Its Saturday morning and another beautiful day in Cusco. Very hot. Been to Molina Mercado which is not far from our house. Now at the college to update my blog. Lunch will be served at 13.00. Great. Wonder what Juanita has prepared for us today and tonight. Its a hard life. Juanita was trained by a top French chef and she sure knows her onions from her turnips.
Its been another busy week down at the Policia de la Familia, which is situated in Santiago suburb of Cusco, and not exactly the most appealing of locations. You would not want to buy a house there. Having said that I wonder about the streets there looking for food and stuff and feel safe enough. Would not do that at night and I always pick up a taxi outside the PF if I'ts after dark when I leave.
Claudia, my Spanish teacher donated a big bag of clothes for the girls at the PF. There were 4 teenage girls there last week and most of this. Three of them have run away from an orphanage they did not like, and have ended up in the PF. They are very independent minded girls, but even so they need more support than they get. Elena is now trying to provide some for them. They call themselves "Los Gatos" for some reason. They are all very artistic. They were in an art class run by Elena last year and were doing well. If you are lucky you might see some of the drawings they have done for me when I get back. One of them, July, wants to go to art college. Lets hope she makes it, though things do not look exactly promising right now on that front.
Rowena and I took the clothes up there on Monday. Neither of the two women who look after them was working and the kids were locked up on there own. The girls and 2 younger boys. All the rest were away at court or something. The girls were delighted withe their clothes and insisted on trying them on. I discreetly turned my back so they could do so and played card games with the two boys.
I have never seen some second hand clothes bring so much delight. They paraded round their small room, showing off their new gear to each other and us, and insisted on having their photos taken. I hope to get a couple on here next week. Its nice to spread a little joy and happinesss in the world, even if reality soon crashes down on them again. They all wrote very touching letters of thanks to Claudia, telling her how much her act of kindness meant to them. One girl had her 15th birthday a few days before and had had no presents as far as I could tell, so Claudia's stuff meant even more to her.
A couple days later I arrived at the PF to find Elizaban all on his own, and locked out of their two rooms. Apparently all the others had to go to court or some such and there was no-one to look after him so he was left to wonder about on the landing and in police room on that floor. As soon as I arrived he came rushing up to me and was so pleased to see me, but there was nowhere for us to go as the room was locked and no key could be found. So we ended up sitting on the stairs playing with some flash cards I had brought along. Its unbelievable how much use I,ve had out of these flash cards, yo ucan do lots with them. We ended up learning the numbers in English and he was making good progress, sitting there on the stair.
We were interrupted by the arrival of another young boy aged 8, who was brought in by the police and more or less abandoned with me, with little or no explanation. I think they just assumed I would know what was going on, which I do now to some extent, but a little more of a "do you mind awfully taking this young chap too" would not have gone amiss.
Anyway what does one do sitting there on the stair in santiago Police station with thes two young guys to keep occupied, especially as we soon exhausted my Spanish. The second boy was a Quecha boy and so different.
Fortunately I had my other pack of cards with me and I explained the intricacies of the game of snap to them. They are bright lads and soon picked up all the rules and proceeded to have a very competitive game with me dishing out the cards and acting as referee. I didnt want this game to lead to an outbreak of civil war. We continued to do that, with police men and women passing us on the stairs and stepping round our cards as if it was a daily occurrence. Eventually Gabriella arrived with keys and rescued us all.
And depite the unusual circumstances I really enjoyed it and the boys thought it was great fun, giving the cops hard looks for stepping on the cards etc. Its certainly a great way to win their confidence and get to know them. But most of these boys are in and out in a few days so its quite hard really. I often wonder what becomes of them all. I dont suppose I will ever know, but I think most of them will remember the short time they knew me for. Least I like to think so.
Will be going with Elena to see Fernando on Tuesday. He lives in a place called San Salvador, about an hour away by bus.
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