Cusco

Here are our pictures from Cusco and our stay at the orphanage with Globe Aware... We spent one week volunteering and it was one of the most rewarding things we've ever done.



The program was really well designed and you could see how the work of others before us and our own help really made a difference to these students lives. There were actually only about 5 kids who lived at the orphanage permanently, and the other 25 students lived there only during the week. The main purpose of the orphanage was to provide a home for students in the surrounding communities who were otherwise unable to attend school. Most villages outside the city did not have schools for students over the age of 10 or so, and unless the family was wealthy they have no way of sending their kids to school. The orphanage we volunteered at was to provide a way for these families to give their kids an education...

We had several "projects," although the main thing for us was talking to the kids about space. We brought with us a DVD set from the IMAX space collection with subtitles in Spanish - and were able to show some great images. In addition to the orphanage we visited 2 schools (1 in cusco and 1 outside) and talked with approximately 150 students about space travel and what we are learning. It was great to share something new with the students - although they also shared with us. One class had learned a song about Leika the first dog in space and sang it to us in Spanish!

Our main project was to help complete the courtyard for volleyball and soccer. Previous volunteers had laid the concrete for the court, and it was our job to clean out and then fill in the gaps with asphault grouting. Unfortunatly, we were a group of accountants, administrators and engineers - so we called our work the "shoddy gringo work."