Fútbol Con Los Chicos!

6/11/09
Gran Bolivar Hotel, Lima

Today was really fun besides the getting up at 6 part. We took a bus to a small school outside of Lima. When we got there the looks on the kids faces were priceless. The kids all got there and lined up for attendance and morning activities. They welcomed us with a few songs and we attempted to sing one of the songs with them. While we were all standing there across from the kids a young girl was walking in a little late, saw the twenty of us standing there, turned around and ran. The kids were so cute. We broke up into groups and went into the classrooms. There were 3 teachers and a director of the school. Each classroom had two grades in it, so first and second were together, third and fourth, and fifth and sixth. My group went to the third and fourth grade room. It was very difficult to understand the kids because they would mumble and it can be hard to understand kids even when they are speaking English. Some of the students speak Quechua (a local dialect) as their main language at home which also made communicating with them difficult. We worked with the kids on the XO's in the morning and at 10:30 they got a nice long break for lunch and recess. A bunch of the boys were playing with a big blue ball similar to a small medicine ball. After a little while of watching I stepped in and kicked the ball. I waited awhile because it is not really custom for girls to play soccer here in Peru. I think the kids were surprised at first when I started to play but then saw that I could play (which also surprised them) and they were totally cool with it. I chipped the ball over a kids head and another kid headed it in my general direction so of course I headed it back (this was a spur of the moment decision that I later regretted since the ball was quite dirty). This started an obsession with heading the ball so we continued to try and keep the ball in the air with our heads for as long as possible. It turned into a soccer dodgeball game but it was really fun. We then went back to the classroom until about 12:30 when school gets out. I worked with two of my soccer buddies on the computer and one of them taught me basic phrases in Quechua but I forgot them already because the language is pretty different from Spanish. The experience was eye-opening and I learned a lot in just one day. I am really excited to get to work in one school for 3 weeks and be in one area for 6 weeks and actually get to know the people in the town. We also talked to the teachers and the parents to listen to the problems that exist in the community or with the XO's so we could plan for things we might encounter in our placements.

Wow this post is ridiculously long already...
We then went and ate a real lunch at 3 after leaving the school. I ordered Tallarines Soltado con Pollo. Soltado is a common dish here. Tallarines meant I had it with spaghetti and not with rice and con Pollo means with chicken. The meal cost 10 soles ($3.33) and the plate had about 5 portions on it. The plate came out and heads turned. Ben took a picture of it before I started eating because it was that much food. It was really good and I ate a lot of it. John was amazed that I was actually full and Ben tried to get me to finish it by claiming the food defeated me. I told him I hated 'losing' but that he could finish it if he wanted to which he gladly accepted. We then tried to drive the bus back to the hotel but there were protests going on about the situation in the jungle in the North. We had to take lots of back roads and wait awhile for the protest to pass, We got back to the hotel and there were cops lined up along the whole plaza and some were dressed in full riot gear. The plaza was full of people chanting and a person speaking with a powerful amplifier. It was pretty intense but not violent at all so we just walked around it on the edge of the plaza to our hotel and by now the protest is over. We are going to go to Barranco tonight which is the nice place with restaurants and clubs near the beach and we might even have sushi! Sonia (who is originally from Peru) said she knows some good sushi restaurants. I originally looked at my watch wrong and thought today was the 12th so we were planning on going out for my birthday. Turns out tomorrow is my birthday so we will go out tomorrow for that but we are probably still going to the Barranco place tonight.