Last Sunday we got up nice and early (3:30am) to catch our plane to Lima, Peru and then on to Cuzco, where we were greeted with a nice, welcoming Spanish exam. Having been placed in pairs according to our level of fluency, we started classes the next morning at FairServices Spanish school. Our classes consist of 2 hours of grammar in the class room and 2 hours of practice. Practice basically involves strolling around Cuzco with our awesome teachers, attempting to converse in Spanish. So far we have gone to a huge market called San Pedro, a coca museum, a chocolate museum, and a cemetery. The reason for the cemetery is that November 2nd is the Day of the Dead, where people go to cemeteries to celebrate with music, singing, and bringing flowers and little bottles of Sprite and Fanta for the dead. For our own celebration, we had a party that included salsa, musical chairs and traditional `Day of the Dead Bread`. The Day of the Dead follows closely after the Day of the Living (Nov 1) which is surprisingly less festive.
During the afternoons we volunteer with WaaW (which apparently has no further significance than being a cool way of spelling wow), an organization which provides afternoon care for children of single mothers, aged 5 to 12. We show up right after the kids are helped with their homework (good planning there Carpe Diem), and spend 2 hours playing games and doing crafts. For Halloween, we stationed ourselves around the neighbourhood with candy waiting for the kids to come trick or treating (and definitely not eating all the candy ourselves…). The kids were wearing paper mache masks that we made earlier in the week.
Other highlights of the week are basically food related, including a Peruvian cooking class and staying all together in a house with a kitchen. Other than some minor sicknesses caused by Peruvian cooking (or possibly our own?) and altitude, everyone is feeling great and we are looking forward to a fun weekend of group activities and napping. Love from Cuzco! -Emily