Quote of the day - 31 October

“You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club” – Jack London

This quote is quite appropriate today as I have little inspiration and motivation to do much after being attacked by the blessed gastro bug. But we will prevail!

Home away from home

This afternoon when greeting the friendly familiar faces at the supermarket around the corner from our apartment I felt a glowing feeling of content. This place is starting to feel like home. Of course I miss Australia and all my family and friends. Yet with modern technology such as skype Oz doesn’t seem that far away.  Should I ever feel homesick the best cure is to spend time with the little kids in the afternoon. Little Andielo made my day today when he ran up to me, singing a warm up song I always use when leading our Friday vocal workshops. As he gave me a big hug I thought there was no place I'd rather be.

Who doesn't love a good sing along

This week I've been concentrating on making a series of short Christmas videos that will be used to promote the scarves, beanies and leg warmers that Seeds will sell as Christmas gifts in order to raise much needed funds.

I was short of a soundtrack for the lastest video I was working on so with Yuri and Zach on the guitar and Garance and I as lead vocals we practiced  Feliz Navidad with the little kids. It was a great opportunity for them to become familiar with some more English words, as they belted out the lyrics 'I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas....from the bottom of my heart'.  Looking around the classroom everyone was smiling, singing along and it reminded me how unifying and uplifting music can be.

Back at the house I played through the audio we had recorded from the sing along - it was just what I needed.

Stay tuned for the first Christmas video which should be on the net in the next week or two.

Camping

This time last week I was recuperating from a weekend of walking, rock climbing, smoke inhalation, freezing temperatures and sleeping on a wooden floor. No it wasn't all that bad. Despite being physically taxing the stunning scenery and great company made it all worth while.

Bright and early Saturday morning some of the older kids from school arrived one by one at our apartment where we divided up all the food and supplies in our backpacks. We then all jumped in a combi and drove about an hour and a half out of town up into the mountains. Once we stopped we realised that we had been dropped off at the wrong spot. This meant that the park rangers wanted to charge us more and we had a lot longer and harder walk in front of us. However the longer harder journey made for a greater sense of satisfaction when we finally got to our camping spot which was a bunch of old abandoned houses next to a gorgeous lake called Laguna Shallap.

Quote of the weekend - 28 October

“Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people” – Leo Burnett

Priceless

Yesterday we filmed a segment of the 'nutrition video' and I ask one of the boys to say a few lines in English as a way of describing what the video was about. We practiced and practiced until he could say the script on his own with confidence. I was experimenting with ways to make practicing less repetitive, so we sang some of the lines together making silly voices, high pitch, low pitch, singing fast and singing really slowly.

It was then filming time. I threw him in the deep end a little as I don't think he realised I wanted him to say his part in front of all the rest of the students. I couldn't quite muster the words in spanish to explain this. To his credit he handled the situation brilliantly as I knew he would. He did such a great job in front of the camera. Everyone was congratulating him! He started to become overwhelmed with all the praise and attention and had tears welling up in his eyes. It was only later that I truly contemplated the significance of this moment. It is times like these that confirm why I'm here doing what I'm doing. It makes all the sweat, blood and tears in getting to South America all worth while. You can never get tired of memories like these. 

Discovery

Another new video for Seeds featuring the quote. "Seek the wisdom of the ages, but look at the world through the eyes of a child" - Ron Wild

Latest spanish blooper

So I was trying to say that I was hungry but instead I said some weird form of 'I need men' or 'I am man'. Not quite the message that I was trying to get across. Another priceless example of when you say something very similar to what you intended to but what you end up saying has an entirely different meaning. I said "Tengo hombre" when actually what I should have said is "Tengo hambre".

Another new video for Seeds

¿Que hora es? It's playtime. After working hard finishing their homework the niños from Seeds took a well deserved play break.

Spinning, jumping, chasing and laughing it makes you want to be a kid again. The great thing about these chicos is that they know how to make their own fun. No computer games or high tech gizmos necessary, just a little initiative and plenty of energy.

Dancing in rain fire

One of the craziest things I've seen in a long time. Last Saturday night we traveled to a near by village at around 10pm where we trekked up this massive hill and stumbled upon two tall towers constructed with bamboo and packed to the max with fireworks. This was in celebration of a saint's day. Sorry I can't remember the particular saint but I do remember dancing around these towers which were raining fire and sparks. It was nuts. A couple of times I got a amber or two down the back of my shirt but it was all good. So much fun dancing with the locals and getting more of a glimpse into the local culture.

3 life lessons learnt while biking down a mountain

So last Saturday we embarked on a rugged mountain biking adventure. Well not so rugged,  for most of the trip we cycled down the main road.

Our journey began with six of us jumping into a taxi fit for five people including the driver. We had our bikes strapped to the top of the car with a rope which Zach (another volunteer at Seeds) was giving the grand responsibility of holding. We were all set. Yet in hindsight there were perhaps a few things we should have checked before we began our journey arriba.

First life lesson...ensure that you have a full understanding off all the details
I think in all the excitement of gearing up for our biking bonanza we forgot to verify some fairly important details. One key piece of information we probably should of confirmed before we left was the exact track in which we were meant to cycle down to get back to Huaraz. When we got to our starting destination the taxi driver had pointed out to Zach the track he thought we were meant to go down. But we soon discovered that this track "wasn't in the brochure". It resembled more of a winding sheep trail than a cycling track. So we quickly back tracked up the mountain where we made some phone calls to see what the next step in our master plan was. After confirming that we were to travel down the main road we also learnt that the taxi that dropped us off was meant to stick around and follow us down in case anything happened. Well that part of the plan didn't quite work out. Regardless we started our decent towards Huaraz.

Second life lesson...check equipment before you depart. 
Half way down trouble struck when Carmen who was visiting from Lima discovered that her back tyre was flat. I swapped with her for a little while and tried to ride her bike to a spot where we could safely stop and attempt to repair the damage. I don't know if it was the flat tyre or just the seat but that bike was not comfortable (my bottom paid for it later, every time I went to sit down). Raff (who was visiting from Canada) came to the rescue with his bike pump and all seemed to be fine and dandy until he pull the pump off the tyre and the valve came with it. Whoooosh went all the air Raff had just worked hard to pump into the tyre. AHHHH. What were we to do?

We flagged down a maxi taxi and to our surprise inside was two other guys from the same hostel where we borrowed the bikes from. They were also meant to be biking that day but both of their bikes were broken so they were making their way back home. We explained our situation and it turns out that one of them - Ashley is a mechanic and a bike enthusiast. He patched up Carmen's bike in no time and we were off again.

Third life lesson...always wear sunscreen
I had put on sunscreen before I left home but obviously not enough as I think the sun burned through several layers of skin on the back of my legs. I have some very attractive tan marks now thanks to my shorts and the knee pads I was wearing.Not to mention the lovely pealing that comes hand in hand with a bad skin burn.

All in all we had a great time, the fresh mountain air, the gorgeous snow capped peak vistas and some good stories to tell the grand kids in time to come :)

Taking a well deserved break while the boys fix Carmen's bike.

The boys fixing the bike.

Say queso

Uploading video in a developing country

I know I'm probably stating the obvious but producing videos in a developing country does come with its difficulties.

I'm sitting in Cafe Aldino trying to upload the latest video I produced for Seeds and am growing increasingly frustrated at the Internet crashing yet again. It seems to be particularly erratic today. Just part & parcel of trying to upload videos to the net in a developing country I suppose. In the meantime I type my blog posts that I'll update later or maybe practice a little Spanish.

Ah yes we're back online... fingers crossed it doesn't crash in the next 24 minutes & 53 seconds.

Quote of the weekend - 14 October

“If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.” 
- C.S. Lewis

Guinea pig mmm delicioso

Losiento amigos, I haven't posted for nearly a week now.

I'll give you the highlights of the last week one post at a time.Starting with eating guinea pig. Yes I did it. Last Saturday we sat down to a lovely decorated table at the school where Willy another Peruvian volunteer and Madie the volunteer coordinator had cooked up a delectable feast of guinea pig, potatoes and sauce.

I'll be honest with you. I wasn't particularly looking forward to this meal. It's not like us Aussies make a habit out of eating animals that we usually consider as pets. But I was willing to give it a go, which I did. When I put the idea of eating a cute furry little creature out of my head it was actually quite nice. But then some of the others started eating the head and one even tucked into the brain. It was at this point that I'd had enough.

It was a good experience but I don't know if I'd rush back to eat some cuy again anytime soon.

Didn't you're mother ever teach you not to play with your food  Jacob?

Quote of the day - 12 October

Children are one third of our population and all of our future - Select Panel for the Promotion of Child Health, 1981

Quote of the day - 11 October

"Everybody is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid" - Albert Einstein

Protests, protests and more protests

In the last few days there have been some fairly major protests. It appears that at the moment there are three separate groups that are not happy. Firstly university students because their university is being privatised and then miners and teachers, why I'm not sure. Most likely to do with pay or work conditions.

I heard that a few weeks ago that there was a death at a mine about half an hour drive away during a protest blocking its entrance.

The teachers have been on strike for the last few weeks, which means that many of the kids at Seeds don't haven't been going to school  and have no homework. Consequently it's up to us to come up with activities for them which mostly surround English or Maths as they are the easiest to explain and correct.

On Thursday I stayed home most of the day video editing and I heard a protest coming down our street. See below for a short video. You can see in the foreground a guy pulling down his jeans perhaps to show his friends where he got hit or injured by something.

When the others got home from school they said that they had to dodge through the protestors and it got a little hairy. Novaplaza a supermarket near by and many of the other shops had all closed as to prevent damage to their property.

Apparently there have been times when protestors have taken tear gas and thrown them into near by stores.

On Friday morning while on a mission to find a photocopy shop that was able to photocopy a whole book of English worksheets I walked through a massive congregation of police all in their riot gear. So I thought best to keep on walking. I notice that some of them had large rifles and I wondered if this was to fire tear gas or rubber bullets. Needless to say I didn't stick around to find out.

On the way back home from school we went the scenic tour way back to the apartment to avoid the teacher protest coming down the main street. When the cost was clear and we got close to our street we had noticed that the protestors had placed large rocks on the streets to stop traffic, another way to make their point.

Despite all these protests I still feel very safe in Huaraz. You just have to be smart about it and avoid them where you can.

Everyone is an Artist

I'm listening to John Mayer, "Why Georgia" and a certain line of the chorus jumps out at me. "Am I living it right". It's something I think we all ask ourselves from time to time. Am I making the right choices? Am I making the most of what I have? This leads me to consider my career trajectory and where I want it to lead. Considering it's arts programs for disadvantaged kids that I want to facilitate I start to second guess my choices. Should I have studied to be a Music, Drama or Visual Arts teacher instead of my initial Bachelor of Science Dip Ed.

But I quickly squash this heckling doubt with the knowledge that I am living proof that anybody can use the arts to help benefit others. I am an educator that uses the arts to help convey key information or to gather important stories from participants. I honestly believe that you don't have to be the next Picasso to incorporate drawing into your education program, the next pop sensation to break out into song mid session or a theatre graduate to infuse drama into your next lesson. We need to teach kids and ourselves that the arts are accessible and enriching for everyone. We should all  feel more than capable and welcome to have a go.

Don't get me wrong to bring more credibility to your next big art project it would be great to host a type of artist in residence program where you could invite a relevant artist/s along to help guide the kids in their work. However who's to say you should wait around for the next big art project to use the arts as a teaching tool. Why not get the kids to make a sound orchestra where groups of 3-4 come up with their own sound and then elect a conductor to stand out the front to start, stop, soften and increase the volume of the relevant noises each group created. These noises might surround a certain theme like transport e.g. 'choo choo' for a train or 'honk honk' for a car. Maybe it's animals you're looking at. There are a whole host of sounds the kids could come up with, when considering animals. A simple drawing activity like 'Mr Squiggle' might tickle your fancy. If students are learning new numbers or letters you can ask them to create a drawing out of a particular number or letter they've been learning. See what happens when you give them a chance to get creative whilst familiarising themselves with the new script.

On Friday when I arrived at school in the afternoon the little kids were asking to do the vocal warm up I ran with them last week before we sang the nutrition song that I have been blogging about. Now I've participated in one or two music education professional development seminars, I've worked as a performing arts specialist primary teacher and used music while working as a museum education officer however I never studied music at university. Truth be told I can't even read music or play a musical instrument. This didn't stop me a week ago from making up a vocal warm up of nonsensical sounds that could transverse language barriers and engage a room full of kids .

So my advice take a note from Albert Einstein's book when he said "Imagination is more important than knowledge"

Whether you work in a school, library, museum, zoo wherever - don't be afraid to be an artist and in turn inspire your students to be artists.

Quote of the long weekend - 7 October

"Imagination is more important than knowledge"- Albert Einstein

So apparently I am either salt or I should leave

It came to my attention recently that my name is the past tense version of the verb 'to leave'. I was already aware that 'Sal' meant salt in spanish, but 'to leave' me no gusta. Apparently the kids have been giggling to themselves saying Professora Sal which makes me smile.

What does your name mean in Spanish or another language?

First video is online

Check out the first video I've recorded and edited for Seeds , a short trailer promoting an upcoming nutrition video that promotes the importance of eating a varied diet.

72% and counting

72% of my first video for Seeds has been uploaded. It's a slow process but while I wait I take the opportunity to do some more blogging and have some lunch at Andino's which has free wifi. The first video is a promotional trailer for an upcoming nutrition video that is based on a song we taught the kids - promoting the importance of eating a variety of foods.

It's a full house

It's a full house at the volunteer apartment at the moment, which is great. We have two visitors who are here just for a few days one from Lima one from Montreal, Canada. An American couple arrived a couple of days ago, after taking two overnight buses from Ecuador. They must have been knackered, not to mention a little dizzy from the altitude here. There is also a primary teaching graduate from Belgium who arrived about a week ago another american guy, the founder of Seeds Yuri (Peruvian), Madie the volunteer coordinator (Canadian) and me.

The last couple of nights have been great fun, cooking dinner together, eating, drinking and meeting other mutual friends. It's interesting to listen to the chorus of different languages - french, english and spanish. Me I've taken to speaking Spanglish while my Spanish gets a little better bit by bit (poco, poco).

Last night was great fun. We started out at our place then went out for Chuchuguasi or Chuchuasi there's a few different ways to spell it. This is the "medicinal" drink that is very popular in Peru. I say medicinal loosely because it's just a cheap drink that has a lot of alcohol in it. While standing around chatting Willy one of the other volunteers who went to Seeds himself offered to cook me some guniea pig. I graciously declined. Afterwards we had dinner and then kept kicking on at the discoteca where we carved up the dance floor. Must admit I'm a little on the tired side today but it was well worth it.

Quote of the day - 5 October

"I failed my way to success" - Thomas Edison

Can you learn through the arts quietly?

My 'think tank' was running a little dry today when I was working with one of the older boys in the morning session at school. I was trying to teach him the verb "to be" in English which is called "ser" and "estar" in Spanish. The operative word being trying cause he just wasn't interested. How do I know cause he said, "estoy aburrido" aka I am bored. I tried to make it interesting - choosing sports as a topic cause he looked like a pretty sporty kid to me. I also got up and starting doing actions, asking him to describe what I was doing e.g. you are walking, you are running blah blah blah. This worked for a little while.

Then we played hangman with the various new words that we  had learnt, which again was okay for a while but by then I couldn't think of anymore fresh ideas and he couldn't find the motivation to learn anything else.

Obviously I felt a little disheartened by this but two good things happened afterwards that lifted my spirits.

- Kellio one of the other boys then sat down next to me and was keen to learn estar in English. Consequently we had a great time creating different sentences using I am, he is, she is, we are etc.

- I then went to spanish class where my professora (teacher) Carol, gave me a really good idea. I had been going about this all the wrong way. Art is my thing why don't I use it more? Before, I thought anything art wise would be too loud or chaotic for the work sessions at school. It's important that during these sessions that we don't disturb the other students. However - suppose I was to use some song lyrics from a popular song in Peru that is sung in English. We could quietly sing this together and translate the words. 

This lead me to the question - art type activities are often thought as being too dynamic for "quiet" work but surely there are some such activities that can be completed in a tranquil working environment. 

So this is my new quest, to bring in the art but not the chaos/noise into my teaching strategies. I'll let you know how I go.

Top 10 hits in Latin America

I can speak in the past

You don't know how excited I am to be able to talk about the past in Spanish. Up until now I've really only been able to talk in the present or a little bit in the future. I felt like I made a big leap forward in my quest to become fluent in what is a beautiful but at times challenging language.

Quote of the day - 2 October

“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced” – Vincent Van Gogh