A Typical Day

Now that I have settled into a routine I thought I would share a typical day.  I get up somewhere between 7-8am, depending on what time I went to bed the night before and how much Spanish homework I have left to do.  My room is very comfortable, if somewhat chilly- I have three heavy alpaca blankets on my bed and I usually sleep in a fleece as well.  The temperature in the room fluctuates with the outside temperature.  It always seems a bit colder when it is raining.  By morning, however, it is usually not too bad so getting out of a warm, cozy bed is not such a chore.

Breakfast is placed on the table at 7:00am.  The continental breakfast is the same every day and I have discussed the details in an earlier post (see A Flavor of the Food).  I spend some time in the morning studying Spanish and making sure I have a good plan for my English class later in the day.  I leave the house anywhere between 9:00-9:30 depending on what I want to accomplish before Spanish class.  Lately I have been pricing tickets to Lima as I am going to go there for three days early in March.  Some mornings I will leave early simply to take a different route to school to explore different streets.  Some days I leave early to find the pastry of the day.  Other days I leave early in order to have enough time to stop in the Maximo office to print out worksheets for my students.  They have a library of teaching materials that we have access to as we plan our classes.

My Spanish class is from 10:00-12:00. If I arrive early I can hang out in the patio at Maximo.  There is an open area with tables where students gather in between classes or sit and study or socialize.  They also have a computer room with access to the internet and at any given time you can find Internationals and Peruvians hard at work on the computers.  There are two of us currently in my Spanish class.  We had three last week but Nicole, a girl from Germany, returned home after her lengthly stay.  Elizabeth, who happens to live with me at the same house, and I will be together in class for the rest of the month.  Our teacher, Ricardo, is very good and I enjoy class a lot and am slowly building my vocabulary.  (Yesterday when I was searching for ticket prices at the travel agencies I was able to do it all in Spanish–YAY!)  I guess class is helping….

After Spanish class I head back to the house for lunch, which is usually on the table waiting for me when I get there.  Lunch is served at noon and it takes somewhere between 15 -20 minutes to walk back and forth between the house and Maximo.  They have saran wrap over the plates to keep them fresh while waiting for us to arrive.  Lunch  has been a variety of things, some better than others, but has always been filling.  After lunch, usually around 1:20, it is time to head to my volunteer project.  I step out of the door and meet Carrie, who lives next door, and we head over to Plaza des Armes, to meet Laura. We then walk together to the convent where we are working.  The total walk is about 30 minutes or so and is fairly pleasant.  Over the past week we have tried different routes and seem to have settled on one.  We have to negotiate several narrow streets but the benefit is we pass several nice bakeries!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the convent we set up shop in the cafeteria, each taking a corner of the room for our class.  The girls arrive somewhere between 2:10-2:20 and class starts.  We work with them between an hour and an hour and a half.  We stop class as the elderly folks head into the cafeteria to find their seats.  Once they are settled we start an activity with them.  Over the past week a small group of interested people, mainly ladies, have emerged and we usually end up doing something with them while the rest watch (or not).  We are still struggling a little to come up with entertaining activities but are managing so far.  The past two days, for example, we have been teaching them the English alphabet using large cards that Laura made with each letter written on a card.  We flash the card, say the letter, and have them repeat.  We have done variations of this using their names and having them flash the appropriate card, trying to repeat the activity in new and exciting ways.  We also have tried to teach them the alphabet song and get them to sing with us.  It actually has been pretty fun since some of them are game to play along.  (We are next going to teach them the song “YMCA” and have them form the letters with us while we sing.)

We finish up at the convent between 4:00-4:15pm and head out, leisurely walking home and perhaps picking up a piece of cake or pastry to try along the way.  Ice cream is also on the list.  It is everywhere here and very popular from what I can tell.  We usually split at the Plaza des Armes based on what each of us has planned fro the rest of the afternoon.  Sometimes, if it is raining, I head directly to the house. Sometimes I will meander and poke my head into new places.  If I am searching for something in particular, like the ticket prices for flights to Lima, I will work on that.  It really just depends on the day and the weather.

Dinner is served at 7pm, but is usually ready a bit early.  Dinner tends to be the one meal where everyone is home and we eat at the same time.  The conversation is quite lively as we all compare our day.  This is also the time where you pick up new information and get ideas about what else to do and where to travel and how to get there.  Information flows freely and fast- it reminds me of the early days in Russia where any new experience one person had was immediately added to the collective group knowledge.  It works pretty much the same here.  After dinner sometimes people go out or they just hang out at the house getting work done.  We tend to have a bit of a more settled crowd at this house so there is not a group that goes out to the discos every single night.  Some of the younger crowd at the other houses have a lot of energy and are out and about a lot late at night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes, especially when it is someone’s last night, we will go out to dinner.  The person who is leaving choses where to go and we arrive in a large group.  Just as in Russia, these dinners move at a leisurely pace since we swamp the restaurant with our large group.  After such dinners some of us will come home while others will go to a bar.  (For me it depends on the night and what the weather is doing!)

Carrie, Mikhail (a guy from the Netherlands at our house), Roxanne (a new arrived TEFL student from Austin) and I did go out Tuesday night even though it was raining.  If you recall I mentioned in an earlier post that the Hotel Montessori, a five star hotel here in Cusco, has opera in their restaurant on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights.  We decided to go and ask if we could listen without making dinner reservations.  The restaurant is a bit pricey and beyond most everyone’s budgets so eating there was not part of the equation.  The hotel was originally a monastary and the decor and layout still reflect that fact.  It is very beautiful with pictures on the walls that would not look out of place in the main Cathedral and large heavy polished wooden doors leading from room to room.  There are two beautiful courtyards seperated by the restaurant that was our destination.  The staff very graciously allowed us to sit in the lobby, jsut off the main dining room, where we could hear the music and order some wine.  There was a keyboard and a flute to accompany the two singers, who preformed beautifully.  All in all it was a very nice, relaxing evening.

Every day is a bit different but in general my days flow as described.