Turning a Dream into Reality

Around April of 2013, I started working at Santa Rosa elementary school on the outskirts of Huallanca, the town where I live. It´s a small school with only 60 students in total and most of the students come live on farms farther away and have to talk 1-2 hours to arrive to school. Most of the students at this school live in extreme poverty and come from illiternate and malnourished families Shortly after begining to teach at this elementary school, the students and the school in general quickly became very close to my  heart and dear to me. I knew that I eventually wanted to try and start some kind of big, sustainable project at the school. 

later

After teaching for a few months at the school, I came up with a dream project that I wanted to try and implement. I´ve continued to teach at Santa Rosa, gaining trust with the students, parents, and teachers. I then started the process of trying to implement my project which meant forming a committe, having lots of meetings with the teachers, parents, and the municipality, and filling out a very long and detailed application to receive a grant through the Peace Corps. And now, six months after starting to teach at the school and wanting to do a big project, it is finally becoming a true reality!

My project is starting an after school program at Santa Rosa complete with creating a library full of children´s books and educational games at the school. The after school program will be two times per week and will include a nutritional lunch for the kids as well as a safe space where they can receive help with their homework and reading level. There will be older student mentors from the high school who will be present to help the students as well as myself and a few teachers. 

Since the students primarily come from families who are illiterate, it is difficult for them to recieve help with their homework at home. And Peru does not have a reading culture so it is very rare for kids to read in their spare time or even own a story book at all. These are both things that I want to try and change for the kids at Santa Rosa with the after school program and library. 

The Peace Corps has given me over $3000 for this project and the funds came in last week meaning I was finally able to start making purchases of books, educational games, and furnature to start the lirbrary! :) I went to Lime last week and bought hundreds of books and educational games for the kids. Since then I have been working really hard to get the books ready for the library: making a book inventory, wrapping the books in protective plastic, coding them, and putting book tags on them. This is a lot of work for one volunteer and I feel like I am never going to finish but thankfully I´ve had the help of a few Peruvian friends. 

The local municipality is also helping to support my project by helping to pay for the lunches for the after school program, and paying to help get the library fixed up and ready. Miraculously, there was an extra room at the school that we will be able to use for our library! The library is currently in sad shape (see photos below) but the municipality is helping us fix it up. The preist of the local church has donated wood to the local carpintor who will be making book shelves, and children´s tables and chairs for the library. The community is being really supportive and is very excited about the project :)

There is still a lot to do before the library and after school program are actually up and running but we are working very hard to make it happen and everything will hopefully be ready in a few weeks!

Our library in it´s current condition

Our library in it´s current condition

Our library in it´s current condition (the entrance)

The boxes of books that I bought in Lima (there were 8 boxes in total!)

Pachamanca, also known as cooking in the ground

Peru is supposedly world famous for their amazing and delicious food. I shouldn't say supposedly, because it really is true. It just isn't true for those of us who live in the middle of nowhere in impoverished areas and eat nothing but potatoes. But out here in the campo, we do have a very special and well known dish. A famous typical Peruvian dish that comes from the mountains is called "pachamanca". It's a traditional dish and the name is actually in Quechua meaning “earth’s cooking pot”. It's called this because pachamanca is literally cooked by heating hot rocks and burying them along with the food in the earth and then letting it cook. This might sounds a bit odd and scary but I promise that it’s very delicious!

Pachamanca usually consists of any type of meat (such as pork, chicken, beef, sheep, or guinea pig-if it’s a really special occasion or you are eating at a restaurant, at least two types of meat are prepared), potatoes, sweet potatoes, aves (not sure what that would be in English but it’s basically very large green beans) and corn. If you aren’t wealthy, pachamanca generally consists of just beef and potatoes. It is generally served for special occasions and the Peruvians just LOVE it. It’s like pizza in the US. For example, if you ask a Peruvian kid from the mountains what he wants for his birthday lunch or dinner, he will usually always respond PACHAMANCA!

Pachamanca is an ancient Peruvian mountain tradition that the people are very proud of and love to prepare and enjoy together :) 

I recently went to a community's anniversary celebration on one of the mountain tops in Huallanca's district and of course, pachamanca was served so I wanted to share some photos of the cooking process:  

Digging up the pachamanca after it had cooked for a few hours with the hot rocks in the ground. 

This is how it cooks with the hot rocks.

Taking out the pachamanca

Serving the pachamanca-from the ground to the plate!

People patiently waiting for their pachamanca 

The finished product

Enjoying pachamanca with my dear little friend Sumi

It wouldn't be my blog without some photos of adorable kids :)

Work update and cute kid photos

Work update: For the past few months I have been super busy applying for two grants. The grants are for separate projects and will supply funding to be able to do my projects. Applying for the grants was a ton of work and took a ton of time and organizing and meeting with my community counterparts to plan. But it was all worth it in the end because BOTH of my grants got approved J J

The first grant is for a sexual health project that I am doing with the health center. The basic idea of it is to educate students, teachers, and parents in sexual education topics like preventing teen pregnancy, STIs and HIV/AIDs.

The second grant is for an after school program that I will be starting at an elementary school where I teach. The after school program will be a time for the elementary students to receive help on their homework and reading levels from a group of high school mentors that I am going to train. With the funds from the grant I will be able to buy books, educational games and furniture to create a library for the kids.

So I have some really great projects in the works that are made possible by the funding from the grants. I am super excited about my dream projects turning into a reality!

Now I just want to share some of my favorite photos of children (and a few adults) that I have taken recently. Huallanca is filled with so many children who I love to just love on and spend time with! Here are some photos of their sweet little faces: (be prepared for some serious cuteness!) 

Heart melting!!

My beautiful friend who is a single mom and works so hard to feed her daughters. She also knits sweaters to sell and is extremely talented!

Playing peek-a-boo behind the kitchen door

Pure beauty

Cooking dinner :) 

I love where I live and cannot even explain how happy my heart is here! I am so blessed!

Thanks for reading :)