Where we play, we take care of!

An outing to the beach to the kids from my rural community is a huge deal. One kid had never even been to the beach. Another said it’s been years since they went to the beach. I’d think, how is this possible when you live only 45 minutes from the most beautiful beaches in Peru? That’s the poverty here smacking me right in the face.

I rounded up the kid’s club, Los Lideres del Manaña (The Leaders of Tomorrow), and had us all pick a date, do some fundraising and find a kombi to take us to the beach. I think every child has the right to enjoy the beach and just forget about their problems and worries for a day, so that’s just what we did...but not without doing something Peace Corpsey too!

When we got to what looks like Pacific Coast Highway, the kids were glued to the windows looking at the ocean. I was jamming out to my iPod, showing them photos of home, and stopped to join. Can’t take anything for granted around here. The car stops and everyone jumps out and runs to the sand. Raul just throws himself in the water and Gera and I sit on my towel to watch all the kids jump in too. After the excitement passes a little bit, I set some ground rules because most of these kids can’t swim and Lord knows their parents all told me to watch over their babies, blah blah blah, so I had a huge responsibility that day. Edu helped me keep everyone in line, thank God, because rowdy teenagers are really hard to deal with.

They’d go in the water, they played soccer on the beach, they played tag, they dug holes, they looked for sand crabs, they thanked me and squeezed me so tight for organizing this with them, which really they had done all the work. A Peace Corps volunteer is just a “facilitator” that gives the illusion we’re doing all the work, but really we’re motivating others who end up being the ones to pull through. J

The whole day passed by and I realized we still hadn’t done our beach clean-up. Days go by so quickly when you’re having fun, so I huddled everyone up and told them, where we play, we must take care of. They all agreed and I handed them trash bags and we walked up and down the beach picking up trash, going up to people for their trash. It was a good end to the day – work hard, play harder, ya know? On the kombi back, I shared this philosophy and the teens actually listened, but then were distracted by the next song on the radio of course. All good though – I liked the song too!

I sang “Wonderwall” by Oasis with Gera. I’d been teaching her that song and it was such a big deal because it was in English. It’s one of my favorite songs about friendship too so I was perfectly fine belting it out with her at night our my patio underneath a blanket of stars and the moon with all the other kids looking at us kind of weird because they didn’t understand, but they liked the beat! Ya just can’t be afraid to sing.

Now we sang on the beach and it was a moment I hold dear to my heart. It was the first time we went the whole song through without her stopping and laughing and asking what the last word was. Video coming soon!