OG Travel Bursary 2006

Sophie Jonathan

In March this year, with the help of the OGA travel bursary, I travelled to Peru to begin a three month project teaching English in the Sacred Valley. Arriving in Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital and today’s culture capital of Peru, was an experience in itself; after stumbling out of the airport, enormous backpack in hand and swaying slightly from the sudden exposure to the 3380 metre altitude, I was scooped up by a grinning taxista and driven at break-neck speed out of the centre of Cuzco (narrowly avoiding llamas, pedestrians and packs of stray dogs) and into the very rural Andean countryside towards Urubamba, the town that was to be my home for the next three months. One hour later I was meeting my charming family and being presented with a meal of rice and potato (the Incas cultivated more than 3000 types of the latter and their descendents are extremely fond of them), which I ate before falling into a heavy 32 hour plane journey-induced sleep.

Maccu Picchu

Schoolboys at Sports Day

The following Monday I was taken to General Ollanta School and thrust into my first lesson. I taught classes of about 42 rowdy students between the ages of 11 and 20. The students would cheer whenever I entered a classroom, which was uplifting, but I often felt I was banging my head against a brick wall. The teaching methods in place at GOU were archaic. The students were taught through repetition and copying from the board, mistakes were punished and, to avoid making them, the students would copy each other’s work and I would receive sheaths of identical work sheets with identical errors. Encouraging independent thinking seemed to be the first step in teaching the children and slowly but surely they learnt to put theories into practice; it was wonderful to see a 17-year old boy’s jubilance after he constructed the sentence “My name is Victor”. Games were always a good way to excite enthusiasm and we had regular stints of Simon Says and Bingo. Sadly the students had no reservations whatsoever about cheating and I received many a false Bingo grid followed by violent clamouring for sweets. I, however, was one of the lucky ones. There are about 26 schools in the Sacred Valley and many not as civilized as GOU. Some of my volunteer chums were working at schools in tiny villages where the students spoke only Quechua, the ancient onomatopoeic language of the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes, kept scythes under their desks so they could go to work on their farms after school (tools which were incidentally very handy for dealing with disagreeable class mates) and were regularly called out of lessons to deal with misplaced farm machinery. Fleas were a bit of an issue too.

School was not necessarily a regular occurrence. I often turned up to find the place deserted as the children and staff were taking part in demonstrations, festivals, street parties, or the school was being used as a voting station. I was in Peru during the presidential election, an affair which all the volunteers kept close tabs on. The two principle candidates were not promising. The first, Ollanta Humala, had strong links to the Shining Path terrorist organisation, intended to throw all gringos (white foreigners) and their businesses out of the country and, it seemed, sympathized with the idea of war with Chile. Alan Garcia, the second and eventually successful candidate, was returning to presidency after his original leadership in the late 80s, during which the economy nose-dived and prices rose by over two million percent; Peru eventually had to change currency. It was a very exciting time to be in the country.

Once my teaching placement had finished I was able to travel for a month. I had already completed the Inca trail to Machu Picchu during a long weekend, so a friend and I set off to travel from Mancora, a surfing beach near the Ecuadorian border, down the Panamericano Highway and to Arequipa, before crossing the border (with only a small delay at border control due to my expired visa) into Bolivia at Lake Titicaca. After seeing the incredible Uyuni salt flats we raced across northern Argentina in time to spend a few days at Iguazu falls before journeying to La Paz and my multiple flights home.

I had the time of my life in South America. Admittedly it was a relief to have a hot shower whose dodgy wiring did not give you electric shocks as you stood trembling below, nor do I miss the over-potatoey diet or the sight of an entire roast guinea pig sitting on a plate. The people are charming, the Andes are jaw-droppingly beautiful and I would encourage anyone considering it to go to Peru. I’m certainly heading back - when I can afford it!