The holidays are upon us and with them come special festivities and excitement. The city of Cusco has strung up colorful Christmas lights in the Plaza de Armas and we’ve had our fair share of cake at each of our schools. In addition to holiday merriment, the school year here in Cusco ends in December. As a result, we have been celebrating both the end of classes and the approaching Christmas holiday. This past week, we had the chance to do special activities at each of our schools in honor of the aforementioned.

At Pacca’s Virgin de la Natividad, or Pacca for short, we led a field day in sports class for our younger group of girls. The field day gave them the opportunity to participate in smaller teams with more friendly competition than our usual sports classes. The team of Las Estrellitas, or the stars, won the soccer tournament after a heated final match.

Las estrellitas: first place winners!

In our English classes at Los Nogales, the students got to be creative with a holiday craft morning. We made muñecos de nieve (snowmen) and renos (reindeer). Boys and girls alike really loved making these holiday figures. Some even pinned their reindeer on their backpacks or jackets!

Students displaying their snowmen!

The teenage mothers at Casa Mantay also took pleasure in a day of crafts for their final class. Their creations ranged from Teresa’s paper Christmas chain of over 10 feet in length, to delicately painted tree ornaments. Plenty of renos and muñecos de nieve were also made and put on display in the house.

Miriam and Teresa, with Teresa's Christmas chain

Additionally, we made goody bags for our sports students in primary school at Luis Vallejos Santoni and Los Nogales. The goody bags were filled with little trinkets like a game of jacks, colorful hair accessories, candy, and Chicas Dinámicas* stickers. The girls were extremely surprised and quite happy to receive their gift bags.

Gifts and treats in the goody bags

All in all, it has been an exciting last couple of weeks with end of year and holiday festivities. We’re sad classes are coming to a close and even more sad that our oldest students will be graduating from the program. However, we’re extremely glad to be returning in March for the start of the next school year!

Happy Holidays!

*Chicas Dinámicas is the name GirlSportWorks goes by here in Cusco.

Since we arrived in August, nearly every taxi driver or new person we meet asks us if we have been to Machu Picchu. Now, we can finally say, “yes”!

Liya & Megan on the train to Machu Picchu

This past week we had the absolute pleasure of taking the 4^th grade class from el colegio Virgen de la Natividad, situated in the town of Pacca, to Machu Picchu. It has become tradition that every year GirlSportWorks sponsors this trip, which for our girls as well as the GSW program managers is their first trip to Machu Picchu!

After taking our separate trains to Aguas Calientes we met in the quaint central plaza to walk to our hostel and get settled in. The girls and professors were thrilled and so grateful to each have their own bed. That afternoon we made the short walk to the Aguas Calientes baños termales (or hot springs), where we passed the entire afternoon soaking in the warm mineral baths! Fully relaxed, we then headed to the Aguas Calientes Market, where we enjoyed a filling, delicious meal. The girls spent the rest of the evening walking around town and thoroughly enjoying the change of scenery and climate!

Massage chain in the hot springs!

At 6AM everyone was awake and the hostel was buzzing with our excitement for the day. Everyone was thrilled to wake up to perfect weather for our visit. Today, we would all finally see Machu Picchu! We arrive to the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu by 8AM. The girls were able to freely pass through the Sanctuary for several hours taking in the many sights of the famous and sacred place.

Pacca 4th Grade

We met up with an educational guide at 10AM who illuminated many of the mysteries and known facts of Machu Picchu. The girls had tons of questions for our guide and fully took advantage of his knowledge.  The professors were also happy with the guide and emphasized to the girls that Machu Picchu belongs to them. We will certainly never forget our unique guide who called himself “El guía amoroso” or “The loving guide.”

Listening to our guide

After our tour, we took our final photos and looks of the magnificent Machu Picchu and left full of the energy of this sacred place! The entire trip our girls were full of thanks and gratitude and we promised to pass on their thanks to all of you that support GSW and make possible these special trips! Thank you from the Pacca 4^th grade class!

Thank you for our wonderful trip!

This past weekend we took our young teenage mothers from Casa Mantay to a rock-climbing session near the Templo de la Luna, or Temple of the Moon, in Cusco. None of the girls had rock-climbed before this field trip, so they were looking forward to the outing all week, with a mixture of excitement and curiosity.

We arrived at the climbing site and Nathan and Luis who operate SkyHighAndes (www.skyhighandes.com) instructed our students in basic climbing with a harness. After seeing just how high the rock was, many of the girls started feeling nervous and scared. Some even said they had changed their mind and would rather watch than climb. Nerida was the brave one who volunteered to go first.

Nerida climbing first

Ana followed Nerida and was much more afraid of making her way up. At one point she remained crouched on a ledge of the rock and was too frightened to stand up and continue. Realizing how scared she was, all of us watching began to cheer for her until she felt confident enough to stand tall and keep climbing. It was an awesome moment to see her change her mind and realize that she could keep going without coming down. Equally as inspiring was hearing everyone in the group shout encouraging phrases to her as she continued her climb.

Ana, right after she stood up!

After watching Nerida climb first and after witnessing Ana overcome her fear of falling, the other girls lost their apprehensiveness and they each took a turn. Two students in particular, Yovana and Nelida, showed a natural ability for climbing—they made it higher up than anyone else and also scaled the rock fastest as well. It was amazing to watch them tackle the rock without any fear of falling!

Nelida descending from high up

The girls all did extremely well with their first climbing lesson. While climbing initially frightened many of them, they each embraced the opportunity to try something new, which was a big accomplishment! Thank you to Sky High Andes for providing us with this great opportunity!

All of the girls and their children with Nathan and Luis

The decorations really set the mood for the party

This Sunday we had the pleasure of attending Casa Mantay’s Halloween and October Birthday Celebration. Casa Mantay is a safe-home for young mothers and pregnant teens; we teach sports to these exceptional young women once a week. We were invited to dress up for Halloween with the volunteers that work at Casa Mantay. Together we were the “Super Voluntarias” or Super Volunteers; we really enjoyed getting dressed up and all the girls seemed to get a kick out of our silly costumes!

Liya and Megan striking a super-pose!

The party started off with a Magic Show for the kids, which had everyone laughing, including the moms and adults in attendance. After the magic show, Raquel, the Director of the house, MC´d a fashion show of costumes. Each mother walked down the red carpet with her baby modeling their costumes for the audience. Popular costumes were fairies and princesses for girls and Zoro for boys. Our favorite costumes were those of Nerida, our newest student and a fierce athlete, who dressed as a Spring Fairy and Angel, the son of our student Nelida, who dressed as a Rocker, complete with spiked hair!

The gypsy and the lady bug: Yovana and Alexis

New student Nerida at her first costume party!

Afterwards, we all enjoyed delicious hand-made pasteries. Eli, one of our oldest students, taught the other girls how to make the pastries. Eli will soon graduate from the program and currently works at a bakery in the afternoons, which means she is unable to attend our sports class. We sincrely miss her sweet smile and strong presence with the other girls.

Everyone enjoyed the home-made pastries

Thank you, Mantay, for such a fun Sunday evening!

Volunteer Lisa dances with this beautiful princess

Happy Anniversary Santoni!

School anniversaries are very important here in Cusco; so far we have attended an anniversary celebration at each of the schools where we work. While most schools have had celebrations for a day or two, Colegio Luis Vallejos Santoni planned special activities throughout the whole month of September. One of the main events was a weekly, inter-school teacher volleyball tournament. We thought it would be a great idea to bring the girls from Santoni to watch their profes, or teachers, compete. The profes play at a very high level, especially considering they have no professional training. The teams are also comprised solely of women, serving as a wonderful example of female athleticism for our young girls here.

Fanny and Evelin enjoying juice and PB sandwhiches

The girls arrived eager to watch their profes and also play volleyball amongst themselves. We also used the gathering as an opportunity to pass out water bottles to them. Hopefully they can start using their bottles to stay hydrated in our sports classes! The girls spent time decorating their bottles and eating the snacks we provided as they watched the teachers play.

Anny Liset, Yarelin, and Claudia showing off their new water bottles

While we were watching, Colegio Santoni teachers asked GSW Profes Megan, Liya, and former Profe Margie to join a team and play in the tournament. Competing against the teachers was a little intimidating at first, but the girls cheered us on the whole time. By the end of the tournament, the school let the girls take the court and play a game of their own!

Best friends: Estrella and Lucy

Attending the volleyball tournament was an enjoyable way to spend our Saturday morning with the girls. They had the chance to watch experienced players compete in a sport that we are currently teaching in class. Additionally, the girls got to show some of their school spirit by cheering on their teachers and school!

We arrived early Saturday morning to pick up our students from Casa Mantay, and with their babies in tow, they wore the biggest smiles we have seen yet! Referred to the safe-home by the court system, our young women from Casa Mantay are all young mothers or mothers-to-be. Beside the front door of the home is a sign that says, “Here we put into practice the rights of the child.” Casa Mantay promises a better future for both mother and child. That said, we actually were not expecting our students to bring their children to the pool; so with a bit of surprise but not missing a beat, we greeted our students along with their young children and babies. It was sure to be a fun day!

Nelida, Janet, and Teresa with the children

Once we were in the pool, it was clear that many of the girls did not know how to swim. We spent one-on-one time teaching them basics. A few were scared of being more deeply submerged in the water but we helped them feel more comfortable, even getting to the point of floating on their own. It was satisfying to see the girls develop their water skills just in the one and a half hour session we were allotted. In addition to the mini swim-lessons, we brought along a volleyball to use in the pool that we all had fun playing with!

Nelida and Ana playing in the pool

Our morning at the pool was filled with a lot of laughs and smiles. Everyone, girls and children, seemed to really enjoy themselves. What struck us most about the trip was seeing how all of the girls were having a great time. In our usual sports classes during the week we sometimes have students who do not want to participate in a particular activity. However, at the pool, not only was everyone participating but they were all loving their time in the water.

Yovana and her baby Angel

After leaving the pool, we provided the girls and their children with a healthy snack of yogurt, bananas and oranges. Overall, the trip was a success—we were able to engage with the girls in a fun and active setting that differed from our typical classes. It was a great way for them to spend time outside of the house, interacting in a care-free way with us, their children, and each other.

Janet, Faustina, Yovana, and Liya at the pool

This past week we found ourselves with a day off from teaching at Pacca, an alternancia, or alternating overnight school, where girls attend classes in two-week segments with their grade and then return home for two weeks to work with their families. Pacca is in the rural town of Izcuchaca, which lies about 45 minutes outside of Cusco.  In place of classes for this particular week, we were invited to the school’s day-long festivities for their Colegio, or school, anniversary. Colegio Pacca opened in 2004 and this was a celebration of the school’s eighth year of promoting growth in three primary realms: academic, professional and personal. We knew that a great amount of preparation was going toward the event and we were looking forward to the celebrations at Pacca in the days leading up to the anniversary.

The festivities began with a procession from a nearby church. Pacca’s anniversary coincided with a religious holiday called Virgen de la Natividad. It was a celebration of both exciting events on the same day, involving both townspeople and Pacca students and teachers!

Parents and friends of Pacca gathered outside of the school

The procession was followed by the provision of an extensive amount of food. Parents of the girls led the cooking and meal tickets were sold as a fundraiser for the school. The meals included deliciously seasoned roast chicken, stuffed peppers, pasta, potatoes and more. We were stuffed to the brim after lunch!

The highlight of the day was watching our students perform in one of three traditional dances. The 1^st graders wore more modest-looking white dresses with multi-colored hats and ribbons. They performed a dance called mestiza colacha.

Girls dancing mestiza colacha

The 2^nd and 3^rd graders wore long, bright green and orange skirts and carried spears as a dancing prop. The style of their dance was called tobas.

2nd and 3rd years dancing tobas

Then the 4^th and 5^th graders rounded out the performances with a very colorful dance called morenada. These girls definitely looked the part of the oldest of the bunch—their costumes were the flashiest with sequins, high-heeled boots, and feather hats.

Dancing the morenada

It was really fun for us to see all of our students dressed up, looking more like young women than young girls. We are so used to seeing them in their everyday clothes, getting dirty on the grassy field during sports class. It was a treat to see them performing in a completely different capacity, in front of their friends and family!

This past week we continued with our baseball unit at all of the schools. We found that the girls at Pacca and Los Nogales were most familiar with the rules of the game. The pitching position was highly prized, with the girls often vying for a turn to throw.  Baseball also turned out to be especially fun to coach.  We fed off the students’ enthusiasm for scoring runs and found ourselves jumping up and down yelling “Corre, corre” and giving huge high fives to each girl as they crossed home plate.

Los Nogales student Sonia runs to home base

Apart from simply teaching sports, we try to incorporate team building initiatives and life skills lessons into each class.  Additionally, we often incorporate a fun game unrelated to our current sport, usually to make sure the girls get the exercise they need during our class. Last week at Los Nogales, we decided to play Roba Cola. In this game, each girl gets a penny to use as a tail. The object of the game is to steal as many tails as possible from other students without losing your own.  Very quickly, one student Madalín emerged as the winner; always collecting around 6 tails whiles others usually had 0-3.

During our circle-time at the end of class we played “Rose and Thorn” in order to give the girls a chance to share something they liked and did not like about their day. Many students voiced that they did not like how much they were fighting and tattling on each other, so we used this opportunity to talk about this issue. Los Nogales is a very small school and these girls spend a lot of time together, we expect that this group will benefit from more team building and conflict-resolution exercises in the future!

Los Nogales student at bat

Overall, our baseball unit ended on a high note with each of the schools building up to full games this last week. We were impressed, especially at Los Nogales, by how much cooperation the girls showed while playing. During the week, the girls would often ask if they could play volleyball or soccer, both of which are popular sports here. However, once we started playing baseball the requests would end and they seemed to have fun with the new game.