My new project involves going to the little town of Paucarabamba with volunteers from Corazones de Peru (another NGO from Germany) to do summer school with the kids whose houses have collapsed from the floods.  The first day, I went with Rosert and Jonas (which was a little awkward because the first time I met Jonas was in a discotec and he was drunkenly trying to convince me to make out with another girl, but we actually made the transition into the professional context quite smoothly). 

We had planned to spend the day setting up the classroom and passing out school supplies.  But (not that surprisingly) we ended up spending four hours walking around looking for someone with the key to the school, which was locked.  Person #1 points to the house on the hill where person #2 points to the corn field where person #3 points to the chapel… And around and around we went.  Finally, someone looking relatively official told us that the teacher with the key lives in Urubamba (where we had come from).  The next day, once we finally unlocked the door to the school, we were met with anarchy on the other side.  The place was a complete mess, but after three hours of sweeping, decluttering, shelf-raising, fly-killing, and poster hanging, the warzone looked a little more like a classroom (insert here: image of Katie blowing the dust off the top of a broomstick like gunsmoke from a pistol). 

In my own personal lesson of the day, I learned that I thrive in situations of static chaos (example: a messy room).  I like putting things in order, but I get bored with too much organization.  But on the contrary, dynamic chaos (example: a throng of little Peruvian kids throwing the stacks of paper you just organized on the floor) makes me want to scream.  Ok... so now I can add that information to the online quiz of "What Are You Going to Be When You Grow Up" (next to the part about my affinity for mushrooms and public libraries) and see what it spits out.

Anyways, after we finished cleaning, we sat on the lawn watching the kids look for tadpoles in the creek waiting for the fruit delivery from the office.  It finally came and along with it came Dietrich--the founder of Corazones.  When he stepped out of the car, he could have been Santa Claus on Christmas Day.  His German stature dwarfed the Peruvians and it was only accentuated by his white blouse and Indiana Jones hat.  Each time a Peruvian went in to greet him with the customary air-kiss on the cheek, he would trap them with an unexpected bear hug which unfailingly produced a wide-eyed look of surprise/worry (on the part of the Peruvian) and then an awkward (and suffocated) laugh when he set them free. He spoke Spanish very slowly with an impossible accent that I'm sure very few of the locals could understand, but he benevolently passed out bananas to the children, so I'm sure they didn't really care.