Mi Clase de Ninos

Hi everyone!

This has been such a great past few weeks. Now that I´m done with Spanish in the morning, I volunteer from 9-1 at a Kindergarden. I´m a teacher´s aid in a class of 10 five year olds, and they call me the English Professor. We´ve recently been working on counting to 50, and also I´m in the process of teaching them the song ¨Head, shoulders, knees and toes...¨. It´s quite a different experience than the girls I am with in the afternoon because when 7 out of the students 10 are boys, it can get pretty crazy, hehe. Today we practiced a Peruvian dance. I can pretty much say with certainty that each of the 5 year olds was a better dancer than I. Oh well.

I absolutely love walking into the orphanage every afternoon. I´m really feeling like it is becoming a home to me. Everyone is so nice and it´s so comfortable. Today another volunteer and I brought construction paper and glue and scissors to make Christmas decorations, which they absolutely loved. I am constantly amazed by the sense of family that these 40 girls have created for one another. The older girls look out for the little ones, there are 3 older girls living in the house with the little ones, and these girls are each others´ best friends and sisters. Many of them are incredibly mature for their age. When they tell me they are 15, I am utterly amazed because really, they act much much older. These girls don´t have much, but they truly appreciate what they do have and their capacity of selflessness is unbelievable.

After spending time in the orphanage, I have begun teaching English. The orphanage is connected to a hotel, and many of the girls who used to live in the orphanage but are now too old have jobs there as receptionists or maids and need help with their English. It´s one hour everyday and I do it with another volunteer. The class started out with 1 person, and now it´s grown to almost 10 some days, with new people joining. We talk about all sorts of hotel topics, and write down what we say, and then one of the receptionist makes copies for everyone. The copies are becoming packets that grow each day, and they really are learning a lot. It is  gratifiying to practice something, and then when English speaking hotel guests walk in, to see the receptionists use their English.

Over this past weekend I flew to Lima with some other volunteers to see the Killers concert. It was fantastic! We also went paragliding, which is something everyone should try. We also saw the musical ¨Cabaret¨. It was in Spanish of course, and lots of fun to see, especially because we did that play at Camp Ramah 2 years ago. I was the pineapple lady, and I was singing along in Hebrew as she was singing in Spanish. Lima was a great place to vacation for a little, but it was nice to return to safe and small city of Cusco Sunday night.

I hope everyone is doing well! I´ll post again soon!
Love,
Avra