Altitude Sickness, Peruvian Dancing and the Orphanage

Altitude Sickness
So, we are staying in a city high up in the Andes mountains. It is so high in altitude that many of the volunteers have suffered from altitude sickness. The illness happens when you ascend quickly to a high altitude. The symptoms include nausea, a throbbing headache, dizziness, incoherence, shortness of breath and a bunch of other uncomfortable feelings. One way to deal with the altitude is to drink coca tea ... tea made from coca leaves. The tea is legal in Peru, since it is not processed to make it cocaine. Here at the house all of the volunteers sip the tea all day long. You can also chew the coca leaves. We will be doing this on our hikes.

The only other way to deal with the sickness is to sleep. Many of the volunteers spend their first day in bed. One girl slept for 17 hours straight. Michelle fell ill for the first 2 days and spent much of her time laying in bed sipping tea. This morning she felt much better. Both of us are feeling the effects of the altitude and probably will for our entire trip. Rich has the sensation of ice cold needles all over his legs!

Peruvian Dancing
Last night all of the volunteers went out for a dinner of brick oven pizza and Peruvian wine. Michelle stayed home so she could recuperate from the altitude sickness. There were 2 bands playing traditional Peruvian music and the atmosphere of the place was amazing. Four traditional dancers came out and danced for all of us and then they grabbed Rich¨s hand and dragged him onto the dance floor. He then danced for 3 hours straight! At one point he was on the stage. It was so much fun.

The Orphanage
This morning Michelle felt better and we decided to visit a school. We spent 1 hour with the cutest little kids. One thing we are noticing here is that the students take excellent notes. They also like to show us all of their hard work so we spend a lot of time sitting with them reviewing all of their notes. Today they learned the numbers 1 through 20. It is so much fun to work one on one with them. We clap hands with them as we count off the numbers. As the students left, they gave us big hugs and kisses in the cheek.

After lunch we walked for about 1.5 miles to the orphanage to visit all of the kids there. The orphanage ha a huigh wall all around it and a guard stands at the front gate. He let us in and within about 30 seconds we had 2 tiny little girls hugging our legs. The kids at the orphanage are adorable. Most of the kids are there because they were abandoned and found living on the streets. Some of the kids have also been abused. It was really heart breaking. They were so happy to have us there that a few of them paraded us around and gave us a grand tour of the grounds. They also have a pet lamma that we got to pet. We spent 1 hour playing soccer and hanging out with the kids.

The whole experience was so powerful. It really opened our eyes to how much we have, waste, and take for granted. These kids have nothing but the clothes on their backs. They have suffered so much and have absolutely no family. Who knows what their future will be. It will be hard to sleep tonight knowing that all of those kids will be sleeping in the orphanage without a mother or father to tuck them in.

Upcoming Events
Tomorrow we are going to the weekly Huancayo market to do some shopping. The market happens every sunday and is the biggest in all of Peru. They say that 50,000 people travel to the market each week. Huancayo is known as the home of the best artists in Peru. In fact, the family that runs the orphanage we are volunteering for are master artists. We are living in their house and they have all of their artwork here. They weave traditional blankets, make hats, gloves etc. They actually shear sheeps and dye the wool to make their blankets. They also paint incredible paintings. Tino, the father is known as one of the best artists in all of Peru. His work has won awards all over the world and he is trying to get it exhibited at the MOMA in NYC. We are so lucky to be living with such talented people.

Next week, we are going to be hiking to a very high mountain with a glacier. We will also be volunteering some more at the orphanage and at some area schools.