When I arrived in Huaraz, I was the only AUFWIND-Volunteer.
On my second day, I was still feeling terrible because of the altitude and the long journey, but two of the teachers already took me to a school event in Wilcawain, another 500m up.
I had no idea what to do, and I didn’t understand much Spanish at that time. But the teachers talked to the coordinator of the school and told me that classes would start next week – so I had a few days to settle, which I really needed.
Those first days were quiet, but Julia started to show me around Huaraz. We went to the market on the street, the supermarket, the main square, the Feria Artesana and some other places. Most things are in walking distance from the house, but in the beginning every meter was exhausting for me and I had to drink a lot of coca tea to make my headache go away. And in Huaraz too, eventhough it’s a lot smaller than Lima, impressions are endless.
The moment when the sun goes down behind the mountains.
The Peruvian women, very many of them wearing traditional Peruvian clothing, doing their laundry at the riverside.
The food you can buy on the street – only a few things are vegetarian, but there’s just so much I still don’t know.
The market, where you can buy anything from fruits, vegetables, meat over clothing to housewares, and that is always colorful and full of people (in the beginning, every time I went to the market I forgot what I wanted to buy because there’s just so much).
The traffic, chaotic and loud, but still much better than in Lima.
The fiestas, parades and shoots that take place every weekend, and on some weekdays too.
The main street, full of stores and people.
The many dogs on street, all different kinds you can imagine.
The bars, drunk people and salsa music on weekend nights.
So – it’s a lot. And it took me while to get used to all of it.
Most people here are poor, and you can see that especially when you go a little out of the city, to the small villages in the mountains. Many things are very traditional and basic, for example agriculture. Animals are used as working animals, and so you see lots of donkeys and cows, but also sheep and pigs. Clothes are all washed by hand, many roads are unpaved, and water is cold. There a lots of little stores (tiendas) and usually people just live in the back of the sales room, behind a door. Also many people sell their own vegetables and fruits on the streets (usually only women) and they carry incredible weights in their colorful cloths.
After about a week, Patrick came back and now I wasn’t alone with Julia anymore and also had someone to talk to. That wasn’t good for my Spanish because I learned a lot with Julia, but it was also good to be able to have a normal conversation.
We got along very well, and since we kinda have our own house (Julia just comes by sometimes and we eat or drink wine together) we were independent and Patrick explained to me some other important things in Huaraz. We cooked a lot, watched movies (bought on the street, for 2,50 Soles), walked around and most of the time we went to bed early.
The house we live in is small, but we have everything we need. Two bedrooms, a kitchen/living room, a bathroom and a rooftop where we have a cage for our cuys and a couch. The stove is a gas stove, and the bottle full of gas is right next to it. We always have to turn the bottle off after cooking because otherwise that nice smell of gas fills the kitchen pretty fast. The best thing is probably our mixer – super old and retro orange, and perfect for making soups or banana milk shakes. We also have a TV, which we don’t really use, with a few Peruvian channels where they show weird game shows, and sometimes also movies in Spanish. We have no heater, so sometimes I gets pretty cold in the house and warm socks are definitely needed. The shower works, but you have to be lucky to have warm and a lot of water (I’m so glad I cut my dreads!) and also in the kitchen there is no hot water. The water we drink, we have to cook first (in a nice, whistling teapot). So I got used to drinking warm water, because we always have to consider our “water cooking times” in our day planning which we still forget sometimes.
It’s basic, there’s no dishwasher or fridge or a big mirror – but you get used to things like that fast.
Julia is not here most of the time, and so it really is kinda my first own house, which is pretty cool.
When I had my first day in class I was happy that Patrick was still here. It was a couple days later than originally planned (things like that are just normal here, plans change) and I didn’t know what to expect, since I’d never done anything like this before. So I was quite nervous to stand in front of a Spanish-speaking bunch of kids and teach. But there are some things you just have to do, to learn that they’re not as scary as they seem at first. The AUFWIND-teachers organized a meeting with all the other teachers of the school and we arranged the schedules for the English classes.
Then we had our first class – in this one I was mostly quiet and watched, but the next time we went to school, I already dared to teach a little myself.
The school is something you would never see in Austria. A small, cold building with 3 classrooms and a “room” for the teachers (it really is just a place with two desks, surrounded by some closets which separate it from the hallway). The rest of the classes are outside, surrounding a little yard and you can’t even really call them rooms. Walls and roofs are made of wood and corrugated metal, they don’t have a floor and between wall and roof is a hole through which you can see the sun shining (or in future, probably it will be a nice entrance for some rain). There is no electricity in the classrooms nor do we have running tap water – there is a little creek behind one of the classrooms. There are no computers, TV’s or anything like that. The kids come from poor families and most of them only have basic school utensils – a booklet, a pencil, maybe some color pencils too, and some of them have to walk for over an hour to get to school.
We teach 6 different grades, and of each are two classes (but most of them are together). And the way it works, is that the teachers prepare class and do the main part of explaining – we volunteers help them, practice pronunciation, draw and write on the board. When the kids have to do something themselves we all walk through class, help them or answer questions if they don’t know what to do. All this was very new for me, especially being called “profesóra” and correcting their work, but now I’m already pretty used to it.
Teaching is exhausting, but it’s fun and now the kids got used to me being in class too (in the beginning they were always talking about me, which wasn’t very helpful for my self-confidence) and when I come in the morning they are happy to see me and come over to give me a hug.
They are amazingly cute, willing to learn, and some of them are really smart. With “our” teachers I get along very well too, and I really like what I’m doing.
But it took a while until everything started to go as smooth and regularly as it does now (if you can ever call something in Peruvian life regularly). In my first couple weeks I was sick a lot and my weeks were chaotic because of that. It’s also not a very good feeling when you have fever for two days and don’t really know why and what would help. I lost a lot of weight and my body got weak – and every time I started to feel better I got sick again. There were days where I felt good, but in the beginning they were rare – I always had something. Also I had to organize a lot for the school (that’s the disadvantage of working for a small organization – you don’t just work for it, you kind of are the organization), still many things were new to me and not having a rhythm is exhausting.
But on the good days I went to explore with Patrick (or by myself), and I didn’t even notice how many things started to get normal to me.
For example the busride to the school in a full colectivo on a bumpy, unpaved road. Or doing my laundry by hand with cold water and only sometimes having a hot shower with more than a few drops of water. After about two weeks we were together in Huaraz, Patrick left because he was going back to Austria. Julia was in Lima too, and so I had the house for myself for a few days (in which I was sick).
But at school we had regular classes by now, just interrupted by the many fiestas that take place all the time (people here really like to celebrate) and I was at a point where I felt like I was now living my other, Peruvian life, far away from Austria. I was used to many things here (of course there’s still a lot that’s new to me), my Spanish got better, I knew the streets I needed, knew which Internet station was best to go to and I stopped caring about people staring at me and calling me “gringa” – I just felt like now I had really arrived in my new home.
When Maria, the new volunteer, came with Julia all these things got even clearer to me because now I was the one showing her around and explaining some Peruvian specialties.
In the beginning living with her was totally different that living with Patrick, but after a few days we got used to each other, and now everything is working out pretty good. We got a second key so we can come and go without depending on each other, but we also spend a lot of time together. Cooking works great, we always have new ideas about what to make and we also had some good Kaiserschmarrn and Apfelstrudel already (which isn’t the easiest thing to make without scales, but we’re masters by now).
My life here has also gotten pretty busy – school, and also work in the afternoon, writing emails and reports, shopping, cooking, cleaning, friends, and so on.
We also go out quite a lot, with two Peruvians who I met through a swiss girl who was working in a hotel here in my first weeks. They are fun, and they also speak English. Here people drink a lot, and the music in the “discotecas” is very different – it’s probably very funny when gringos try to dance to salsa music.
When we don’t go out to party, we go out to eat or just hang out at the hostel, which belongs to the family of one of my friends and is very nice.
There were weeks where I really didn’t have much time to relax, which is exhausting but also good because that way I don’t have much time to think about Austria. I like being here, and Huaraz really feels like home now.
On my second day, I was still feeling terrible because of the altitude and the long journey, but two of the teachers already took me to a school event in Wilcawain, another 500m up.
I had no idea what to do, and I didn’t understand much Spanish at that time. But the teachers talked to the coordinator of the school and told me that classes would start next week – so I had a few days to settle, which I really needed.
Those first days were quiet, but Julia started to show me around Huaraz. We went to the market on the street, the supermarket, the main square, the Feria Artesana and some other places. Most things are in walking distance from the house, but in the beginning every meter was exhausting for me and I had to drink a lot of coca tea to make my headache go away. And in Huaraz too, eventhough it’s a lot smaller than Lima, impressions are endless.
The moment when the sun goes down behind the mountains.
The Peruvian women, very many of them wearing traditional Peruvian clothing, doing their laundry at the riverside.
The food you can buy on the street – only a few things are vegetarian, but there’s just so much I still don’t know.
The market, where you can buy anything from fruits, vegetables, meat over clothing to housewares, and that is always colorful and full of people (in the beginning, every time I went to the market I forgot what I wanted to buy because there’s just so much).
The traffic, chaotic and loud, but still much better than in Lima.
The fiestas, parades and shoots that take place every weekend, and on some weekdays too.
The main street, full of stores and people.
The many dogs on street, all different kinds you can imagine.
The bars, drunk people and salsa music on weekend nights.
So – it’s a lot. And it took me while to get used to all of it.
Most people here are poor, and you can see that especially when you go a little out of the city, to the small villages in the mountains. Many things are very traditional and basic, for example agriculture. Animals are used as working animals, and so you see lots of donkeys and cows, but also sheep and pigs. Clothes are all washed by hand, many roads are unpaved, and water is cold. There a lots of little stores (tiendas) and usually people just live in the back of the sales room, behind a door. Also many people sell their own vegetables and fruits on the streets (usually only women) and they carry incredible weights in their colorful cloths.
After about a week, Patrick came back and now I wasn’t alone with Julia anymore and also had someone to talk to. That wasn’t good for my Spanish because I learned a lot with Julia, but it was also good to be able to have a normal conversation.
We got along very well, and since we kinda have our own house (Julia just comes by sometimes and we eat or drink wine together) we were independent and Patrick explained to me some other important things in Huaraz. We cooked a lot, watched movies (bought on the street, for 2,50 Soles), walked around and most of the time we went to bed early.
The house we live in is small, but we have everything we need. Two bedrooms, a kitchen/living room, a bathroom and a rooftop where we have a cage for our cuys and a couch. The stove is a gas stove, and the bottle full of gas is right next to it. We always have to turn the bottle off after cooking because otherwise that nice smell of gas fills the kitchen pretty fast. The best thing is probably our mixer – super old and retro orange, and perfect for making soups or banana milk shakes. We also have a TV, which we don’t really use, with a few Peruvian channels where they show weird game shows, and sometimes also movies in Spanish. We have no heater, so sometimes I gets pretty cold in the house and warm socks are definitely needed. The shower works, but you have to be lucky to have warm and a lot of water (I’m so glad I cut my dreads!) and also in the kitchen there is no hot water. The water we drink, we have to cook first (in a nice, whistling teapot). So I got used to drinking warm water, because we always have to consider our “water cooking times” in our day planning which we still forget sometimes.
It’s basic, there’s no dishwasher or fridge or a big mirror – but you get used to things like that fast.
Julia is not here most of the time, and so it really is kinda my first own house, which is pretty cool.
When I had my first day in class I was happy that Patrick was still here. It was a couple days later than originally planned (things like that are just normal here, plans change) and I didn’t know what to expect, since I’d never done anything like this before. So I was quite nervous to stand in front of a Spanish-speaking bunch of kids and teach. But there are some things you just have to do, to learn that they’re not as scary as they seem at first. The AUFWIND-teachers organized a meeting with all the other teachers of the school and we arranged the schedules for the English classes.
Then we had our first class – in this one I was mostly quiet and watched, but the next time we went to school, I already dared to teach a little myself.
The school is something you would never see in Austria. A small, cold building with 3 classrooms and a “room” for the teachers (it really is just a place with two desks, surrounded by some closets which separate it from the hallway). The rest of the classes are outside, surrounding a little yard and you can’t even really call them rooms. Walls and roofs are made of wood and corrugated metal, they don’t have a floor and between wall and roof is a hole through which you can see the sun shining (or in future, probably it will be a nice entrance for some rain). There is no electricity in the classrooms nor do we have running tap water – there is a little creek behind one of the classrooms. There are no computers, TV’s or anything like that. The kids come from poor families and most of them only have basic school utensils – a booklet, a pencil, maybe some color pencils too, and some of them have to walk for over an hour to get to school.
We teach 6 different grades, and of each are two classes (but most of them are together). And the way it works, is that the teachers prepare class and do the main part of explaining – we volunteers help them, practice pronunciation, draw and write on the board. When the kids have to do something themselves we all walk through class, help them or answer questions if they don’t know what to do. All this was very new for me, especially being called “profesóra” and correcting their work, but now I’m already pretty used to it.
Teaching is exhausting, but it’s fun and now the kids got used to me being in class too (in the beginning they were always talking about me, which wasn’t very helpful for my self-confidence) and when I come in the morning they are happy to see me and come over to give me a hug.
They are amazingly cute, willing to learn, and some of them are really smart. With “our” teachers I get along very well too, and I really like what I’m doing.
But it took a while until everything started to go as smooth and regularly as it does now (if you can ever call something in Peruvian life regularly). In my first couple weeks I was sick a lot and my weeks were chaotic because of that. It’s also not a very good feeling when you have fever for two days and don’t really know why and what would help. I lost a lot of weight and my body got weak – and every time I started to feel better I got sick again. There were days where I felt good, but in the beginning they were rare – I always had something. Also I had to organize a lot for the school (that’s the disadvantage of working for a small organization – you don’t just work for it, you kind of are the organization), still many things were new to me and not having a rhythm is exhausting.
But on the good days I went to explore with Patrick (or by myself), and I didn’t even notice how many things started to get normal to me.
For example the busride to the school in a full colectivo on a bumpy, unpaved road. Or doing my laundry by hand with cold water and only sometimes having a hot shower with more than a few drops of water. After about two weeks we were together in Huaraz, Patrick left because he was going back to Austria. Julia was in Lima too, and so I had the house for myself for a few days (in which I was sick).
But at school we had regular classes by now, just interrupted by the many fiestas that take place all the time (people here really like to celebrate) and I was at a point where I felt like I was now living my other, Peruvian life, far away from Austria. I was used to many things here (of course there’s still a lot that’s new to me), my Spanish got better, I knew the streets I needed, knew which Internet station was best to go to and I stopped caring about people staring at me and calling me “gringa” – I just felt like now I had really arrived in my new home.
When Maria, the new volunteer, came with Julia all these things got even clearer to me because now I was the one showing her around and explaining some Peruvian specialties.
In the beginning living with her was totally different that living with Patrick, but after a few days we got used to each other, and now everything is working out pretty good. We got a second key so we can come and go without depending on each other, but we also spend a lot of time together. Cooking works great, we always have new ideas about what to make and we also had some good Kaiserschmarrn and Apfelstrudel already (which isn’t the easiest thing to make without scales, but we’re masters by now).
My life here has also gotten pretty busy – school, and also work in the afternoon, writing emails and reports, shopping, cooking, cleaning, friends, and so on.
We also go out quite a lot, with two Peruvians who I met through a swiss girl who was working in a hotel here in my first weeks. They are fun, and they also speak English. Here people drink a lot, and the music in the “discotecas” is very different – it’s probably very funny when gringos try to dance to salsa music.
When we don’t go out to party, we go out to eat or just hang out at the hostel, which belongs to the family of one of my friends and is very nice.
There were weeks where I really didn’t have much time to relax, which is exhausting but also good because that way I don’t have much time to think about Austria. I like being here, and Huaraz really feels like home now.
On one of my free days, I decided to get out of the city and go hiking for a little bit. I didn’t really have a plan where I was going , so I just took a (full) colectivo to a small village I already knew, and started walking from there. I hardly saw any people, all that was around me were mountains, the sun and the sounds I made. The landscape was gorgeous and I really enjoyed having this day for myself.
A few days later, we had a couchsurfer from Argentina stay at our place for two days – we showed him around a little bit (feels weird to show someone around in a city where everybody thinks you’re a tourist yourself) and on Sunday afternoon Maria and I made Apfelstrudel and also had another friend and Julia come over to eat – Austrian food with international guests, and since there was almost nothing left I guess they liked it.
The next day the couchsurfer left for Chacas, a small village on the other side of the Cordillera Blanca, and I decided to go there too, just a day later.
A few days later, we had a couchsurfer from Argentina stay at our place for two days – we showed him around a little bit (feels weird to show someone around in a city where everybody thinks you’re a tourist yourself) and on Sunday afternoon Maria and I made Apfelstrudel and also had another friend and Julia come over to eat – Austrian food with international guests, and since there was almost nothing left I guess they liked it.
The next day the couchsurfer left for Chacas, a small village on the other side of the Cordillera Blanca, and I decided to go there too, just a day later.
No comments:
Post a Comment