Updates Galore!

First, we want to start out by saying THANK YOU to anyone who left us a comment on any of our previous posts! We didn't realize that we had to approve them in order for them to be posted and we were pleasantly surprised that we even had any! (We changed it so that the comments will no longer need approval.) Thank you so much for taking the time to write us a little something - we really enjoy reading them :)

We have lots of catching up to do with our weekend trips! The second weekend that we were here we went on a day trip to Simbal, a town about an hour away from Trujillo. Here we hiked with a local tour guide through a sugar cane field, climbed up a mountain to a spectacular view, and then did some more hiking through the Andes mountains!

The town of Simbal, Peru

What a view!

Everyone brought their swimsuits and was excited to swim in the lagoon that we were told about where locals hang out and sometimes even pumas are spotted! We hiked for what seemed like forever over a rocky terrain in the afternoon heat. When we finally arrived at our destination, there was no lagoon (not even a small pond, or puddle for that matter) to be found. We all had a good laugh and ate lunch in the mountains before heading back.

Hiking to the "lagoon"

Lunch in the Andes Mountains

Last weekend our group took a trip to Huamachuco to see some ruins and visit the hot springs. We got pretty lucky and had a huge bus (almost) all to ourselves! It was about a 5-hour drive through the mountains and honestly one of our favorite parts of the trip! It was so cool be able to see all the different communities, farmlands, rivers and some pretty amazing views of the mountains.

Incredible views on our 5-hour bus ride to Huamachuco

Overlooking Huamachuco

Our first stop in Huamachuo was the Marcahuamachuco archaeological site (dubbed by some Peruvians as the "Machu Picchu of the North"). The Marcahuamachuco ruins are located atop the Andes mountains at an altitude of over 10,000 feet! It was crazy to be standing where a whole civilization lived on top of this mountain thousands of years ago. After the ruins, our group headed back into the city and explored the local market. Everyone was pretty wiped from the altitude, so we all were grateful for an early bedtime after dinner. Unfortunately, we both got really sick that night and were unable to go to the hot springs the next morning. We stayed in our hostel until 1:00pm and somehow survived the 5-hour bus ride back to Trujillo. It took us both about a week to feel 100% better, and now we are so thankful to be in good health (and eat whatever we want)!

Venture with Impact group photo!

Some of the ruins at Marcahuamachuco

As promised, here is an update on both of our volunteer experiences so far:

Kayla
I am now volunteering with Espaanglisch 3 mornings a week! I get to be with the same co-teacher every day (before I was paired with two different ones) so I am really getting to connect with her and the kiddos. I really like it and am so thankful that it worked out this way! This week we are teaching them vocab for the interior and exterior of houses (window, roof, bedroom, kitchen, etc.) and they are each making their own house out of paper in art class. We also started reading "Curious George" to them - I read in English and my co-teacher, Marie, reads in Spanish - and they really seemed to like that! We even had some students stay in the classroom during their break to read books in English! It made me so proud and honestly almost brought me to tears.

Reading "Curious George" during their break in-between classes

I started volunteering with Vive Peru last week and have helped with two English workshops so far. On Friday, we had 6 kids ranging from ages 10-16 and we played some games and let them color while we did some pre-testing to see how much English they know. The workshop ended early so I got to watch the end of Daniel's soccer camp which was one of the most entertaining things I've ever seen (see his recap below)! Yesterday the workshop had almost 25 kids, ranging from ages 5-8! It got a little crazy at times but overall it was really, really fun! The kids got so excited to learn colors and animals :)

Vive Peru students excited to learn English!

Daniel
Since our last post about volunteering, Ali and I have made a lot of progress with our project to get clean water the community of Jesus Maria! We were able to semi-teach ourselves how to survey with the donated equipment by practicing outside in front of the apartment. After a bunch of trial and error, we were ready for the real deal and made our way out to the Moche valley. The first day we tried to walk the whole length of the new waterline with a GPS, but we couldn't make it through all the crazy thick sugar cane (it's like 15 feet tall and cuts you when you walk through the fields!). I guess when I say "we" I mean Ali and I, because the Peruvians were more than willing to get cut-up and swim in the canals.

Walking along the waterline with a GPS

The new waterline will be about 3 kilometers of pipe from the new clean capture point to where we are tying into their existing waterline. The first 2 kilometers of the proposed waterline has crazy terrain and tall sugar cane and is almost impossible to survey, but the good news is the new waterline will follow an existing line that serves another community close to Jesus Maria. So the goal is to obtain the plans from the existing community so we can skip surveying the first two kilometers (fingers crossed).

Surveying the land

The last kilometer of proposed waterline is in a more open area, and we were able to successfully survey about a half of the final kilometer last week! We hope to finish the last half very soon, and then we will begin making some plans for the community to take to the municipalities. This is still a work in progress, and any prayers would be greatly appreciated!

 The last kilometer that we will be surveying

This past week I also started volunteering with Vive Peru, where I will be working with two other volunteers to run a soccer camp for fifteen 6-9 year olds. I put together a schedule for the hour-long camp (thanks Matt for the soccer drills!) and had everything ready to run a well-structured camp... or so I thought. I was literally laughing for the entire hour as the kids ran around like whirling dervishes and we were able to complete one drill before resorting to a huge scrimmage with everyone involved. Although it didn't go exactly as planned, it was incredibly entertaining and an overall success. We will see if we can actually complete two drills this week :)

"Soccer Camp"

How is it February already?! We can't believe that we will be back home exactly one month from today, and we have a feeling that the rest of our time here will fly by. Two of the January Venture with Impact participants left and the February group members are starting to arrive! We have 3 more weeks in Trujillo and then we (a total of 6 of us) are headed to Machu Picchu!