First Update from Dan (Aldea)

Hello everyone!

Just my first update from Peru. It´s for my family mainly, but if you wanted some more information then here it is.

I´m in Trujillo right now at an internet cafe. Trujillo is about a 30-40 minute bus ride from the Aldea Infantil, (we just call it the Aldea).

It has been amazing! I arrived last monday night in Lima and went with Zara Lopez to her home. I spent the next day Tuesday going around Lima a little and spending time with her young son Joshua. That night I spent on a bus to Trujillo where I met up with Carlos´ family and another intern Natalie. Then we went to the Aldea crammed in a small pick up truck. The Aldea has been awesome. There are two other volunteers here from before, from England! They´ve been here for almost a year, Bethany and Georgia who is from Sheffield. They´ve been showing us the ropes and it´s great.

We live in Casa 3 and there are 10 casas in the Aldea. Only some are used, but one of the us gringos eat in each casa for meals. I was in casa 9 last week and now I´m in casa 10. The Tias do the cooking in the casas and organize the kids in their casas. I room with Tanner from Chicago and Preston from Canada/Texas/...

My normal day is waking up around 7, then going for a 30 minute run with Natalie on the main road. Then we spend some time with the few kids who are new to the aldea and don´t go to school yet. We push them on the swing (colombio) and play games, and do lots of arts and crafts stuff in our casa. ¿Quieren pintar ahora? The kids always ask us to push them on the swing. They also like to dance a lot, and Bethany and Georgia have been working for a long time on a big show that we did yesterday, Monday. We sang some songs and danced as well. Beth and Georgia are going home soon so this was a big hurrah for them. I got a lot of video of it.

Back to the day. The niños come back from school around 1 pm and we eat lunch. Then we help with homework or play futbol or an awesome game called kiwi, or learn spanish and teach english. Those books have been great that your sent Mom. It´s tough to keep track of everything because the kids like to snatch anything they can get their hands on. I really to love the kids though. I´m beginning to get all the kids names down, probably at 80% right now. In the evening at 6 or 7, we have dinner and talk more. After that its time for us to chill in our own casa. We all get along really well, and it´s been great. Church on Sunday was great. It costs between 2.50 and 3 soles which is about 1 dollar to take the combio (bus) into Trujillo.

Anyway, it´s been great! There are a ton of bugs, and my legs are covered with mosca bites. We boil our water for drinking and we wash our own clothes by hand. Also, there are no toilet seats, so I only use our toilet because I know it´s clean. Thanks for the adapter, it´s been used a lot by everyone here. I like the sugar cane, and the normal rice and chicken is great. I´m really trying to eat carefully because it´s very easy to gain weight here. (Another reason to run every morning) Breath How is everyone stateside? Mom and Dad, thanks for pushing/nudging me towards this. It is so amazing! Love you all! and please share this with others!

Daniel el travieso(they call me that here as well)