Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Chocolatadas

Chocolatadas, Christmas 2010, by Matteo Lewent

Although the actual number of days of the chocolatadas numbered only 8 the preparatory work for them, done mainly by Leander, had taken various months and by the time i arrived was in full swing involving frequent trips to Cusco and negotiations with various suppliers and other NGOs. The aim was to provide chocolatadas involving hot chocolate, fruit bread, entertainment and Peruvian made presents for upwards of 2000 children based in the Sacred valley (although it turned out to be a lot more than this!) in associacion with 3 other charities based in the sacred valley; Living Heart, Paskay and Awamaki.


Our first 3 chocolatadas were done in partnership with Living Heart, a charity providing nutritional projects to remote rural communities. The first chocolatada location was in a field between 2 villages in the mountains above Pisac .We set out early in the morning with a sense of trepidation not quite sure what to expect where our first order of business was to pick up the clowns from their house (to my disappointment they did not live in a big top!) and got a baby and a small child into the bargain!! We picked up Rita who loaded our combi up with over 200 plastic balls and other presents, between these and the number of people we had in the van it was no wonder that we got stuck in the mud on the way up! Following our arrival the chocolate was put on the fire to heat, despite some difficulty getting the fire started (probably because I was poking my nose in trying to ´help´!!), and the clowns put on their show which they seemed to love despite inital fears that some of the children may not understand a show in Spanish! We gave out the plastic balls, presents and red noses in a none too orderly fashion as well as random donated clothes which was interesting as giving adult mens shorts to an 8 year old girl might not seem to be all too useful but they would get distributed to friends and family.



The children seemed to love the finger puppets, seperated at length by Helen, Leander, myself and a small army of helpers, and the older children loved the T-shirts designed by Abel Torres an artist based in Lima with Cusco and Mysmallhelp symbols dotted all over them! Kids were pushing to get presents, coming back for seconds of presents and hot chocolate and parents inventing children they did not have all in their eagerness to get presents. A great introduction to chocolatadas and it was nice to see the kids wearing their red noses and playing with their presents on the ride back down, despite the biting midges and crying babies!



Chocolatada number 2


I was always dreading this chocolatada with a 4am wake up and a 4.30am departure. The journey up to the village took over 5.5 hours and involved going over a mountain pass in excess of 4300m and it was absolutely freezing probably because of the snow outside. We breakfasted in Lares before heading to to the village which was precariously perched on the mountainside bathed in sunlight basking in amazing views of the valley. We were given a very warm welcome by both the headmaster and the kids and did the chocolatada for the primary schools kids as the school was split into into primary and secondary. Following the clowns show and distribution of the presents and the red noses to the primary school kids, and a couple of cheeky secondary school kids we were treated to lunch in one of the classrooms, which when sitting on the mini chairs certainly bought back memories of school!!! The headmaster kindly took us to the main plaza in the town to show us the inca ruins there and explain a bit about the history of the area and it was great to see the kids playing with their presents about the ruins, a great mixture of the old and new!! Our journey back took well over 7.5hours because apparently it is a good idea to only open the road for 2 hours a day, one in the morning and 1 in the evening so Helen and I took the opportunity to do a small hike which was not easy at that altitude combined with running into Llamas it was an interesting experience!!


Chocolatada number 3 with Living heart




Was very much looking forward to this chocolatada as we had been promised that it was nowhere near as far away as the previous one and we had 2 additional helpers in the form of Scott and Meg both from England. We had met Scott the previous day and very quickly had got him involved in sorting out tinger puppets, red noses and t-shirts! What an introduction! As soon as we arrived at the school our van was surrounded by children looking to help us carry the presents and bread down to the school! We distributed the presents and hot chocolate to over 500 children, mothers and teachers and attempted to play a rather energetic game of football with the kids which was really hard at that altitude!! After this we were treated to a tradtional Inka ceremony including pan pipes and blessing Pachamama (at least thats what i think was going on!) as well as a crazy trumpeter who Abel for some reason quickly befriended and serenaded us throughout the clowns show and the games with the kids. Our lunch of quinua soup was really good and we headed back to Ollantaytambo feeling as though the last 3 days with Sacred Heart had gone really well and we had bought a lot of joy to the kids! Would the next one with Carlos be any better? We were about to find out!



Chocolatada with Carlos


In previous days we had been visiting only one village and doing 1 chocolatada per day so it was going to be very interesting to try to do 8 over only 2 days especially considering that each chololatada previously had lasted over 4 hours. Would there be enough hours in the day! Intially a bit disorganized with the bread not turning up until at least 10am despite our 8am plan to leave. Our target villages were those affected by the terrible floods in January and our first stop was the village of Paucarbamba where we were greeted with hugs by about 20 beaming children. A new school building was being built next door higher off the ground so as to avoid a repeat of the floods should they occur again. Whilst Scott and I entertained the kids with our rubbish football skills, Helen and Meg started a game of Jump rope whilst Leander was assisting the hot chocolate. The next 2 villages followed a similar format both at schools with a particularily memorable visit in the village of Ancopachar where Scott donned a Ben 10 outfit, a karate cartoon character,and spent the next 2 hours being hit by the kids whilst 2 Americans who donned santa and dinosaur costumes suffered similar fate. Our final location was at the village of Paucarbamba which was in the shadow of Ollanta, where loads more kids had turned up from the larger town than we had presents for. At this point the heavens opened to compound problems especially with the hot chocolate which due to communications breakdown had not been made and Meg and I handed out the hot chocolate, fruit bread and presents in a reasonably organized fashion!!


Awamaki



The final chocolatada for Mysmallhelp was in partnership with the organisation Awamaki and took place in the remote village of Patacancha. Mysmallhelp took the presents in the Christmas mobile with the faithful driver Ruben and met the Awamaki team up in the stadium where they had hot chocolate which was prepared the night before by a Peruvian chef! The children all lined up for their hot chocolate and panetone and the presents were handed out in an orderly fashion!


In the end, Mysmallhelp provided chocolatadas and presents to over 2000 children, in excess of 1000 adults and one particularily friendly bloke with a trumpet!!! Although long hours and lots of preparing presents )especially blowing up those dam plastic balls seeing the children walking awat from the chocolatadas with big smiles on their faces playing with their presents definitely made the experience worth it!




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