see the procession just in time and watch the meeting of Mary and Jesus. It was the most elaborate procession of all. Mary left from one church with all women following her then from the other side of the city Jesus left with all the male lawyers following him. There were then 2 smaller floats with Mary and Jesus that were waiting in the Plaza. Once the big Jesus and Mary arrived at the Plaza the smaller floats went to meet them. For the floats to meet the people who were carrying them had to make the floats bow, this means that the people in the front of the float had to kneel while carrying the float. Once the smaller Mary meet the larger Jesus and the smaller Jesus meet the larger Mary. The larger floats walked to the center and meet each other. I can see why this is the most popular procession of the week, it was lovely to watch.

Santo Lunes

Today I went to work with the children in the prison like normal then rounded up some energy to continue celebrating Semana Santa. Tonight's activities included going to the cultural center with a few of the girls from the house to watch a talent show of traditional dances. Our program director, Marisol, has a friend who is in a cultural dance group and let us know that the show was happening. On our way to the cultural center we walked through the plaza to see all the flower carpets being made. Flower carpets are pretty self-explainable, different groups of people come together in the plaza and draw elaborate pictures on the street out of flowers and colored sand. It was beautiful and very interesting to see how the talented kids of Ayacucho were able to make these amazing pictures out of sand and flowers!

After a quick stroll around the plaza to look at the flower carpets we headed to the cultural center to watch some dance groups. It was really fun to see the different groups dancing. There were groups that danced tradition dances from the city and the country. It was fun to see the difference in the dancing style from the country to the city. Each type tells a story of how life is lived in that area. Most of the dances have to do

with working in the fields or finding love.

On our way home from the cultural center we happened to run into the procession in the plaza for tonight. We stayed a while and enjoyed the procession with out joining the chaos of following the float down the street and into the church. We had great timing to

see the procession but it was sad once we realized that all the hard work that was put into the flower carpets were trampled over :(

Domingo de Ramos

Palm Sunday marks the first day of the Holy week, which is a huge deal for everyone in Ayacucho. Rudy, the program director for CCS, has been proudly bringing in every newspaper article that he can find about Semana Santa in Ayacucho. One paper proudly reported that the festivities here are among the best in all of the Spanish speaking countries in the world.

From just today I have to say that I agree with them. I started my day with going to Catholic Mass at the church in the Plaza. As we were sitting through mass, huge fireworks were going off outside making the whole church shake. It was an utterly frightening experience. I was confused as to whether I was in a war zone or a holy zone of a church. After about the 4th huge explosion, my roommate Kate and I decided it was time to leave.

As we were exiting the church we happened onto a parade going through the plaza. This was just the start to the day.

After lunch we took a taxi to a street party near the airport. Street party does not

explain the madness of the gathering. We pulled up along side dozens and dozens of llamas and donkeys decorated for the procession that

would start from here. We made our way into

the street party and were pleasan

tly surprised with the beer tent. Here in Peru, a 3rd w

orld country, they had a whole tent full to the top of FREE beer and chicha. We quickly figured

out that you go and ask for a bottle of beer and a cup. Then walk around and find n

ew friends to drink with. The tradition is to get a beer, then invite others to drink with you. Let me tell you how easy it is to make new friends when you are some of the only "gringas" and have a full beer in your hands. We were given Peru

vian flags and waved them proudly as we met our new friends and danced and drank together. We even met the Mayor of Ayacucho, he is Rudy's cousin. It was a fun gathering of all the towns people dressed in traditional dress ready to parade from the Airport all through the town and end in the Plaza.

After a few hours of fun we staked out a spot on the street to watch the parade. The parade

included all the decorated llamas, donkeys, horses, bands and dancers. We watched most of the parade go by then joined in. We followed the parade into the town Plaza and as we got near the Plaza we caught up with some of our new friends we meet at the street party. They invited us to join them in the parade. So Millie and I joined in. We paraded through the plaza, and all you could hear is "Mira, gringas" we were the only people in the parade that were not

dressed in traditional attire which did not help us

to blend into the procession line. We processed and danced in the plaza having a grand ol' time.

After the parade we were told that Jesus would be coming to the Plaza on a donkey. So we found a seat on the curb and waited and waited and waited. It has been a month that I have been in Peru and I still don't have the time down right. We were told that Jesus would be entering at 4pm. Well we should have known to not believe that and add 2 to 3 hours to that and that is when it would actually start. Somehow we attracted all the children in the area to come and hang out with us while we were waiting for the grand entrance of Jesus. We passed the time teaching them English kid songs and they tried toteach us Spanish kid songs. Finally at around 6pm Jesus made his entrance on the donkey. I had pictured in my

head someone would be dressed up like Jesus riding the donkey into town. Well that wasn't the case. Jesus was a statue that was placed on a donkey then surrounded by Army and Police men and women protecting the statue of Jesus. Only in Peru would this happen. Somehow in the midst of trying to get a good picture, Millie and I got swept into the procession. The best way to describe the experience is that we were apart of a Mosh Pit for Jesus. We got in the procession easy enough but could not get out once we were being smashed and smooshed as 100s of Peruvians were fighting to get as close as possible to the Jesus statue. Luckily though the procession only went half way around the plaza and ended in the church. This was our escape and we took it. All in all today was the best way I have ever started a celebration for Easter.

Vilcashuaman - Inca Ruins

Today we got up at the crack of dawn. Said goodbye to one of our housemates, Patti, as she went back to the states and we went to visit Inca ruins in the town of Vilcashuaman. This city was second in command for the Incan Empire. It is three hours south of Ayacucho. We got in our tour bus at 6am and drove 3 hours to our first stop at Largo Pumacocha.

Largo Pumacocha is home to Inca ruins. The largest were of bathing sites and different areas around the lake that were used for different ceremonies by the Incas. After walking around there we boarded Tio Pancho's row boat. He paddled me and 4 of my friends and a Peruvian woman back to the other end of the lake where the car was waiting to take us to

our next site.

Our next stop was the city of Vilcashuaman. During the time when the spanish invaded Peru they destroyed most Incan ruins, as they prayed to their sun gods, which isn't what they wanted, as they wanted to spread Catholicism. So it was quite surprising that the town still has as much ruins as it does. In fact its the second biggest site of Incan Ruins, after Macchu Picchu, and the only reason Macchu Picchu is still around is due to the fact that the Spanish didn't know it was there! Vilcashuaman was strategically placed in the conjunction between the Cusco-Costal road that ran east and west and the main Andes road that ran north and south.

We were very luckily our tour guide, Carlos, speaks english, because we got so much information and history about the Incan times and also about the influence the Spanish have had. This picture is of a catholic church that was literally built straight on top of the Inca sun temple. We were not able to go inside the church to see how, if any, meshing of the old Inca spiritual beliefs mixed with the Christian beliefs.

On the way home we stopped at a forest of Puya Raimondi tree forest. This cactus like tree

only grows in the mountains of Peru and Bolivia. The tree has a life span of 100 years and can grow up to 10 meters (32 feet) high. When the tree does flower it can have up to 1,700 flowers, a world record. The plant only flowers once in its life span then releases it seeds and dies. The trees are like nothing I have ever seen before! It would have been nice to see one in bloom and see where all the flowers fit, but unfortunately I was not able too.

All in all, it was a wonderful day, very long, but fantastic as the Incan times are so interesting. I think the worst part was driving there, as it was long and windy around the Andean mountain ranges.

The most adventurous part of the day was the driving around the itty bitty dirt roads. We were very precariously driving along cliff edges. At one point we drove over a little bridge made of wooden planks laid on the ground. Very scary when you're thousands of meters high!! Some of the girls had their seatbelts on...but i thought if we fell down that cliff, there would be no hope, regardless of whether we're wearing them or not! I have figured out this might be part of the reason the so many people are so devout to their spirituality here... it's out of necessity when you are driving or even walking around the streets of Peru :)

The Ayacucho Zoo

On Fridays the CCS volunteers are allowed to take the kids who live at the prison with their mothers outside to the city. This was the first Friday that we were able to take the kids out to the zoo.

It was a very eventful morning! As we enter the prison to pick up the kids we were waiting to find out which kids got permission to go with us, but the paper had be "lost." Marisol, our program coordinator

, ran all over the prison trying to talk to all the different people who ran the prison to find out what happened to this. She couldn't find any of the officials in their offices. We later found out why. There had been a disturbance of some sort that morning which caused the prison to go into lock down. A whistle was blown and the ladies all lined up in rows in the courtyard. We were not sure what was happening and were escorted to what I guess you

would call the entry way. While the women were getting accounted for we were left waiting a speculating what was going to happen while we were all locked in. In the end my imagination was far more active than what really happened. The women had to wait in the courtyard while the guards checked each cell. Marisol saw an opportunity to talk to all the women while they would be forced to listen (or at least pretend). In the past week I had been having a hard time getting kids to come to the Cuna. Und

erstandably so, a strange white girl has shown up and all of a sudden takes you away from your mom for the morning, I think I would rather stay with my mom. Marisol stood up on the patio platform and started lecturing all the women in the prison on the importance of sending them to school and not promoting violence in the prison. After telling all the women that they need to lead by example and teach the kids how to behave in the real world, or these same kids will be back in here when he/she is older, we were bombarded with kids.

There are 13 kids who live in the prison between the ages of 1 and 4. Of those 13 we had 10

that wanted, or their mothers wanted them to go to the zoo with us. 45 minutes after walking in the prison to pick up the kids 8 volunteers were finally walking out with 10 kids. I ended up with 1 year old Jonas on my hip and 3 year old Davis holding my other hand. We all piled into the van and were off to the zoo. It was so much fun to see the kids reactions to the little things in life that I take for granted seeing everyday. The kids loved sitting on our laps and looking out the windows. They would yell to each other "Mira los perros" Look at the dogs. There are hundreds of dogs that roam the streets of Ayacucho. I never thought that seeing that would be so foreign to someone. I forget that these kids technically live in the city, but never can leave their current home. It brought a smile to my face just watching them basically watch the world turn and enjoy every second they got to experience.

Once at the zoo we all had our kids and took them around to see all the different animals. It was so much fun and funny to see how these kids interpret what they saw. It took a couple of animal exhibits for them to understand that not all animals are cats and dogs. They would stand memorized at the animals for hours I think, if we let them. After visiting a condor,

parrots, monkeys, penguins, alpacas, llamas, vicunas, deer, and a taxidermy elephant we bought the kids some cookies and juice and said goodbye to all the animals. We loaded all the kids back into the van. After babysitting as my only source of income for so long I got

into the habit of strapping kids into the safe and secure car seats, which normally sat in a huge tank of a car, just incase of an accident the kids would be fine. You could imagine the heart attack I was suffering when we just had the kids sitting on the seats or in our laps as we drove in a country where I say a prayer before stepping of each sidewalk to cross the street, hoping I will make it across safely.

The car ride back was almost as fun as the time we spent at the zoo. The ride to the prison is only partway paved and the rest is really bumpy dirt roads. The two kids sitting in the back with me, Miriam and Davis, figured out that if you open your mouth while driving over bumps you make quite a funny sound. Well if that wasn't enough entertainment for one ride we were treated to more by Davis. While he was trying to make his funny sounds, it simultaneously relaxed him. While he was in this state of relaxation his eyes would roll back in his head, head tilt farther back and he would fall asleep until the next bump that would jostle him awake and then repeat the cycle again until we got to the prison. I think that we had 4 of the 10 fast asleep when we return them to their mothers. I myself needed a nap after lunch to recuperate from the excursion!