Benjamin is 16 months old now and learning new things so quickly. He has learned various new signs and words lately, e.g. rabbit (sign plus ‘wa-wa’), fish, helicopter, please, finished, goodbye (waving plus ‘ta-ta’). He also has a very funny way of saying ‘sshh’ with one finger on his nose and his head on one side which is his way of saying that Sammy is sleeping! His first Spanish phrase, which he’s learned from Sammy, seems to be ‘a mí’ which means ‘give it to me’! He likes to wave to everybody as we say goodbye so is a big hit in all the shops. He and Sammy are very sweet in the mornings waving to each other as Sammy goes off to school. He is walking and running everywhere now and has even walked to the bread shop a few times. He is sleeping quite well, normally from 7.30 or 8pm until 6.30 in the morning. He has suddenly taken a liking to books and spends half the day bringing books to us to read. He is still very skinny but at least seems to be growing taller! The picture shows Benjamin with Dina, the lady who helps us in the house.
Sammy is still enjoying school. He even gets homework once a week! This normally involves some pre-writing activities and some sticking linked to his theme for the month. This month the theme is ‘nature’ and last week they were learning about spring. It is spring here now and he had to stick some pictures of spring on his sheet. The trouble was, what represents spring here? Things don’t change so much with the seasons in Cusco! Anyway, Dina suggested grass (as it starts to rain a bit the grass begins to grow again), flowers (there are always some but there are more now), new leaves, and birds nests – birds have babies at this time of year but I haven’t noticed other baby animals. We’ve just heard his school is going to move to a location rather a long way away so we will have to decide whether to stick with it or look at other options. His Spanish is improving all the time. If we tell him a word that he wants to know, when he repeats it his accent is definitely better than ours!
Jenny – I’ve just started doing a little bit of voluntary teaching at the primary section of Sammy’s school. The head would like me to teach in English but I’ve found I need to speak in both languages as not all the children understand English that well. So far I’m just doing a bit of PE each Friday morning. The children are only 6-7 years old, so a bit younger than I’m used to teaching, but it’s a good way to get started and I only have 12 of them. I also took a Sunday school class of five 10-14 year olds the other day. I was planning on watching the class, but the teacher didn’t turn up so I took it instead! Although I couldn’t communicate perfectly, it built my confidence that I can manage a group of children in Spanish now. House hunting continues to be partly fun and partly frustrating! We just cannot find anything big enough in the right area of town! The boys and I have all had rather persistent colds and coughs for the last two weeks but hopefully we’re nearly over them now.
This was a house we viewed recently. We thought it had 6 bedrooms, but actually was just 6 rooms, with no sign of a kitchen. It also only had water until midday. The view was good though!
Roland – We went out for a nice meal to celebrate my birthday this week. Alpaca steak is definitely one of my favourite dishes. There was also a traditional Peruvian band with dancers who gave us entertainment through the meal. I continue to spend one afternoon a week at the micro enterprise project. I’m still mainly getting to know how they operate, but am beginning to be able to give some input. It will be nice when I don’t need to do so much language study and have more time to get involved. I’m also going to start having some discussions with our Pastor about the small groups (house groups) in the church. They only have a couple at the moment and he would like to get more people involved and develop some vision for their purpose.
