MARCH 2007 NEWSLETTER
A night in the Peruvian Andes!
While I was in Australia in February and March I meet with the Balgowlah Rotary Club in Sydney, Australia.
Thanks to their generous assistance they agreed to host an evening fundraising event for Peru's Challenge with myself as guest speaker at the International College of Hotel Management in Manly.
We were limited to a guest list of 100 due to space restrictions. But demand to attend the event was so high that we ended up running two events to ensure that all who wanted to attend could.
We had a silent auction running through the night and lots of raffles. Great prizes were on offer thanks to generous local businesses, including a 14-day trip for two around Peru with Ultimate Tours Peru.
Thanks to the International College of Hotel Management for allowing us to hold our events in your Grand Dining Room. A big thanks to the First Year students who served a delicious dinner to our guests.
Thanks must also go to the following members of the Balgowlah Rotary Club for helping me put together such fantastic and successful evenings:
Ian and Deborah North, Colin Wayling and Malcolm Bush.
Peru's Challenge airs on Australian travel program 'Getaway'
In May of 2006, Peru's Challenge was lucky enough to be visited by the Nine Network Australia travel program Getaway.
Getaway is Australia's longest-running and most popular holiday and travel television program. The show has been on air since 1992 and is currently broadcast on Thursday evenings at 7:30pm on the Nine Network. More than two million Australian viewers tune in to the one-hour program each week.
Presenter Jules Lund and the Getaway crew visited for just under two weeks to film stories on our volunteer travel program up at Pumamarca.
Filming included the Pumamarca fathers helping with construction work up at the school, Jules taking an art and sports class, taking the kids on an excursion to the local Inca ruins in Pumamarca, a house visit to one of our mothers that has cancer and the building of a kitchen from start to finish.
The two-part story which ran over two weeks went to air this month and the response has been overwhelming. Our volunteer bookings for 2007 are looking very promising.
A personal thanks to Karen, Supervising Producer at Getaway, for bringing the crew over to film our efforts at Pumamarca.
Watch the video - click here.
Read the fact sheet - click here.
More volunteers from Sweden
This month we welcomed our sixth volunteer from Sweden via the IT company GUIDE.
 Rosa, a GUIDE employee, has come to volunteer for eight weeks with her husband Bebban.
Bebban does not speak English or Spanish but it was not a problem communicating. He understood everything that was going on and we had no trouble communicating how he could help us.
Being good with his hands, Bebban helped the locals build two beehives for the school. He also kept busy by building and painting two new entry gates (in the Swedish colours) and was our general handyman for anything that needed fixing.
Rosa kept busy with art lessons and then taught the mothers in Talleres (workshop classes) how to sew pants for their kids. Each mother had a go and was very proud of their results.
A dinasour in our midst!
During English class for Grades 5 and 6 one of the phrases for practice was -
How old are you? I am .......years old.
Everyone in the class repeated the phrase and gave their age. Then I was asked "How old are you?"
I answered 67 and you should have seen the looks on their faces and heard the exclamations!!
Perhaps they haven´t met anyone as ancient as me?
Written by Heather. Volunteered for eight weeks from Australia.
Gone fishin´
A friendly neighbourhood teenager agreed to take three of our volunteer group fishing one Saturday for trout. He assured us that the water was not contaminated and we would not need a boat and that we would be able to hire fishing equipment at the "lake".
Nick the young American, Bebban the non English or Spanish speaking Swede (also an experienced game fisherman) and myself set out with the three neighbourhood children early one sunny Saturday morning.
After more than an hour's taxi ride we arrived not at a beautiful pristine lake but at a run down FISH FARM with a dozen living room sized pools containing trout of various sizes. You should have seen the look on our Swedish fisherman's face!
The proprietor of the show (described by Nick as a scammer) promptly prepared our "rods" from three metre lengths of bamboo and about the same length of fishing line, cut with a knife and tied with sinker and hook.
Since we were there, it was a nice day and the fish were biting. Nick, the three children and myself set about catching 12 trout at the cost of 54 soles, which of course included the cost of hiring of the equipment (ie bamboo poles, hooks, lines and sinkers - Huckleberry Finn style).
Needless to say our Swede declined the offered sport but retained his good humour.
We could hardly wait to get home for Rosa, Bebban's wife, to translate to us what Bebban really thought of the expedition. Unfortunately I cannot print it here.
Nevertheless, the barbecued trout tasted delicious and ALMOST worth every sole.
Written by Heather. Volunteered for eight weeks from Australia.
Learning salsa from the locals
Nick and I were invited to our Spanish teacher’s birthday party one weekend. We rocked up to her front door, gift in hand, not really knowing what to expect.
A little apprehensive, we realised tonight would be a test of our Spanish: we are throwing ourselves into a social party in a language that we were in the middle of learning!
We were immediately greeted by friends and family, and before you knew it we were being poured cuba libres (rum and cokes) and mingling.
Though our sorry attempt at less than rhythmic salsa dancing was laughable, everyone was more than excited to teach us.
The night continued with congo lines, a few more drinks, a dance circle and cake, and before you knew it, we were well immersed in the fiesta!
Leaving the house at 2am, we couldn't help but think that we just experienced a perfect example of how hospitable and accommodating the Peruvian people truly are.
Written by Chris. Volunteered for 12 weeks from Australia.
Rafting on the Urubamba river in the Sacred Valley
Each month, those volunteers who are brave enough take the opportunity to go rafting.
It is a great day and at least one volunteer falls out of the boat each time we go.
This time was no exception with a lot of water in the river due to heavy rain. The Class III rapids were just big enough to get the adrenaline pumping.
A special thanks to those volunteers leaving us this month
 Thank you Chris for spending three months with us. Your help during summer school was greatly appreciated especially as you worked unsupervised through February.
Guido, thank you for volunteering for a month with us. You were a great help at the school and the Cuzco ladies are going to miss you as will we.
Thanks for returning this month Garry. You still didn't get to cut the corn... hopefully when you come back in May.
Nick, Heather, Bebban and Rosa - I look forward to working with you throughout the next month,
Selvy and I would also like to congratulate Ginny, our Volunteer Manager on her engagement to Felix.
Jane Gavel
President & Co-Founder
Peru's Challenge.
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