Our Time Spent as Volunteers

Well, we finished our first week at the organization and were immediately met with welcome arms from all of the children. Since the first day, we have received hugs and kisses at the beginning and end of each day from many of the girls and boys.

Spanish has been a struggle for both of us. Jackie certainly has taken the lead as she can legitimately say she speaks some Spanish. I, on the other hand, speak a bit more Spanglish - often attempting to make up Spanish words or mixing up words. For example, telling a little boy to escucha a palabra en el diccionario (listen to the word in the dictionary) rather than "find the word" in the dictionary. We get a great deal of confused looks, but the children certainly are patient with us.

The program is run by four full-time staff and a variety of volunteers and the accommodations are modest. The goal is to work with families to keep their children in school and off of the streets. There is a high unemployment rate and thus a lot of poverty. Families often have their children working early mornings to late nights selling things on the streets and in the markets to earn enough to get by. The program serves as an alternative to having their children on the streets and working around the clock. In theory, this is great. However, it lacks organization skills. The few constants for the day are homework time (typically from 2:30 - 4:00) and snack time from 5:30 to 6. The children are impressive though as they are easily entertained and are able to find things to keep them busy.

All of the children at Inti attend school and come from all different areas of Cusco. In Peru, there are 3 different shifts - morning, afternoon, and evening with many classes having 50 students to a teacher. The different shifts allow children the flexibility of attending school despite work demands to support their families. Some of the children at this organization work in the early mornings before school or during the night as there are no other option for the families.

The kid in the picture is new to the program and loves getting his picture taken. I think we took over 10 pictures of just him posing by himself. He couldn't get enough of it.



Since we take Spanish classes in the morning, we work with about 20 children between the ages of 8 and 14 in the afternoon (2-6 pm). There is also a morning session with older children. We spend most of our time playing with them, helping with their homework, and reading with them. It's amazing how many of them just want the opportunity to read with someone.



The girls love jump rope and the boys do a good deal of running around. Jackie introduced Jenga, which was a big hit. By many, she is known as Professor Henga (J's are not pronounced in Spanish). Thanks to all of you, we have also brought decks of cards, jump ropes, quadrupled their library (not a difficult task since they only had about 8 books worth reading), and given them soccer balls to use at the park on Fridays. The park is 90% cement, but it certainly does not keep these creative children from having fun.




We don't know many of the children's stories, but based on our observations we do know the stories are sad. For some of the children, Spanish is their second language as many speak Quechua, the native american language of South America. All of the children are in need of a bath, their skin is weathered and dried, a few have hands that show years of manual labor, few have a change of clothes, and the snack provided at Inti may be there only food for the day for some. However, this is the life these children know and love. They certainly seem to be happy, friendly, extremely appreciative, and accepting of everyone. The children all play extremely well together. There are no bullies, even though there are plenty of targets. I'm not certain how much we have provided to these children yet, but after seeing how appreciative these children are of the lives they were dealt, I certainly hope it will provide us with a new perspective and appreciation of our own lives.

Despite, our frustrations with the lack of organization, we both agree that these children are in far better shape thanks to this organization.