Swimming and Dance in Perú

It has been an extremely busy time here in glorious Peru! We celebrated Day of the student by taking both schools on a field trip to swimming pools! The water was freezing, but we all braved it and the children loved it!

Maldonado then enjoyed a tasty lunch of chicken & chips, a rare treat! And Triunfo finished off the day exploring the climbing frames, see-saws & the obligatory game of football!

We celebrated the birthdays of Yonathan (3°) & Mauricio at Maldonado & Nazira at the Inicial. At Triunfo we celebrated with Dayana, Kevin, Milagros, Monica J, Alex, Monica M & Germán, and Mary Cielo at the Inicial.

Every year there is a Defensa Civil day where all schools must practice their earthquake evacuation procedures. Both schools at 11:00am evacuated, with some children pretending to be injured, Eder went a little far by putting rocks on top of himself!

Maldonado was invited to participate in a dance contest (Chulpi de Oro) in Arequipa. The whole school went to support all of 4°, 5° & 6° at the coliseum...it was packed!

There were about 30 schools competing, and an absolutely huge crowd, certainly the biggest our children have ever danced in front of! The atmosphere was electric, and our children as always did us proud!

They put their heart & soul into their dance; it brought tears to our eyes as we were so proud!

We’ve also had two more students join the family at Maldonado – Danielle (4°) has transferred from another school, and Maria (5°) has recently moved to the community from the Sierra.

At the Inicial Mario has joined the team. Unfortunately at Triunfo we’ve had to say goodbye to Maribel as she has moved back to live with her parents in the Colca Canyon region, whilst extremely sad we know she’ll have a better home life and send her all our love.



In amongst all of this the vols have continued to support and assist in maths, communication, science & social studies lessons. They’ve also continued to come up with fun interactive lessons for the children.

In Art they’ve had the children making birds out of the shapes of their feet & hands! They’ve also been making passports with the children, incorporating the children having to find information about each country in South America from a table e.g. Capital, population etc.

At Maldonado the vols carried out an exam where the children had to draw items placed on the table, so as to concentrate on perspective. At Triunfo, 5° & 6° are so proud of their brilliant art work, they’ve decorated the classroom with it all!

Physical Education is getting tougher & tougher as we’ve now officially moved into Spring so the days are getting hotter, however this hasn’t stopped the vols!

They’ve been chasing the children around playing hide ‘n’ seek (the photo is Alvaro trying to hide under two beach balls!) & stuck in the mud.

They’ve also been developing hand & eye co-ordination with the younger children through simple ball games.



At Chiriguana the vols have been teaching the children to do forward & backward rolls, plus a few flying flips! At Triunfo an impressive dance lesson took place, with vols Francesca, Dorothy, Kait & Renae leading & putting in some serious effort!



We’ve also started taking grades 5° & 6° for weekly swimming lessons as part of the national curriculum, we’re already seeing improvements in some of the children. How the vols stay in the freezing water for over an hour with the children I do not know!

We’ve created a new English curriculum to follow, based upon our thoughts & the curriculum of a private school here in Arequipa. It provides the vols with much more guidance on what needs to be taught by grade, and allows us to track accurately on a matrix what we are teaching and where the children are.

The vols have continued to carry out excellent interactive lessons which really inspire the children to learn. Role plays for learning basic greetings, board games to enforce numbers & fruits, and Chinese whispers to practice pronunciation – “I am well” often comes out as “I am Manuel”, highly amusing especially with grades 1° & 2°.

Swimming and Dance in Perú