Weeks -5 and -4

Hi folks!

The last few weeks, we organized some ‘lessons in hygiene’. Some of the kids really needed them... We made a PowerPoint presentation in which we taught them three simple rules: clean your nose when necessary, don’t sneeze or cough without using your arm (we don’t want their hands to be full of bacteria either) and don’t sneeze or cough in other people’s faces. It would be nice if they at least learned the last one :p

Seeing that time is closing in on us, the next couple of weeks we are going to try to spend as much time with the kids as possible. Saying goodbye will probably not be a fun job…

 

 

 

By the way, here you can see the movie we showed the kids in order to illustrate our presentation.

 

As some of you may already know, we saved our visits to the Inca sites and museums in and around Cusco for last. Last Friday, we bought a 10-day tourist ticket with which you can visit the most important things in Cusco. Yesterday, we started our tour. We took a bus to Tambomachay and then walked our way back down to Cusco (11km), visiting the Inca sites of Pukapukara, Qenq’o and Saqsayhuamán on the way. Especially the last one was worth the while. In the morning we had quite some rain but, as usual, in the afternoon the sun came out and we even got a bit of a sunburn :)

 

 

 

The walk down to Cusco was really beautiful. We crossed a lot of open fields and woods, and even encountered some horses suffering from a severe identity crisis. Maybe they wanted to be able to produce cow’s milk? Who knows.

 

Whatever we thought we would encounter on the trip, we definitely didn’t expect to find Jesus along the way. He was probably tired of hanging around Rio de Janeiro and decided he needed a change of location.

 

That's all, folks!

P.S. We returned to the hairdresser’s last week, and this time we each had to pay only €2.5.

Happy New Year!

It had been a while, but last week we organized a new series of reading classes. This time, they were about Hansel y Gretel. We organized them with Suri, Keila and Jhon, some of the youngest children of Urpi Sonqocha. Together, we read the book, watched the movie and played some games. We even created our own “cookie house”!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sunday, we had a barbecue in Romel’s garden. We even had to put up a tent to protect us from the sun!

 

  

From the 31^st until the 2^nd, we stayed in a nice hotel in Cuzco and, on New Year’s Eve, we had an unbelievably nice 8 course dinner at Chicha’s and enjoyed the fireworks all over Cuzco. The next day, we spent one hour in an “inca bath”, a hot bath with a lot of foam and spices. It was really relaxing!

 

 

 

We would like to end this entry with a small New Year’s message. The last few months, we have come to realize some very important things that we hadn’t even thought of before. They make us appreciate our lives in Belgium more, and we hope that they will do the same for you. 

How many times have you heard someone say “if only I had some more money, I would be able to do this, buy that, go there...”? Or how many times have you said it yourself? Well, here in Peru, we have decided that we will never say that again. Because, in comparison with 90% of the people we see here, we – and all of you – are unimaginably rich. We can buy everything we need and a thousand things we don’t, without even realizing it. We all live in warm and safe houses, sleep on soft beds, wear clean clothes, eat fresh and varied food… and don’t even realize that a lot of people on this planet wouldn’t even dare to dream of it.

How many times have you heard someone say “if only I didn’t have to work or study that much”? Or how many times have you said it yourself? This, too, is something we will try never to say again. We once had a conversation with a six-year-old boy of Urpi Sonqocha. He asked us what kind of work the children do in Belgium. When we answered that children aren’t even allowed to work in our country, he just couldn’t understand. We are so lucky to have the opportunity to study and, afterwards, to have a nice job. It is devastating to think of the children of Urpi Sonqocha within, say, ten years: probably none of them will have had the opportunity to develop their capacities and surely half of them will be street venders, shoe shiners and mothers and fathers of too many children to take care of.

We could go on like this for some time, but we don’t want to depress you. What we do want is that you start 2013 realizing how incredibly lucky you are. That is what we will do too. Happy New Year!