My new home in Ayaucho, Peru

My new home until June

It has been a week, a very busy week at that, since I arrived in Ayacucho. I got here last Sunday and we have been going non-stop since. All the volunteers are really nice and I am having a great time getting to know all of them. We have quite a mix of cultures in the house, American, Canadian, English and Australian. All together we have 11 girls living in the "Gringo" house. The first week we got city tours and a tour of a mountain town an hour out of Ayacucho. We also spent our week helping at the prison with festivities for International Woman's Day. (It sounds a lot scarier that it is, so don't worry) Our first day of volunteering (Tuesday) all the volunteers went to the prison to watch a talent show that the women had prepared. Most of the talents included dancing, singing or skits. Wednesday, I went with a few other girls to a youth drop in center at a market just up the street from my house. The center is for the kids who either work in the market or their parents work in the market. It is a place for them to come and just be a kid. It was a lot of fun hanging out with them for the morning. Except, I don't think that they have ever seen a redhead before. I made the mistake of wearing my hair down that day and the kids decided that they wanted a strand as a souvenir, so they kept try snatching a piece from my head, a little painful and awkward. The next two days I went back to the prison to help with the conclusion of the week of festivities. I spent most of my time with kids coloring and reading Goodnight, Moon a million times in Spanish.