Peru was amazing. Best two weeks of my whole life. Loved every minute of it. The experience opened my eyes to poverty and the extremes that can coincide right next to each other. I would like to think the trip has changed me in certain ways, but who knows, I think I'll have to give it a little longer to find out. Felt like we were there for about 1 month, rather than just two weeks; we did so much in the time and we never sat still. Since, I've got back I've literally done nothing and have been soooooo tired.
Did loads while we were but had two main projects that we worked on for most of the time. During the week, we worked at the barrio Raucana's school. We dug up parts of their football pitch and re-concreted it, and also planted trees and painted many murals. We were kinda swarmed by the children at the school, they've never seen English people before, so they constantly asked for our autographs and photos with us on our cameras. We did little craft classes with them, taught them a few English songs (head, shoulder, knees and toes and the hokey kokey) and played some simple games with them. Mainly activities that didn't require too much Spanish speaking, as we hadn't really nailed that part yet.
On the weekend, we would travel to a different area of Peru called Carabyllo. The livelihoods of the people there were even tougher than with the children at the school and nobody ever visited this place, so a big group of English kids looked even stranger to them. Our work here involved levelling out a section of the mountainside and making it suitable for a building of some sort. We also planted trees and plants, made steps to make it actually accessible and again worked with the children.
Can't really explain how I felt throughout the trip as I went through so many emotions. It still gets me though how the Peruvians were so warm welcoming, friendly and happy with what they have even though they have absolutely nothing whereas wealthier people can always find something to moan about. Although the whole trip was memorable, the attitudes of the people will be something that will stick in my mind for the rest of my life.
As soon as I got home, I wanted to be back in Peru. We've all agreed we'd love to go back and although we wont get the opportunity with sixth form, I'm sure we can figure something out ourselves. Cannot wait until that day comes, but for the time being, I have enough memories to keep me going. :)
