My First Odyssey

I really really can´t believe i am back in Peru and back in Cusco. Its a really wierd feeling to know that i have done a round trip and almost ended back where i started. It also doesnt feel like it has been nearly 4 months and that in about a months time i will be back in England and back into my life back home. This feeling doesn´t (to be honest) fill me with a lot of joy, but i think people would be slightly confused if i didn´t get off the plane that i am to take!
I am now at the end of my travels, as this next bit is the volunteer work part of my trip. It feels really strange to be able to put my clothes in a draw or hang them up, and to actually have a place to sprawl my stuff.
At the moment i am living with a Peruvian family. Marta is the mum (she also organises everything for the new volunteers), Alipio is the dad and he is bonkers and really funny, and then they have a 10 year old daughter called Paula, who is also really lovely. The whole family are really sweet and really welcoming, which has been really good. Also the fact that i am living with a family who can´t speak English has done wonders for my spanish - even if my spanish teacher has not!
My volunteering is brilliant! For anyone who ever even considered volunteering for 2 minutes i would strongly recommend it! I have two jobs out here. Some mornings i go to a school to work as a classroom assistant. The school i work in is really rough as the kids are really poor, some have lost parents and many have some sort of behaviour or learning problem. Even though they are little monsters and the words no fighting, sit down and be quite are used regularly they are really cute and normally sweet. In the afternoons i go to a market called Molino and work in a govenment run project helping the kids whose parents work in the markets to do their homework. It also lets them have a safe place (that is not a street corner!) to draw, colour in and play games and also talk to Marta, who is a psychologist, about any problems they might have. It is really really good and really necessary! Last week i heard about a girl of 14 who was taken advantage of by a guy of about 19/20 and got pregnant. She had the child but is too young to breast feed so has to buy powdered milk (which she can´t afford!). Now her mum is pregnant and soon the whole family won´t have any money as the mum is the main earner. You hear stories like this all the time and realise that projects like Molino may help to make some kids lives better, at least that is what i am hoping! So if any of you want to do volunteer work, donate money, anything, just think that there are people out there who do really need it, its not just stories made up by big companies trying to make money out of your kindness! Right, thats the rant over. So yeah....loving the volunteer work, and the people i have met through it! Thats it for now, will update you all later!
Take care... Emmsxxxx