March- Ciudad de los ninos, Shakira Concert, VISA run

One of the reasons I love going to work, my baby Fransisco aka Panchito (Hermana lauras son)

Yet another blog by the ever so amazing Tanya LOL, I've been putting off this blog due to laziness and general lack of time but I NEED to do it now or will forever with hold important information from my blog readers :)

Also if your wondering what my accomodation is like, this is like luxery, we have hot water and a roof that doesn't leak AND a set of keys each eeeeek amazing no? LOL
Heres my bed


So as you all know I am currently working in my new orphanage called Ciudad de los ninos, in San Juan de Miraflores. Rachel and I have been put into different pavilliones to work in, Rachel is working in Ninos Jesus with 29 3-7 year olds and I am working in Sonrisa Fransiscana which is a house of 38 7-10 year olds, and yes you HAVE to be absolutely crazy to work in my house.


One of rachels boys Anderson who is also one of my favourites Gerrados brother

The days are structured something like this
5.50am-Wake Up
6.10am-Go and set up for breakfast
6.45am- Wash up breakfast cups and jugs
7am- Get the boys ready for school, make sure they all have their books, school uniform, sweep and mop the floors in the pavillion
7.45am- Walk the boys to school (which is actually on site but open to the public too)
8am- Go to morning church (if i haven't came up with an excuse by that time to get out of it -Its not like the fun evening church-)
9am to 1.25pm- Break to sleep, use the internet, go to the shops etc
10am-11.30am Tuesdays and Thursdays- English lesson for 9 of the Hermanas (woman who run each pavillion)
1.30pm- Set up for lunch, serve soup, pour drinks
2pm- Wash up every single piece of cutlery grrrr
2.20pm to 5pm- Go back to pavillion and help the boys with the homework, fold up the boys clothes, bed sheets etc if we've had a big load from the lavandaria
5pm- Shower time which involves handing out the boys their underwear and socks, making sure they have a blob of shampoo on their heads for their shower and usually involves a hell of a lot of dancing nakedness
6pm- Finish up with homework/put on the TV to keep them amused
6.15pm- Set up for dinner
6.30pm- Dinner time
6.45pm- Wash up dinner plates, cups, cutlery etc
7pm- Church with the boys which involves a lot of dancing, singing and hand clapping to the man up stairs *senor dios*
7.30pm- Go back to the pavillion and get boys ready for bead
7.45pm- Take all the boys dirty washing to the lavandaria, count every piece of clothing and right it down in the book
8pm- Either go straight back home after doing the washing or go back if they need some help or if its awkward to get away lol.
9pm- By this time im hopefully in my room or trying to leave the pavillion


Me and Jhamil

Then its the same routine every day except for weekends when between 3pm-5pm Saturday and Sunday the majority of the parents of the children who live in ciudad de los ninos come and visit them. Obviously there are some circumstances where there are either no parents, they live too far away or they have been banned from seeing their children, it is all dependent on whether hermano hugo permits them to visit which involves going to meetings on becoming a better parent.

The boys in my orphanage are all lovely, some of them are a lot nicer than others, some are a handful but the majority are just really nice kids, very cheeky but all be it very nice. I must admit I do have some favourites, one of them being Ivan who is from Puno which is an andean town on the border of Bolivia. His mother is dead and his dad lives in Puno with his brother which is over a day via bus away, so you can understand that his dad doesn't come for the weekend visits. When it is these visits he becomes really clingy to me and I take him to get a little treat or something, and he sits with me and says Im his mum for the day which is really cute. Another favourite is Gerrado who is just a hilarious boy and very very smart at that, I love helping him with his homework because he gets it done so quickly. Then their is Elias-Kevin who sleeps a hell of a lot, he is very cuddly, i remember i was helping him with his homework and i turned to help another boy and I then felt something heavy on my boob. I turned around to find it wasn't a cheeky grope from one of the boys but Elias's head as he had fallen fast asleep. A boy who I have actually suprisingly got really close to is William who is the oldest in the pavillion, and who can be the naughtiest. He is very cheeky (asking questions which he knows the question to such as "What is semen" LOL!) but he is SO intellegent and asks so many questions. I sit next to him at lunch which is probably how I've gotten so close to him and we have some crazy convos, sometimes very indepth. Like today he was asking me about the goverment in the UK, is there many poor people, how do the goverment deal with poor people etc. Why have I came to peru, what was the other orpahange like blah blah blah the list goes on but i really like him. Whenever a boy is rude to me or something he always feels the need to say something to them or threaten them (Which im telling him to stop doing lol), and as the oldest of the house they actually listen to him.


Some of my boys singing at the front of church

I think I made the assumption before I came here that as the boys are in such a huge organization that is so well run there problems are not as bad as the boys in azul wasi. But boy was I wrong, I mean their problems all vary between single parent families, young mums (one boys mum is 20 and he's 8), neglect and harm. Its very different hearing the stories of the boys and actually seeing them for yourself. One of the boys (who I will not name) went home to his family on Salida saturday (one saturday every 3 weeks the boys go home to spend a night with their families) and came back with bruises all over his back and a mark on his arm which he later told us was when his mum wrapped a cord around his arm and yanked it. It actually shocked me how someone can just be so bloody cruel. Ciudad de los ninos dealt with it well and the boys mum was called in for a meeting with the director, my house hermanas and social services. The police have put her back onto a list of people to look into for child abuse and she is now banned for coming back to Ciuadad de los ninos and to see her son. This happened last week and today my heart sank when I saw him starting at the door in silence, i asked him whats wrong and he said "My mum isn't going to come is she" to which I said "no" and he almost started crying. So I picked him up and ran him round the room in my arms which put a smile on his face, and bought him some biscuits and a lolly pop to take his mind off it a bit (even though he originally said he didn't want anything) but yh its really sad. I've realised I'm a big softie and Peru has actually made me into an emotional wreck by the way, so my "hard girl" imagine is well and truley in the bin hahaha.

So thats Ciuduad de los ninos for you, you will hear a lot more about it in the next few blogs.

As I may or may not have written in one of my previous blogs is that we were promised Shakira concert tickets by the head of the British Embassy Mr.Charles Fyfe and Rachel and I were absolutely shocked when he actually came through with the promise. And a day before the concert we went to pick up our FREE tickets which were PLATINUM!!!! We went yesterday and OMG the concert was ABSOLUTELY FRIGGIN AMAZING. The openening acts were Train "Hey Soul Sister" and Ziggy Marley, I loved ziggy marley he was there with his huge entorage who were obviously high on weed backing it up on stage, Train was boring and ran out of his own songs to sing so sang Rihannas "Umberella". Shakira FINALLY came on at 10pm (We were there since 6pm) and she was AMAZINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. The phrase of the day was "Would you turn lesbian for Shakira" and after that concert the answer is "ohhh yhhh" LOL (For those that take what I say too seriosuly, I love my men haha). She is an absolutely amazing performer and we had amazing spaces, it was standing and we were pretty close :).

You can see from the pics below.








All in all it was an amazing night and a definite highlight of my gapyear which ended in a McDonalds meal loool, as every goodnight in London ends.

So this brings me to today which is Saturday 26th March. Tomorrow I am going to embark on a 26 hour bus journey with the recommended tour company Cruz Del Sur to Guayaquill, Ecuador for my visa run with Rach. We'll be going to stay in Ecuador for 2/3 days (not long :( ) But then will head off to Mancora, which is a beach town in the North of Peru for a few days of sun, sea, sand and ALCOHOL LOL. Hopefully we'll see 2 of the Peru volunteer girls their too :) . So I shall be back with a blog when I am back.

Also incase any of you didn't know i have the BEST NEWS EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!

I AM SEEING MY DAD IN EXACTLEY 2 MONTHS AND 5 DAYS EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!
Basically I had been hinting since before I even came to Peru that me being here would be a perfect opportunity for us to go to Brazil and visit my great Auntie from my dads side who we havn't seen for easily around 12 years maybe more. After his repeating laugh at my hints I didn't ever think he would come. Then the other week he dropped the bomb that he might actually come out. Then in true Felix Compas fashion he booked his ticket the next week and I shall be flying to Brazil on May 31st to see him and my aunt. I am soooo excited and I am sure he is reading this now but I CANT WAIT TO SEE YOU!!! I don't know how i will react when I see my dad, I mean i wouldn't have seen him in the flesh for over 9 months! ahhhh
Anyway daddy i love you :)

Thanks again for reading the blog guys, don't be shy to send me a letter though lads, I do enjoy recieving them.
Love y'all
Tan xx

Ciudad de los ninos address

Hi guys, so we're here at Ciudad de los ninos, rachel & I have an apartment with our own bathroom, hot water and like a chill out room with like 1000 books! Anyways I have the address write it as so

Tanya Compas
Av.Pdro Miotta 180
San Juan de miraflores
Lima, Peru

DONT WRITE CIUDAD DE LOS NINOS ANYWHERE ON THE ADDRESS JUST WRITE MY NAME!!!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Just write that and what ever you guys send should arrive here without any problems :)

I'll be writing a blog sometime in the next 2 weeks to let you guys know how its going xxx

My Kent Essay on "Why is there persecution of the Indigenous Andeans?"

Some people have asked to see my essay so give it a read and see what you think


Why is there persecution of the indigenous Andean people?

The indigenous Andean people are persecuted against by the government and private foreign corporations, primarily in an attempt to acquire the land which they have farmed for centuries. Indigenous Andeans are found in Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Ecuador, with the main Andean inhabitants being of the Quechuan and Aymara tribes. These indigenous communities are robbed of their land, robbed of their right to an education and even robbed of the right to have children through the means of forced sterilization. The indigenous communities are vulnerable and easy targets for the governments of the countries in which they live in because they lack the power necessary to fight the governments or the worldwide corporations who take their land. Thus, indigenous communities are forced out of their homes and onto the streets, in turn leading them to have to beg for money or food to stay alive as they lack the necessary education to gain a job within the city. This, in essence, means that indigenous people are being forced out of their homes into relative squalor in towns and cities.

Andeans were and still are persecuted because they are communities the government feel they have least control over. Many of these communities close themselves off from other inhabitants of the country by not providing injections into the economy and keeping resources within their own community. Indigenous communities are essentially subsistence farmers who rely on their land for their livelihood, and so are threatened when the government want the land. The indigenous communities in most parts of Peru and Bolivia have rightfully owned the land since Inca times, some 500 years ago. One way in which the Peruvian government has been trying to control its indigenous communities is through the means of Forced Sterilization, a programme issued by the then president Alberto Fujimori. During the years of 1996 and 2000, 272,028 women, mainly from indigenous communities, were forced to undergo the procedure called voluntary surgical contraception. Fujimori justified Forced sterilization by implying that his aim was to liberate men and women from the burden of poverty and large families, but in fact it was just another form of control. Aimed at men and woman who fell into the low income sector, which just happened to be the indigenous communities, Fujimori assumed that by ‘sterilizing’ the indigenous Andean inhabitants numbered the days of the pure indigenous communities. With less people inhabiting the government-desired land the less protest there would be upon taking. This is a strong violation of human rights and can be compared to the sterilization methods used within Nazi Germany in the Second World War; many would say it is reminiscent of an Orwellian novel rather than what happened in the 20th century.

The indigenous communities are persecuted further as they are preventing the countries in which they inhabit to lose the label of a third world country and become powerful and influential economy. In order to gain the desired label of a powerful economy, countries need both foreign investment and international trade. Latin American countries have an advantage which many of the most powerful countries do not have; they have the land and climate to farm coffee beans, tobacco and cotton and mine some of the world’s most sought after goods including gold. Power hungry corporations from the richer countries such as America and Korea are ready to exploit this fact, and offer money to the country which the indigenous communities cannot. The greed of the countries which are home to the indigenous Andeans allows such corporations to destroy the very land upon which these communities rely on. In April 2009 an agreement between the multinational Korean resource corporation and a Bolivian state owned company to exploit new copper deposits though an open pit mining operation for a period of 30 years without the consent of the Aymara people whom the land belongs to. Livitaca in the south of Peru is the hometown of the cook of Azul Wasi Orphanage, in Cusco; she has explained how recently her town has been devastated by the effects of mining. Livitaca is an extremely rural town 8 hours from Cusco, where Quechua (not Spanish) is the main language spoken and people rely on potatoes harvests for their livelihood. Currently the town is occupied by what she refers to as rich ‘gringos’ (a Quechuan term for foreigner) from the United States, who are mining and searching for gold. She goes on to reveal that no one in her town was informed about the mining prior to the diggers and machines arrival, and that the mining work has contaminated the water they use to drink, cook their food and farm their crops. This has affected the quantity of potatoes harvested, thus directly affecting local incomes. For every one ounce of gold mined, 79 tons of mine waste is generated; with mines lasting on average of ten to fifteen years the damage incurred by the land, the communities and the people is huge. The 26th June 2010 saw over 500 tons of hazardous waste from the Caudalopsa mine sent into the Peruvian Escalera river, and its tributaries, after a dam collapsed near the river. Thus devastating over 40 communities who rely on the river, it left the waters heavily polluted and had a huge effect on the livelihoods of at least 500 families. This is becoming more and more frequent all over the countries home to the indigenous Andean communities where there are increasing levels of mining development.

In conclusion, there is persecution of indigenous Andeans as in the eyes of the governments they are essentially keeping their countries third world. There is not a lot of money to be gained in subsistence farming and this does not offer injections into the economy. On the other hand the Andean land is fruitful in metals and in gold, a lot of money can be made through the means of mining and the governments are more than aware of this. The livelihood and health of the indigenous communities in the eyes of the power hungry countries is deemed a fair price to pay in order to make the transition from a third world country to a powerful economy. If Brazil can do it, why can’t Peru, Bolivia or Ecuador? On the other hand there is hope for these indigenous communities; they are getting recognition from the United Nations and the United States of their hardships and the environmental effects of mining. With regards to the Caudalopsa Chica mining company which I mentioned earlier in the essay, they were fined 36 million soles (US$12.7mn) by the National Water Authority of Peru for the environmental damage caused by the collapse of the damn. There is still hope yet for the indigenous Andean communities, they are starting to form organizations which in turn is providing them with a voice, soon there will be no choice but to listen to their pleas and we can only hope atrocities such as those seen in Peru with regards to forced sterilization, robbing and contamination of land, are not suffered by the next generation of indigenous Andeans.

Word Count: 1,189
Bibliography:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/PERU:+VICTIMS+OF+FORCED+STERILIZATIONS+FIGHT+FOR+JUSTICE.-a0219684320

http://www.indianlaw.org/content/mining-industry-south-america-threatens-indigenous-communities

http://www.indianlaw.org/content/mining-industry-south-america-threatens-indigenous-communities

http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page68?oid=108309&sn=Detail