Christmas party

So the last day of our mission at Bruce Peru Cusco has arrived on the 16th of December, which was the last day in school. We decided to celebrate the closing of the school with a big party for all our kids, volunteers, teachers and the most important local sponsors and dedicated it to Christmas with inviting a real Santa Clause with loads of presents. The kids have been preparing already for the last two weeks with a little performance so we also tried to do our best; we seemed to have loads of luck lately receiving help from all around without even asking for it. A week before the event I was walking down our street in Cusco to the laundry when one of the neighbour hostel owners greeted me and asked if we needed some help for our Christmas party. He is one of the members of the Confraternidad del Señor de los Temblores, and with a little bit of co-operation we ended up receiving the traditional hot chocolate and Christmas cakes with presents to all our children as a donation, though I shall state we are independent from any religious organization.

Complying with the Peruvian time schedule we finally began our celebration about 45 minutes late but all our kids nicely washed and dressed!!! They behaved so well as we never saw them and the room was full with dwarf like little creatures with their red and white Santa Claus hats on their heads. They sang and danced traditional Peruvian and Quechua songs and dropped their jaws when our favorite Spanish teacher entered the room with a perfect act in a perfect Santa Clause outfit (thanks to Helen and Andy, the owners of The Real McCoy pub, where we organized our best charity pub quizzes). All of them had a little quiz to answer seated on the lap of the Papa Noel before receiving their presents and we learned that the best deed of most of our kids during this year was that they washed their cat, bless them!!! So after we run out of gas to boiled the hot chocolate and had to change also the stowe to a bigger one we finally got through the celebration with dancing and a lot of photos with the kids, who we saw probably the last time...

To properly say farewell to all our staff we invited everybody to the volunteer centre for a traditional Hungarian spicy porkolt lunch with hot wine. After we all got tipsy and cheerful we received the nicest present from our Peruvian colleagues; they all gave one by one - including our cook - a little speech saying thanks and wishing us the best wishing that one day we would return. Indeed it would be the best time to start working together now, that we got through the hard part and we learnt to know each other - and the language! But as my father used to say always it is best to quit the party at its best moment... So we left with the good feeling, that we found a new director, Mario top take over the centre from us and so a new home for our beloved bunny! Bless Monika, our German neighbour, who was so sweet to take in Chaplin with such care and love, though the little bastard greeted her by peeing on her mat!

So we left Cusco with Bryan, our volunteer from the U.S. the same night with a bus to Arequipa to enjoy the last days in Peru with a breathtaking canyon trip to Colca!

Eaten alive by parasites

Except for the Christmas party our last venture was to test the kids for parasites. Thanks to our volunteer Bryan who checked all the samples of the kids. It was a tedious process but worth the cause. We had to make all the kids bring fresh excerements samples to school in plastic cups we provided to them. More or less 80% of the kids did turn up the next day with them in the school. We agreed earlier with one of the doctors to use his cabinet and microscope to do the screening of the samples. So once we got the samples the only thing left for us was to go to the lab where Bryan was to check them. Michelle, me and Rita assisted Brian with his work.

It was quite exciting since all of us wanted to see some interesting animal. Indeed, there were quite a few as over 70% of the kids were infected with something (for me however it was difficult to see what was normal under microscope and what should not have been there). You can take a look at the few species I am talking about here:

• ascaris
• e. histolytica
• giardia
• trichuris

If you do a thorough job of googling you can find some horryfing pictures with more mature stages of life of them (only for people who want to see something really horryfing). There were more problems but I think I do not need to mention them. One kid had four parasites what is quite unusal and even Brian who is a professional in this field was astonished.

By the way - the next day we had a farewell launch in one of the schools - traditional guinea pig. I was not to eager to eat it anyway but I think the biggest surprise was that the food was prepared by a mum of the kid that had four parasites...Anyway the food was very good and we were honored to be served with a guinea pig. We tried not to remember what Bryan discovered the day before...

Anyway our doctors will now prescribe the medicine for the kids and for some time they should be ok. Nevertheless, one would need a more thorough teaching plan for the kids and their parents - preventive measures in the field of hygiene. We started it but the new directors will have to follow up. As for us we decided to test ourselves right before leaving Peru - just in case :))

Christmas present idea

Giving Christmas presents is always a challenge. What would be though better than the ability to get a business as a present?

Lately we came across an organization that enables to loan funds to an entrepreneur in a third world country and then get the money paid back to you. Since we know people who did it, we know that the probability of getting the money back is very high. You can loan as little as 25 USD.

www.kiva.org creates a possibility to help somebody create a business and at the same time to give the money to somebody you care for as a certificate. We think it is a great idea!!! You can check the business plans and communicate with the persons you will be helping.

Check it out - it is much better than buying one more thing that you are not sure somebody you care for needs!!!

Our last 10 days in Cusco

We have basically only a week left in Cusco and we will be heading back to Europe. Quite a strange feeling after a year of traveling & quite strange to leave the center and the kids...Time to move on. Otherwise everything becomes a routine :)

One of the more important things left for us to do in Cusco is to prepare for the Christmas Party - we have prepared 40 big presents for each of our kids. We received lots of clothing and toys as donations so I think that the kids will be very happy. We have also managed to secure sponsors who will prepare the traditional Christmas chocolate and give small presents to the kids as well. The only thing we still need to do is decorate the room for the party and make sure Santa Claus comes on time to give the presents to the kids :)))

Most of the things we wanted to do for Bruce Peru have been accomplished...this week we will still test all the kids for parasites. Lets hope they bring the samples for testing as we requested them. One thing that might still cause some problems is our rabbit - we have tentatively found him a new home but he became sick - we are giving him medicines every day but we cannot see any progress. The creature is now terribly thin and quite miserable...Hopefully he gets better within a week otherwise there is going to be a problem with moving him to a new home...

On Friday we celebrated the International Volunteer Day. United Nations organized quite a few events around the world. We had a great chocolate cake prepared by our cook!!! It is incredible what kind of cakes she can make considering the kitchen equipment for baking we have.


We have lots of new pictures from our volunteers. There are lots which are really nice so take your time and have a look.

- pictures from Michala & Sarah (from Denmark) - set 1; set 2
- pictures from Katie & Tom (from Canada) - set 1; set 2
- pictures from Caroline (from Belgium) - set 1; set 2 ; set 3

Together with Rita we also want once again to say thank you for all their efforts and donations we have received only thanks to their circle of friends and family. There are no words which can express our gratitude and we are happy that also next year we will be able to take good care of the kids thanks to them. Very BIG THANKS especially to everyone in Canada!!!