back to school
(Alastair writes...) I thought we had to get up early but there was no problem about the wake-up call, some other hotel guests kindly arranged to have a conversation outside my door at 4.30am. Muchas gracias senores! We had a 7am start in order to get up into the hills and go to school. We were going with Susanne (CIIR development worker) to visit a school in the village of Auyarate, way up in the hills beyond Cusco. Susanne works with Pukllasunchis, which means ´Let´s play´in Quechua. Pukllasunchis promotes intercultural bilingual education, which in ordinary words means schools teach in both Quechua and Spanish, and that they learn about indigenous culture and history, not just the colonial version.
We were squeezed into the back of a double-cab four by four, driven by Ramiro, who found our own names hilarious and unpronounceable. We bounced up this dirt track into the breathtaking Andean highlands, and were soon looking down on plunging valleys and up to snaking ridges, all of it covered with a patchwork of yellow grass, brown earth and grey stone. We levelled out on a sort of upland plateau with nothing on it at all apart from the road cutting through it. Apparently there had once been a plan to build a prison here: far from everything, bleak and uninhabitable, the perfect place for rehabilitation... On the far side of the plateau we started descending again, through fields hoed for planting and past mixed herds of sheep, pigs and cows being driven along the road by women in colourful skirts, tights, jumpers and hats. Here was civilisation, and a school.
It´s a primary and secondary school and we were introduced to the teachers by Susanne. It took a few minutes for me to realise that the reason I couldn´t understand a word of what she was saying was that she was talking in Quechua. So that´s only six or seven languages she´s fluent in... We then went into a couple of the classrooms where the children looked at us with a mixture of curiosity and indifference, as if they have awkward gringos visiting them every day. They sang (or more accurately, shouted) songs in Quechua for us, and in return I taught them to say ´Hello, how are you?´in English, and explained that I had two children in England (hi you two! I miss you), and that drinking tea at 4pm was culturally very important for the English. I trust this information will stand them in good stead in their future lives.
Then we went to visit the kindergarten, where we hung around for a couple of hours while nothing much happened, and Susanne observed a class and gave some feedback to the teacher. I say nothing much happened: we just watched the kids, who played or sat in the playground area, and queued up for their free mid-morning cup of gruel (or milk), and waited for their class to start... They were incredibly placid and self-sufficient, an attitude they apparently need to develop at an early stage. Susanne told us that by the age of 6 most children know how to light a fire and cook their own food... The kids again seemed uninterested in us, although by the time Graham had taken his 300th photo of them they lightened up a bit, and took turns pulling on his nose and striking poses for the camera.
Suddenly it was time to leave. We went a different route, on through the village, past the school kids walking home. Several chased us and jumped on the back of the truck, then grinned and shouted through the cab window as we bounced alongside various vertical precipices, until we dropped them at a village several miles down the road. Normally of course they wouldn´t get a lift. That would be quite a walk to do two times a day...
Back in Cusco we went to a carpentry workshop, and watched some young men making chairs. The guy in charge was introduced as, I thought, Lenny. Turns out his real name is Lenin. The workshop was pretty cool too, even if we were flagging at the end of a long day on a long and winding and bumpy road...
And that was yesterday. Today we came back to Lima, early morning flight of course, then a couple of meetings to keep us occupied. One was with a CIIR partner organisation PROSA, an organisation formed and run by and for people living with HIV and AIDS. It has the atmosphere of an organisation run by an extended family - an inspiring story, nice people. They apologised for the walls, which were painted a overwhelming red. They said they thought they would like it but when they came in after the painters had been, they realised they couldn´t stand to look at those walls every day. It looked OK to me - well, maybe it was a bit red...
Tomorrow is another country. Peru has been way cool - one week is barely enough to get our feet wet, it´s been great and I´d love to come back, drink some more Inca Kola, see some more places, not be in a rush... But tomorrow is Wednesday, so that must mean Ecuador. I wonder if they speak Spanish there?
We were squeezed into the back of a double-cab four by four, driven by Ramiro, who found our own names hilarious and unpronounceable. We bounced up this dirt track into the breathtaking Andean highlands, and were soon looking down on plunging valleys and up to snaking ridges, all of it covered with a patchwork of yellow grass, brown earth and grey stone. We levelled out on a sort of upland plateau with nothing on it at all apart from the road cutting through it. Apparently there had once been a plan to build a prison here: far from everything, bleak and uninhabitable, the perfect place for rehabilitation... On the far side of the plateau we started descending again, through fields hoed for planting and past mixed herds of sheep, pigs and cows being driven along the road by women in colourful skirts, tights, jumpers and hats. Here was civilisation, and a school.
It´s a primary and secondary school and we were introduced to the teachers by Susanne. It took a few minutes for me to realise that the reason I couldn´t understand a word of what she was saying was that she was talking in Quechua. So that´s only six or seven languages she´s fluent in... We then went into a couple of the classrooms where the children looked at us with a mixture of curiosity and indifference, as if they have awkward gringos visiting them every day. They sang (or more accurately, shouted) songs in Quechua for us, and in return I taught them to say ´Hello, how are you?´in English, and explained that I had two children in England (hi you two! I miss you), and that drinking tea at 4pm was culturally very important for the English. I trust this information will stand them in good stead in their future lives.
Then we went to visit the kindergarten, where we hung around for a couple of hours while nothing much happened, and Susanne observed a class and gave some feedback to the teacher. I say nothing much happened: we just watched the kids, who played or sat in the playground area, and queued up for their free mid-morning cup of gruel (or milk), and waited for their class to start... They were incredibly placid and self-sufficient, an attitude they apparently need to develop at an early stage. Susanne told us that by the age of 6 most children know how to light a fire and cook their own food... The kids again seemed uninterested in us, although by the time Graham had taken his 300th photo of them they lightened up a bit, and took turns pulling on his nose and striking poses for the camera.
Suddenly it was time to leave. We went a different route, on through the village, past the school kids walking home. Several chased us and jumped on the back of the truck, then grinned and shouted through the cab window as we bounced alongside various vertical precipices, until we dropped them at a village several miles down the road. Normally of course they wouldn´t get a lift. That would be quite a walk to do two times a day...
Back in Cusco we went to a carpentry workshop, and watched some young men making chairs. The guy in charge was introduced as, I thought, Lenny. Turns out his real name is Lenin. The workshop was pretty cool too, even if we were flagging at the end of a long day on a long and winding and bumpy road...
And that was yesterday. Today we came back to Lima, early morning flight of course, then a couple of meetings to keep us occupied. One was with a CIIR partner organisation PROSA, an organisation formed and run by and for people living with HIV and AIDS. It has the atmosphere of an organisation run by an extended family - an inspiring story, nice people. They apologised for the walls, which were painted a overwhelming red. They said they thought they would like it but when they came in after the painters had been, they realised they couldn´t stand to look at those walls every day. It looked OK to me - well, maybe it was a bit red...
Tomorrow is another country. Peru has been way cool - one week is barely enough to get our feet wet, it´s been great and I´d love to come back, drink some more Inca Kola, see some more places, not be in a rush... But tomorrow is Wednesday, so that must mean Ecuador. I wonder if they speak Spanish there?
posted by Sol Oyuela at 7:27 PM
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