perjantai 26. syyskuuta 2014

A lazy blogger ...

I promised my friends I will write into my blog once a month. Well, it's been 2 months since my last writing, so I guess I am not very good at keeping my promises... So sorry about that!

Time seems to be flying here in Lima, but I guess that is the same pretty much everywhere when you are having fun! To be honest life isn't always just pure fun, but I have enjoyed my time in Lima. Yes, it is still grey and most of the time cold and it drizzles almost every night, although someone told me that spring will start September 23rd. Maybe it did, I just haven't noticed  much of a difference. But I would be lying if I didn't tell you that September 12th and 13th sun was shining for two whole days :D!!! (Yes, I did check from my calendar, because I wrote it down).

So what has happened since I last wrote... I have a schedule now at work. Sunday mornings I am with children who come to La Casa de Panchita from Pamplona Alta (poorer areas in Lima). These are (mostly) girls who have been identified as child domestic workers or in danger of very likely becoming one. Usually there are about 25 girls attending.  In the morning we try to have some fun with them, go to the park and play games, then coming back to La Casa de Panchita where we have different workshops. Sometimes we are talking about domestic work and risks, or we could be talking about their families and how they feel in different situations etc. but always we are drawing, painting, cutting paper and gluing, doing things with our hands. These mornings are lots of fun. I have also noticed that most of these lovely girls are really, really great at drawing! There are many talents to be found here.

After having lunch with the girls they go on with their activities and I continue to teach English basics. Depending on who is attending the group we are trying to learn different things greetings to numbers to verbs and so on. I must say that this class is also my Spanish class since my great students are teaching me plenty! We try to have fun and not make learning so serious. After English class I have a privilege to spend couple of hours with some amazing ladies learning about Internet and computers. There is this one lady who comes every Sunday and first thing she wants to do is check her horoscope and next she goes to search new cooking recipes. Last Sunday she wanted to know what we cook in Finland. Lucky for Internet we did find recipes of Finnish food in Spanish :), since I am not much of a cook nor is my Spanish good enough to explain any cooking!

Monday through Friday mornings I go to my Spanish classes. On Mondays after my class I go to one of the schools in Pamplona Alta. It feels really great now because I can find my way all the way to the school with two different combis (small busses) and I even know when to get off!!! Most of the time I know how much the fare is but during last month the guys on combis charge me different amounts every time so I actually have no clue how much I should be paying. At least I know how much I shouldn't be paying :).

At the school we have a morning group that is there until 12.30 and the next one arrives around 1 pm. We help the children with their homework and every week we have different excercises for them about math or Spanish. I am not so great helping with the Spanish grammar but I do like the math :)! I did take me while to remember all what they are doing at school when you are around 10 (also they teach things differently here). But last Monday I was teaching decimal calculations to these poor kids! Poor kids because it was ME who was teaching them with my still-bad Spanish. I guess I'll see soon if they learned anything, when next Monday we do the exercises!!!!

This picture is from Pamplona Alta.

On Tuesdays usually I go to help my wonderful colleague Adalid in risk workshops that are held in different schools again in the same area Pamplona Alta. There are 6 or 7 different workshops (not quite sure but eventually I know!). The workshops are about risks. During the series of workshops we first talk about what is a risk and what kind of risks there are and how to handle if e.g. someone asks you to do something you don't want to. In the following workshops we move on to discussing more about what is a child domestic work, when is work a work (helping your mother or working everyday for a neighbour). The idea is to make children realise that they might actually be working and perhaps give them tools how to see things differently. These workshops are held in normal classes so we don't know which, if any, of the children work. When making surveys with the children who do work, they quite often don't think what they do is work. They think they are helping out a relative or a neighbour, but if a 10-year-old child is taking care of a 1 year old baby every day more than 8 hours a day when the mother is going to work, that can be called work and not just helping!

To continue with my schedule, on Wednesdays I am at the office. At La Casa de Panchita there is a employment agency, where I have been helping once in a while. There is quite often different types of excels to fill etc. and I try to help with what ever I can. Or one Wednesday I went with other volunteers to share leaflets in areas where we thought we could find adult domestic workers. We told them about La Casa de Panchita and our services and where we are. It was very interesting to see their facial expressions changing from absolute disbelief to smile and warmth :) Especially at one point we were just to blonde gringos starting to talk to these wonderful ladies! (Luckily the other gringo speaks so much better Spanish than I do ;). Or another Wednesday I went with other volunteers to help local Cancer organisation to raise funds on the streets of Lima. And again I met wonderful people on the streets, some of them who wanted to share their stories.

Thursdays is back to school, another school this time, but again in Pamplona Alta. This school has been "famous" for having very difficult children in our group. I have heard stories about how they were when people from La Casa de Panchita started to work there! They are not anymore that bad, most of the time they are actually really sweat but there are some challenges, at least compared to other schools. Sometimes I really, really wish that one morning I could wake up and my Spanish would be at least much closer to perfect than it is now, so I could communicate better with these kids. These kids, like we all do, have good days and bad days and when it is THE bad day, it would be so much easier to handle to situation with better Spanish. Luckily I am not there alone. Again, my absolutely remarkable, amazing Peruvian colleague Adalid saves it all :)!!!

Sometimes on Tuesday and/or Thursday evenings I attend evening classes where there are a bit older students (not all) and we have different workshops with them.

Then it is my weekend, Friday and Saturday!!! Mostly on my timeoff I am just being lazy and doing nothing since after work week I must admit, I am pretty beat. But I do love what I am doing here. I have had some fun days with my great Finnish friend Heidi, who is also volunteering in Lima. I have had some odd evenings with wine and my landlady in our kitchen. I have also bought a membership card to a gym so I have been going there as well (to be honest only few times but I will go next week!). And last Friday we finally went out with the girls from work (after weeks of planning) and it was a lot of fun :D!!!

Party Girls at Barranco, Lima :)!!!

It has been 3 years since I quit my job as an IT consultant and I never thought I'd be doing this, but I love it :D!

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