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Location: Phyri School, Sacred Valley, Peru
I couldn’t believe it when Skylar came to me at night and asked me if I had been the team leader – I immediately knew July 5th was going to be my day.
Waking everyone up was not a big deal since my only job was to go round the rooms reminding people about breakfast and departure time; waking myself up at first was probably harder. After knocking on various cold wooden doors, I ran downstairs to prepare a warm mug of tee – aniseed with honey, just to sweeten up my morning. My hot cup of tee needed something else to complete my morning: chips & guac, French toasts, cake. The lady in the kitchen said that she had thought of making little changes to our breakfast almost every day. I love food, and I was really glad to hear that. It was a great start to a great day. 🙂
Keeping track of the people, who had already gone to the bus, was difficult but I was pleased to see everyone help by making sure we were all ready to leave. As always, it took us half an hour more than planned to leave the hotel and another long 30 minutes to get to the small school but, even though time wasn’t on our side, my eyes shone brightly when I saw four young boys running with enthusiasm towards us. I almost felt I have already been there. When we hopped out of the bus, we walked directly to the grass area, where we listened to an introductory speech from the director welcoming us to their small community. Afterward, I, as team leader, divided ourselves into small groups to help in the different tasks that they had assigned to us; Both Sam, Antonio and I worked on making holes in the ground, whilst Steph, Harry, Sofia, and Steven helped William to bring down the logs from the “roof”. Hard work deserved a break so after finishing our first tasks; the kids came directly from the art workshop to the football pitch where we would play a small soccer game before going back to work. It wasn’t long after that our guide came with what I thought was the worst, but at the same time funniest, part of all: “we need all of you to help carry trees.” At first, I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say; I thought they would be small trees which we would have to replant – that was not the job. Once we all were there, two men came, and within 15 minutes four trees were laying on the ground, waiting for five strong people to carry them – I’m not strong, but I for sure developed some more muscle after holding the massive trunks. Exhausted, all of us headed to the art room to drink some water and luckily, that was it, all work is done, right? We were all wrong, after having a delicious squash soup, stuffed chicken, and caramel crepe, we drove back to the school to work on the greenhouse. Full of energy, we were all ready to help, but our help didn’t last for very long; almost immediately after arriving the little boys sprinted towards the pitch willing to play one last game before the end of the day and of course temptation to play ruled over hard worked. The intense soccer game lasted for almost an hour, but sadly, we had to leave.
Once in the hotel, the counselors gave us the chance to go out for dinner by ourselves, as they had done the day before. I was glad that trust had almost returned after the difficult past days. We had two hours to have dinner and we decided to go to a cafe called ‘coffee tree’. The sandwiches were so good! Without complaining, we were back at the hotel by 8. Just like every night, we turned on the TV in our room and, without noticing, fell asleep while watching “let’s be cops”. I could’ve detailed everything more but for now, I will call this the end of my great day.