Volunteering

Some of you have asked for pictures from the orphanage so we took a few yesterday.  I've posted a few below and there's plenty more on flickr.

Sydney...The Celebrity

We do a lot of walking through many neighborhoods in Cusco so this exposes us to the people.  I cannot tell you how many times I have seen smiles, giggles, and looks of awe when people notice Sydney walking with us.  And some older people have actually stopped to touch her and make comments about how incredibly adorable she is.   The blond hair gets attention.  A few have asked her to start talking in English.  They want the combo platter...the cute little blondie who speaks the English language. Sydney is a celebrity in Cusco. Scott, Lucas and I are her entourage.

Zapatos

Today we took a mini-side trip today to El Molino to get Sydney some new shoes, as her old ones were too small and falling apart. On the way, we stopped at the statue of Pachacutec:

For about $1 we got to climb to the top, which is 100+ feet high:

We eventually made it to the market, which is like a huge mall under a tent with tons of shoes, clothes, toys, and everything else you can imagine.  This is where the locals do their shopping, and we found some success...for 88 soles (about $30) sydney got some blue and pink New Balance knockoffs the fit perfectly:

Who needs Nordstroms shoe department!

Spanish Favorites

We just finished up about 10 hours of intensive Spanish lessons this week.  I thought it would be fun to ask the family what their favorite Spanish words were from our first week of lessons.  Here goes:

SCOTT:  (No surprise to some of you)

• Queso=cheese
• Cerveza=beer

SYDNEY:

• Amarillo=yellow
• Ojos=eyes
• Azul=blue
• Hola=hello

LUCAS:

• Hola=hello
• Rojo=red
• Helado=ice cream

MELANIE:  I learned many new words and phrases this week.  Here goes:

• Menudo (not the band in the late 80´s)= often
• Mi boca se hace agua= my mouth is watering (not sure when I will use this) 
• Estoy feliz por ti=I am happy for you
• Bien por ti=good for you
• A lo mejor=perhaps
• Tomar puntes=to take notes (I took many this week)
• Hidratarte=hydrate (important word to know being in this high altitude)
• Saludable=healthy
• Mente=mind
• Maquillarse=to put on make up (which I don´t do much of here)
• Imponer=to impose

Next week we start a new round of lessons for the kids (only one hour each day) and then I am going to try to meet with a Spanish speaker that wants to learn English so we can work together to learn. I may return to formal Spanish classes again later this month.  Sadly, future and past tense verb conjugation is something I must have blocked out of my mind;  I need more work.

Happy July 4th

Hope everyone in the states is having a great July 4th today.  We celebrated with a transportation strike and a mini pub crawl where we visited several english pubs in town...ostensibly to rub it in that some 237 years ago today we declared independence from them.  Now that we're done, we'll start the 45 minute walk home since no cabs or buses are running today!

Cusco Geography

For those of you interested in a little more detail on Cusco here's a map:

The top right circle is where we're staying and you can clearly see where Maximo Nivel is located.  Each morning we make the walk, which takes about 40 minutes.  On the way we pass many restaurants, panaderias and supermercados (but no coffee shops).  The main roads (like Avenida de la Cultura) tend to be crowded with pedestrians, taxis and buses, and its not like California where motorists yield to pedestrians.  The buses are crazy...they're the equivalent of a sprinter van packed to the brim with 20+ people, half of which are standing.  I've actually never seen one not 100% full!

Anyway, today we had Ana pack us lunch to go and we ate on the plaza next to the Temple of the Sun (across the street from Maximo Nivel).  

Afterwards we toured the temple which features the oldest Incan ruins in Cusco:

Then we headed over to the orphanage to spend a few hours with the kids.  The orphanage is located due south of Maximo Nivel over the rail road tracks (pictured on the map)...about a 10 minute walk.  We normally take a taxi home from the orphanage, which costs 3 or 4 soles (or about $1), but tomorrow the taxis and buses are on strike (I have no idea why, but apparently strikes are quite common here) so we'll cut our volunteering short to make the hour long walk home.

A Side Of Protein...Please

I have to agree with Scott on the breakfast issue.  While I keep an open mind about all things related to food and culture, we are physiologically craving more variety in our breakfasts.  Don't get us wrong....the bread, cheese and jam are delicious.  All of you would love it!  We just miss a variety of breakfast options, especially protein.  Ana packed us some amazing looking protein packed lunches today so we are looking forward to that meal in a few minutes.  Some of you may think we should just tell Ana how we feel.  It doesn't work like that.  This woman puts her heart, soul and culture into our meals and we feel the need to be respectful of her.  So we will keep quiet.  And then, on the way to school or volunteering, we may pick up some supplementary protein laden food along the way.  There are eggs in pastries and protein in ice cream. So those options would qualify.

Breakfast

OK, I've got to admit that while the food tastes great, the family consensus is that a little more variety might be nice.  We had bread, butter, jelly, cheese and fresh juice for breakfast again this morning. Luke asked if we could just have some dry cereal for a change but they don't really drink milk here so that's out.  To mix it up, we stopped at a bakery and got some pastries this morning, but we'll probably try to eat out quite a bit this weekend.

They also don't really drink coffee here!  There's only 1 starbucks in the whole city, and I would have thought that void would be filled by countless small cafes, but no.  In our 45 minute walk each morning we probably pass 100+ restaurants, street carts and bakeries, and not a single one offers a quick cup of coffee to go!

Soccer (fútbol) Anyone?

Yesterday was our first "official" day in country.  We started off with 9a spanish lessons.  The kids had a private lesson with Anamarie, Melanie is in an advanced intermediate class and I'm, of course, in Spanish for Dummys.  After Spanish we spent a few minutes online…downloading episodes of Game of Thrones to watch after the kids go to bed (with only spanish TV and no internet, it can be a bit slow at night)!

For lunch Ana made us lentils and rice.  I know it seems kind of plain, but she must have some kind of special Peruvian spices or something because it was fantastic!  I can't really explain it, but everything she makes is delicious…even the simplest stuff like chicken noodle soup, chicken and rice, or spaghetti with meat sauce (meat sauce here is a piece of steak of top of spaghetti).  It's all home cooked and 100% organic…almost as if Melanie died and went to heaven!

Anyway, after lunch and a brief rest we made the trek back to Maximo Nivel (about a 45 minute walk with the kids) for them to take us to our volunteer assignment.  We'll be spending the afternoons at the Hogar Salome Ferro orphanage for boys, where they house about 40 boys ranging from 6 to 16.  Our responsibilities basically entail spending the afternoon playing with the boys and possibly helping out with a little homework.  The facility, while spartan by our standards, is actually pretty nice and all the boys seemed really happy.  We were only going to have a quick tour of the place today, but within about 15 minutes an impromptu soccer game broke out with Lucas, me, 2 other volunteers and 4 of the boys, and we played until it got too dark to continue.  Melanie and Sydney toured the girls orphanage and then Sydney showed the boys that she is the master of the swing set as she went higher than all of them (it wasn't even close!).  The kids had a blast and Lucas was begging to come back tomorrow and stay longer!

Today is more of the same, although at some point this week we plan to take a formal walking tour of the city, and we may take a tour of the Sacred Valley this weekend.  We're also planning a weekend trip to Puno & Lake Titicaca, which will likely involve an overnight bus trip which we've been told is actually quite comfortable with fully reclining seats, pillows and blankets so all the passengers can sleep.

New Pictures & Cell Phone Troubles

So we've posted lots of pictures to Flickr now.  They are organized in sets, with some pictures & videos of where we're staying, lots of pictures of the city, a tribute to the many dogs of Cusco and even a special spot for Sydney's photos.

Over the last 2 days we've quickly gotten acclimated.  We've explored lots of areas of Cusco, seen the famous 12-sided stone, walked several plazas, and toured a chocolate museum.  Probably the most difficult thing I've had to do is get my cell phone working.  After buying a SIM card for about $5, I unsuccessfully tried to "recarga" (add minutes) the phone about 5 times.  It doesn't help that no one speaks english around here so finally the phone guy actually pulled up google translate and figured out I was trying to put minutes on the wrong phone number.  Now that it's all settled if any of you are interested, you can call me at 952720577 (dial 011 51 before if you're calling from the US).

Anyway, tomorrow's the big day for us as we officially start our program.  At 9a, we're all starting spanish lessons.  I'll be in the basic beginner, while Melanie will be in an intermediate class, and the kids will have private lessons.  We'll be volunteering in the afternoon at a local boys orphanage once the kids get out of school, and we're officially going to be introduced to the boys tomorrow at 4:30p.

More to come...