First Day

Today was my first day at the orphanage, and I think it went pretty well. It was a bit intimidating, as there is just so much to learn and so much to do, but I enjoyed it overall. I was thrown into caring for the babies, which to me was a bit terrifying, I have almost no experience caring for babies. So for most of the day it was just me and three babies in a room. If nothing else I am going to learn some valuable mothering skills for sure. Despite the fact that I don't really know what to do with babies, I think I handled it pretty well all things considering.

All the children there are adorable and very friendly. They get very excited about new people coming in. There is another volunteer there named Kim so they all called me Tia Kimberly Dos, a nickname they seemed pretty proud of to have come up with. There are three women who live there, they seem pretty amazing to me. To them it's not just a job, it's their life. They have no breaks, there are just there 24/7 taking care of 16 kids. That's dedication. This experience is going to be great for my spanish since none of them speak English, I already learned a few new words today.

I was supposed to have a homestay but somehow that fell through. However, a spot opened up in the volunteer house so I will be living there. I'm actually pretty glad, it seems like it will be pretty fun here. There are about 10 people living here and it changes all the time as people come and go. All the people living here volunteer either at the orphanage or at the school that the organization works with. There are people from about 5 different countries and everyone seems really nice and generous. The only downfall is that English is the primary language spoken, and I was really hoping to finally be fully immersed in Spanish. However, a few of us started talking about how we should try and instill a mandatory Spanish time in the house. We are thinking about making it a weekly communal meal and throughout the cooking and eating process we must communicate in Spanish. It seems like most everyone is on board with that idea.

So I'm ready to kind of settle down for a little while and get back into a schedule. Plus it's going to be great learning more about Peru and the culture here. So far I have concluded that Peruvians are very friendly people who are very proud of their culture, especially proud of there food. Every Peruvian I meet asks me how I like the food. The also love to ask me questions about Chile whenever they find out about my background. Strangely enough they also seem way more interested in me being part Chilean than me being from the States. As soon as they find out that my family is Chilean, they seem much more comfortable talking to me. I find that very interesting. It's also interesting that the people I have met so far don't seem to know all the much about Chile other than the fact that they hear it's expensive there and that Chileans speak with a lot of slang they don't understand.

Tomorrow I will be attempting to get to the orphanage by myself for the first time. I am awful with directions and don't understand this city layout at all yet, so we'll see how that goes.