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On the morning of the 27th, I hug out around Pisac and took it easy. Pisac is known for its craft markets selling everything alpaca, wool, ceramics and the lot. I managed to make it through the morning buying only a cool beaded textile/ belt that a local woman made right in front of me. My bartering has gotten better (note that Ross.)
At 2pm, I met back up with Sarah, Mark and Katy, an Australian expat, who runs the trawl company, Aspire Adventures, out of Cusco. After talking to Katy for only a few minutes, we found some Aussie friends in common. Finishing my mule duties for the trip, I offloaded a bag full of English tea, an ARCC sweatshirt and blue sticky glue that he had asked for. My bags were finally their intended size.
We headed to a small after school program out of town that is run by a female dentist from Cuzco. This woman sees patients in the morning and heads 40 minutes into the country to run the program for more than 60 kids daily. The government has donated and old kindergarten building to the program. It is modest to say the least. The play yard is full of scrap metal and the play structures were so rusty they were literally about disintegrate. The kids, as always didn't seem to mind. Their favorite play things were an old water drum and car struts they were using as bazookas, ha.
I spent most of the afternoon teaching the older kids world geography and English with a great volunteer, Becca. After we had the kids colorcoat world maps according to continents we got to arts and crafts. The kids blew up balloons and we began to papermaiche them to be painted as the world on Monday. The kids were INTO it. It sounds like they dot have arts and crafts at home, or school, so they love this program where they have a chance to be creative. They all tool the tasks very seriously and were super Ernest. It was great. After we cleaned up, we hung out with the kids a little longer. When packing up, the kids were moaning that they wanted to stay longer. It is a great project and I had the urge to stay and give the place a little TLC. Maybe in the future...
We headed back into Cusco and went strength to dinner. We treated Katy to dinner and beer to thank her for helping us with all of our travel plans. She showed us to our hostal with the BEST view of Cuscos Plaza de Armas (main square.) I literally had a view of the square with my head on my pillow. For $10, the price was right.
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