Just finished the hardest work we have ever done! We volunteered through a local Peruvian agency for 2 weeks and now have our official 'no longer tourists' badges.
For the first week we worked on a farm for a family who made bricks as a living. They had just lost their son - a bank collapsed on him when he was excavating slate for the bricks. They earned $100 peruvian soles for every 1000 bricks they sold - $50 NZ dollars and their younger son had to stop going to school to help with production.
We stripped Eucalyptus trunks of their branches with a machete for 2 days straight in the searing heat then shoveled dirt and carried gallons of water in buckets to mix, making the dirt into clay ready for production. They fire the bricks on top of a clay oven, heated by the Eucalyptus branches. Such hard work, at the end of the day we'd be shaking and weak with nothing left! If it sounds dramatic its not an exaggeration.....
Just getting there in the mornings was work enough - public transport is mini vans with no safety rules or maximum capacity. We counted 56 people on it one day - standing room only, sandwiched with the locals. The door guy was hanging on the outside of the door trying to keep everyone inside while the van careers along veering from lane to lane, horn a honking. Kids were hanging out the windows. Little lambs, puppies and long metal pipes were par for the course as people's luggage. Still haven't seen a crash, have no idea how that works!
For the second week we worked in a local kindergarten with 3 and 4 year old children whose parents worked in the Market. The Kindy was located inside the market. They were the cutest kids - would come in the morning with dirt all over them and would get fed at the kindy - rice and beans or a sweet syrup for lunch.
We helped teach them letters, numbers, colours and body parts etc and they tried to teach us Spanish. Was so much fun. They loved Steve, especially when they learnt that he could swing and throw them. They were particularly taken with his hairy arms and face, patting him like an animal.
Their names were so awesome we were kinda jealous - Ronaldo, Gonzalez, Maria-Theresa, Christiano, Luiz, so so much cooler than western names. They called Steve Mr E-Steve and me Miss Eloisa except toward the end they started calling me Mr Joaquin which is the name of a volunteer who used to work with them...silly kids, gee
