Update

It is now the end of the 4th week of term here in Peru and everyone has well and truly settled back into school routine.

I have still been teaching in the two schools; Indoamericano and Lizarzaburu. Things have not been running smoothly as one would hope. Peruvian schools do not function as well as they do western world schools. Teachers often arrive late to school and sometimes not at all. It is common to find classrooms without a teacher. My colleague Robert and I are finding it difficult sometimes to work with the schools as they are not co-operating as well as they should be considering we are volunteers. Even with their lack of co-operation and enthusiasm, Robert and I are still determined to teach the children as they should not suffer because of this.

As well as teaching in these two schools, I have plans to start back up football games and english classes just for the SKIP kids on Friday afternoons and maybe Saturday mornings. Something similar as to what i was doing during the summer camp. I would like to cover whatever english the kids have been learning during the week again as there is no routine of homework here in Peru.

My spanish is continually improving but not as fast as I would like, however, my friends here say to me that I am improving fast. I have started an inter-cambio which is basically a one-on-one tutoring sessions. This is free and is with a qualified spanish teacher. It is free because for the first hour she teaches me spanish and for the second hour I help her with her english. I feel I am certainly getting more out of it than her!

Volunteers are beginning to arrive. A guy from San Diego and a girl from Sydney have just arrived. The weather has took a downturn which is for the best. The days are a lot cooler but are still warm though. Being from Ireland, I have welcomed the new weather.

Well that is all for now. I posted home 3 copies of a 10 page report on my time here. It details where the money I raised has gone to and what I am doing here exactly. One copy has gone to the St. Vincente de Paul group of Maghera in Northern Ireland who kindly gave me £500. Another copy has gone to the Third World Shop in Maghera in Northern Ireland who kindly gave £1000. The final copy will stay in my home where visitors dropping by can read and find out what I am doing. It contains a lot of pictures so it should be a good read.

Apologies for there being no pictures, I still haven't repaced my camera.

As always, any potential volunteers, feel free to contact me with any queries or questions, I will be glad to help. My e-mail is m1572202@qub.ac.uk

Buena suerte

Joseph