A Day in the Life

Just a little glimpse of what I usually do in a day, because I sùppose I havent really made that too clear, other than kids, hw, spanish, etc which is a bit vague. SO
I woke up around 830 and laid in bed a bit remembering the strange and vivid dreams that accompany traveling. Then I get up and note that after two weeks here, I really should do my laundry, so I put on my least dirty clothes, and take the rest up to the roof, where we have a sink and some detergent and a bucket. Its been sunny the last few days, but today was actually pretty chilly, made even more so by the cold water. Once I had washed about 2/3 of my clothes, I got bored and decided to save the rest for later. So I went down (the building is 4 stories tall, all outside stairs/hallways) to the kitchen and chatted with the cook, Sebastiana and had some tea and some cereal. The kids all greeted me with "profesora crazy" and "the question of the day, profesora, have you combed your hair" which I get asked at least 5 times a day, and I always respond obviously, 3 times already. They always respond, you cant tell. hahha, I enjoy the exchange. Erla, the head teacher yells "to your classrooms!" and I hed off to my room, I have the youngest students in the morning. I have three students, Amy, Raul, and Elmer. First I have them get out all their notebooks and I check all of them to see what hw they have left and check what theyve done. Raul, who is 13 but has severe learning disabilities so is way below his grade level always needs extra work on his math, so I set him on that if hes finished, and its great watching him do his math, because its ALL out loud, so all the multiplication is muttered in a constant stream from his corner of the table. Amy is 9 and is great at art. When she is done with her hw, I always have her find something from the library on the 3rd floor and she has to give me descriptions of what shes read every so often, because she has a tendency to read without retaining anything. Elmer is 7, and absolutely adorable. Just to give you an idea of the size of the kids, and the extent of their malnutrition, ELmer at 7 is the same size as the 2 year and 2 month old of an ex volunteer who was over here for dinner last night. Tiny. He is learning how to read, so usually his hw is copying lines in cursive, and then we start to read, going letter by letter, syllable by syllable. That is for an hour. Today at 11 we had computer class, so a Puervian named Giancarlos comes to teach them in the lab we have upstairs, with 2 to 3 kids at each computer.
Lunch today was mote soup. Mote is like huge kernals of corn, as in the size of my thumb from the knuckle up. Its always astruggle to make the kids finish up, because the portions they are given are enormous, because this represetns their only nutritious meal all day. They hurry to eat their piece of fruit and brush their teeth to get to their classes at 1. The Afternoon shift comes then, and they have the same lunch routine. At 2 they had Dance class, which a Peruvian volunteer teaches, and is an absolute trip to watch, altough the kids hate it. My class inthe afternoon is secondary kids, one each of a 14, 15 and 16 year old. Jorge, Ramos and Rosa Margarita. Me Ramos and Jorge had a Sudoku race today because they didnt have hw, (I won, no big deal) A bit before 4, I went down to the kitchen to warm up the milk and put out the bread with jam that had been made this mronign by the person with the morning shift. I heated it up and served it to the kids, and then we kick them out and I bug the girl Maria, 15, who cleans Incawasi, whos little brother is in the program. I usually give her a hand cleaning as well. After that, we went out walking around the city doing little errands, and now here I am! Tonight we are going out to drink Pisco Sours, the drink of Peru. There is a day in the life!