Kiya Survivors Volunteers

Mother’s Day

My third week at the Rainbow Centre involves the lead up to Mother’s Day on Sunday. Mother’s day is taken very seriously in Peru and the shops around Urubamba are filled with gifts and balloons.

The children complete work relating to mother’s day but the biggest event is on Thursday when the Funcional (life skills) class puton a show. Under the instruction of their teacher, the class perform songs dedicated to their mothers’, dance traditional Peruvian dances and act. It is an absolute pleasure to watch them sparkle on the stage.

Next up are games which the teachers, mothers and volunteers are required to partake in. The children laugh as they watch us sitting on balloons to pop them and dancing around in a game of musical chairs, which allows to me to try out my newly acquired salsa steps!

During break and lunchtime we have music playing and the children dance around, showing off their excellent dance moves and certainly putting mine to shame!

Festivals, my second spicy pepper and the promise of English afternoon tea!

By Helen Smart

My second week in Urubamba has mainly revolved around celebrations.

1st May in Peru is worker’s day for which everyone has the day off. As

such, the day before all the staff from the Rainbow Centre went for a buffet lunch and we all certainly made the most of the buffet! I tried a range of typical Peruvian dishes including alpaca stew (apparently they are used for food as well as jumpers!) and rocoto relleno which is a spicy pepper stuffed with rice and meat. This experience of  spicy pepper was much more enjoyable than my first and this time there were no tears!

1st May also marked the anniversary of Plaza Pintacha which is a beautiful square in Urubamba. Bunting was put up on the plaza and on the surrounding streets. Hustle and bustle began very early, with incredible street art appearing on the roads. A ceremony then began at around 8.30am with bands playing and people throwing petals over a symbolic statue. Peruvians certainly like to start the festivities early as I watched all of this unfold whilst tucking into my porridge and drinking my morning coffee. Merriment, dancing and enjoyment continued for the rest of the day and well into the evening, which included a large group dancing to Gangnam Style (which I had hoped I would escape in Peru, how wrong I was!)

This week at the Rainbow Centre Annie and I helped to put the final bits of decoration in the Early Stimulation room to make it colourful and interesting for the children. We painted a wall with the words Estimulation Temprana (early stimulation), cut out stars, the moon, the sun and other sparkly craft pieces to hang around the room. It was nice to have the opportunity to get creative!

We also made our first trip to the Rainbow House which is home to several children and their live-in Rainbow House mother’s. The children gave us a tour of the beautiful house and garden and we chatted to them, as much as our Spanish would allow. I suggested that perhaps one weekend we could host afternoon tea for them. We told them that this involved sandwiches, scones and cake. The children all cried ‘mañana, mañana!’ (tomorrow, tomorrow!) We explained that it may take a little time to source the ingredients but that we would do it soon. To be honest, I don’t know who is more excited about the prospect of afternoon tea - me or the children?!

This was a new experience for me!

- By Helen Smart
In fact and perhaps unsurprisingly I have had several new experiences, the first of which occurred when I initially arrived into Urubamba and when I got to ride in a mototaxi which is like a motorised rickshaw. I have taken a mototaxi in Brazil riding on the back of a motorcycle, but I have to say the Urubamban version is much more sedate, comfortable and practical in being able to transport my backpack! Mototaxis are the transport of choice in Urubamba so it certainly won’t be my last experience of one.

I arrived at the Rainbow Centre in time to watch the leaving presentation for Amanda, the most recent volunteer, who has been at the centre for 6 months. It was great to see the interaction and clear admiration between Amanda, the staff and the children. Despite being her last day in Urubamba and being busy with packing and saying her goodbyes, Amanda bought me a lovely bunch of Peruvian lilies to welcome me into my new room. My second new experience is no doubt the incredible views of mountains and glaciers which I get to wake up to every morning! On a clear day it is most beautiful!

My first weekend was spent with the other current volunteer, Annie, getting my bearings and shopping for all the wonderful fruit and veg in the mercado! Here comes my next new experience, whilst wandering around a little old Peruvian lady who was sitting on the floor selling herbs slapped my leg as I walked past. I looked back and she smiled mischievously. Later in the week she did exactly the same thing! I still cannot work out if she was surprised by my paleness or whether she was simply amusing herself.

One evening I discovered an error in our purchasing of what we believed to be a bell pepper. After cutting up the pepper, I decided to try a raw piece. Well, I went bright red and was crying. The culprit was in fact a chilli pepper. I spent the next 12 hours with no sense of taste and with burning fingers! That is the first and last time I will be making that mistake!

My first week at the Rainbow Centre was spent by gaining experience in each of the different classes. Perhaps the highlight of the week was when we helped Rubi on to the swing set at break time. Rubi is 4 years old, has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. We gently swung Rubi back and forth and Rubi had the biggest, sweetest smile, that it could only make you really happy.

Another highlight was during brain gym. Brain gym is like an assembly which all the children attend before class. In order to prepare for the day the children usually do exercises and then play a game. Part of the activity on Friday was that we rolled and threw a ball and dependant upon the level it was passed (low, medium or high) we would have to the say the word for low, medium or high. I was standing next to Leonel, who is deaf and as a result has speech difficulties. On his turn, he rolled the ball and repeated ‘bajo’ (low). All the other children began applauding and cheering his success in repeating the word. Leonel bashfully hid his face behind my back but it was possible to tell from his smile that he was proud of himself. It was wonderful to witness the encouragement and support offered by the other children too.

 After an incredible first week, I was certainly ready for a restful

weekend!

Amanda´s Last Update!

Here is my last update from Peru! In many ways I feel as if it is not that long ago that I was writing my first blog, in other ways I feel as if I have been here much longer than five months. These last few months I have really felt part of the school and part of the local community here in Urubamba, understanding and speaking more Spanish has made a real difference.  I have really enjoyed feeling as if I am part of the school team this term and having more volunteers to get to know and work with has been really good. Highlights so far this term have been the painting of a new mural on the theatre wall by a wonderful volunteer, Aengus, with help from the children, (see photo), and visits from Suzy Butler, the founder of Kiya and the school, and the Mayor of Ollantaytambo, organised by the My Small Help NGO. Also a great excitement was the purchase of a new bus (kindly funded by the grandparents of one of the staff members here). The bus is so important to the work of Kiya, doing the school run every day, about 60 kilometers, and for the Outreach Project, so it was an exciting day when the whole school took the bus to be blessed at a special chapel in the mountains. The bus was decorated in yellow, for luck, and with flowers then blessed by the Padre and wine was drunk (by the staff, the children had Sprite!) then Louisa the wonderful cook provided hot food for everyone (see photo).

 I have continued to help with Tomas and Maura in their speech therapy sessions and with Marina with her walking and physiotherapy. The change in Maura has been incredible, her tongue mobility is amazing and she is starting to say many new words, not always in context, but she is really trying to communicate. Our policy in the school has been to try and treat her as the young girl she is and not allow the babyish behaviours she instinctively resorts to, in many ways she is responding well, although her frustration does still result in temper tantrums at times. The changes in Tomas´ speech development are much slower, as we knew they would be, Chrissie has devised many exercises to help develop and exercise the muscles around his tongue and lips. I am always the demonstrator and she has us eating and drinking like dogs and cats picking up strips of carrot or grapes with our lips and teeth without using our hands, and drinking water from saucers with our tongues like cats. We also practise blowing and sucking with straws, bubbles and balloons, so much laughter and fun.

With Marina the changes in her development have been amazing. She has a physio session every day with the wonderful Lucho and then I work with her encouraging her to walk at every opportunity. She has progressed from taking a few steps holding hands to walking 10-20 metres using a walking frame and then to walking holding one hand only. She can now feed herself using a spoon, with minimal supervision, and she will now sit in class for periods of 20 minutes and has stopped throwing everything on the floor she can get her hands on! She remains happy and smiling and it is hard not to join in when laughs and chuckles, she is an absolute joy to be with. I am going to miss them all so much.

Chrissie is going to continue to work with Dermia who also has tongue-tie, however when we spoke with her mother we discovered that she had  a repair and graft three years ago but had no speech therapy or follow up after the operation. Chrissie has been working with her for the past three weeks and we can see an improvement already. We did take Dermia to the Mission Clinic for their advice and they have recommended an orthodontic referral which Chrissie is going to organise with local contacts of the American Dental Mission.

I have also been working in the garden at the school, which was designed and planted as a sensory garden last year by a visiting group of girl guides from East Anglia. I have replaced some of the plant that did not survive the dry season with lots of fragrant herbs, and I have made a watering schedule for volunteers and the children for the coming dry season.

I have also been exploring more of this beautiful country. I recently joined my dear friends Sherrida and David, holidaying here from the UK, in Arequipa a lovely colonial town in the south of the country surrounded by snow capped volcanoes. We then spent the weekend in the Colca Canyon (deeper than the Grand Canyon in the USA) where we saw the giant condors flying in the canyon on the early morning thermals. It was the most amazing sight. Sherrida and David then came to Urubamba for a weekend, it was lovely to show them round and to take them to see the school. For my final weekend I am planning a return trip to Machu Picchu with friends from Urubamba.

So now, with less than two weeks to go, my thoughts are turning to home, I am really excited about seeing everyone and catching up with all your news but I shall be really sad to leave this wonderful country, the children and all my new friends. I have to admit I am already figuring out how I can raise the funds to return and continue the work I have started here.

Un-tied tongues!

Well the new term has started at the Rainbow School and for Chrissie (the volunteer speech therapist) and I it has been a very exciting week. We were anxious to see Maura as she had not come to the end of summer school and we were worried that if she had not been doing her exercises the incision under the tongue might re-heal. But we had the most amazing surprise, her tongue mobility was incredible, sticking her tongue out and moving it from side to side, which she had not been able to do at all.  Chrissie is planning to start speech therapy very soon, we really thought we would be spending more time achieving tongue mobility before we could do this.

Our second excitement of the week was that the Out Reach Team suggested that we take Tomas to an American/Peruvian Mission Clinic about 25 miles away, to have his tongue tie assessed. The clinic has a basic staff, then American surgeons and medics come on a monthly rotation with different specialties. Tomas is 10 years old and his level of tongue-tie is more severe than Maura´s as he has extremely limited movement  of his tongue and dribbles constantly. His social situation is also difficult as he has no National Insurance to cover the costs of appointments and surgery and his mum is on her own with three other younger siblings, so we knew she would have problems attending appointments. However she was very keen for him to have the op and came to the clinic with us. The clinic was small and friendly and Julia, our project co-ordinator paid the 30 soles (7.50 pounds) for the consultation. We saw a friendly Peruvian surgeon who´s initial reaction was that, because of the severity, just releasing his tongue might not help. I asked him about the possibility of plastic surgery and grafts, he was very noncommittal. We told him we have a speech therapist at the school who had been working with Tomas for a year and that if he could have the op she was prepared to work with him every day for the next year. Julia was helping with translating, she then turned to me and said, he says if we can pay 100 soles (25 pounds) he will do it now! My mind went into overdrive, I managed some Spanish and he said he would do it now under local anaesthetic. Julia started to say she didn´t have enough money on her and I said quickly that I would pay (we went halves on it). We spoke to Tomas and his mum who both said yes. For a moment I was apprehensive as I did not think it ideal to perform this op under local anaesthetic on a 10 year old, but weighing up all the pros and cons, we decided we could not miss this opportunity, and obviously for the surgeon local anaesthetic was a routine practice. So there we were 15 minutes later with it done. It was distressing for all of us, Tomas was so good up until the moment the doctor approached with the sissors, but it was quick. I think we were all a bit shell shocked, especially Tomas who huddled up against me and his mum. But it was amazing how quickly he recovered and by the time we got back to school he was his usual smiling self. I am sure you can imagine the reaction of everyone at school, they were stunned when we told them he had had it done! I bought painkillers, antibiotics and clean water for rinsing his mouth after food (grand sum of 4.75 pounds) and they went home smiling. The next day in school, Chrissie and I were nearly reduced to tears when he showed us how he could move his tongue, it was just a small movement, but just that small improvement made a big difference, he ate his lunch and for the first time ever did not dribble once. Chrissie and I have been so happy, we have to keep celebrating with chocolate and chocolate cake at the German café in town.

Our third excitement has been with the admission to the school of Marina, who I had previously met on hospital trips when accompanying Maura. Marina is 8 years old, with severe developmental delay, and until recently had never been reviewed by any medical services. Because of her lack of mobility her mother, who is smaller than me, carries Marina everywhere on her back and her 2 year old sister on her front. Marina is happy and smiley, she is able to sit up, crawl and is making attempts at walking, she imitates animal sounds. Marina´s body is covered in birth marks which are particularly severe on her face. Her skull is enlarged and her trunk is of average size but her arms and legs are wasted, probably from malnutrition. Marina´s appearance is very distinctive and my personal diagnosis is the rare condition of Phakomatosis Pigmentovascularis (PPV) with associated Sturge-Weber syndrome! (There are some research articles on the web). In her first week at school, she has made huge progress and is receiving daily physiotherapy to enable her walk, see photo. She is an absolutely joy to be with and has the most infectious laugh.

I have really enjoyed the first week of term, it has been lovely to see all the children again and get back into a routine. I am also having to share the volunteers house with a new volunteer, a bit tricky as I have been living there on my own for 3 months, but of course it has worked out fine.

I had some great adventures during the school holiday too. Exploring Lake Titicaca (a childhood dream come true) and traveling in Bolivia where, as well as visiting tourist sites, I had a day out visiting families on the Altoplano supported by the NGO Quaker Bolivia Link  (see their website) which works with communities to help install fresh water supplies. This was a particularly challenging day as no one from the project spoke English and the hired bus broke down, off road, on the Altoplano 70 kilometres south of La Paz, but it all worked out in the end. I continue to enjoy walking in the mountains especially as it now high summer and everywhere is in flower and the humming birds are in abundance. I love the silence out on the mountains where sometimes all you can hear is the bird song and animal cries, it so beautiful.

Candlemaking at the Rainbow Centre with Amanda

Over the years I have organized many candle dipping workshops for children and adults, but today I ran my first workshop in Peru. The technique is to dip lengths of wick into melted, hot, coloured wax. With repeated dipping the layers gradually build up as the wax cools down and it is possible to make a variety of long thin, short fat or multicoloured candles. With the help of interpreters I demonstrated and explained the technique to the children, like children everywhere they quickly picked up the basics and were soon experimenting with their own ideas. It was great fun to see them enjoying themselves and creating something that they could take home with them.  

Amanda - Christmas in Urubamba

Life here has been alternately very busy, with Christmas, New Year, being a tourist and doing the Inka trail, interspersed with periods of rest and relaxation as it is now the Peruvian long summer holiday. Things will return to normal on Monday when summer school starts. If we track back a few weeks, we had a wonderful end of term celebration at the school with music, dancing and a very funny play from the older children. They threw themselves into their roles and were amazing. There was also a very moving celebration of Christmas songs with all the children and staff on the beautifully decorated stage, dressed up and singing. This was followed by Christmas dinner for all the children, their families and many other visitors. There was of course a visit from Papa Noel with presents for every child. It was a great day and all the staff worked so hard to make it a success. Christmas celebrations in Peru are focused on Christmas Eve, La Noche Buena, with a family meal and present giving. Every home, church and town square has a beautifully decorated Nativity scene, some with pastoral decorations of local plants and moss, others with lots of flashing lights. On Christmas Eve the figure of baby Jesus is taken to mass to be blessed before placing in the crib at midnight. I met with some new friends for a drink and a meal, then we walked through the market which was still in full swing with lots of extra stalls selling Christmas goods, mainly hot chocolate and panetone, and of course lots of toy stalls. At midnight the town erupted with fireworks. I watched from my bedroom window as people, young and old, lit individual fireworks in the plaza that the house overlooks. They were mainly small fireworks and crackers, but they have never heard of the firework safety code here. Children of every age were setting off fireworks, in the road, on the paths on the step outside their homes, holding them, throwing them, noise was more important than spectacle.  It was both horrifying and fascinating, everyone was having so much fun. I finally went to sleep about 2 am when the noise died down.

On Christmas Day the town and the market were in full swing and I went and bought some flowers for a neighbour who had invited me to meet her family. I spent most of the day with Julia, the coordinator of the project here in Urubamba, and the nine children the project cares for in their lovely home, the Rainbow House. Two of the children were taking part in a pageant in a local village close to Urubamba. The procession was wonderful with beautifully decorated icons paraded along the main street and lots of musicians and dance groups performing in a huge variety of traditional costumes. It was beautiful, noisy and chaotic as the road was not closed to traffic and the local police tried to co-ordinate  tourist´s  buses, motos and dance groups. The highlight for the children was to be able to have street food for what we would call Christmas dinner.

Boxing Day is not celebrated in Peru, but Julia and I took the children to the park  where the four youngest could learn to ride the bikes they had been given for Christmas. It was an exhausting afternoon, running up and down supporting them, I just collapsed at the end of the day, glad to be on my own in the peace and quiet.