Day 4: Boarding School Exchange and 1st Performance

Saturday morning we had breakfast at the hostel. So far, the food has been fairly familiar. The kids can hardly wait to try cuy (guinea pig) and alpaca. We headed to the Albergue Ceras Calpanchis cultural exchange. This facility is basically a boarding house for children who live up in the mountains where there are no schools. They live there during the week to go to school, and usually travel home on the weekends. When we asked different kids where they lived, they would say things like, “I live close. It only takes me two and a half hours to walk here.” The farthest student has to travel eight hours by bus to get there.

We played games with the kids. Lots of soccer, volleyball, jump rope and dancing.

Then we set up teams for relays. The language barrier was never a problem. Everyone was having a great time. After the games, our kids put on a small performance for the students. When they were done, the audience kept chanting “otra!” or “other!” When our kids were done, the Peruvian kids sang a song for us. Then we all went to the cosina for lunch together. We invited the kids to come to the ICPNA Performance that night and we said good-bye.

In a parallel universe during most of the exchange Jim Stark and Matt Coombs went hunting for an 8 foot pole for Rachel's solo, "My Finest Suit". We ended up finding a small hardware store that was about 20 feet wide and 50 feet long. We had to explain what we needed, then pay for it, then give the order slip with proof of payent to a guy who would then fill our order. We went from there to a pharmacy to purchase drugs to kill parasites contracted from eating or drinking the wrong thing. One of our performers has been dealing with a parasite since her last PGY tour and it was really affecting her ability to enjoy the tour. Jim served his LDS mission in Peru and knew the medical profession here dealt with these types of pests every day. After purchasing the drugs to give to the performer later (of course after also checking with the performers parents), we headed to the theater to set up tech for the first time after landing on foreign soil.

Things were going smoothly, until we started dealing with power. Everything was set up, taped down, and Jim and I started to plug things in and turn things on. You know where this is headed right? Well the first mistake I made in an auditorium with low light was that I plugged a fused power conditioner (glorified power strip) into a power converter that had both 110 and 220 outlets. Guess which ones I used? Bingo, the 220 which for the uninitiated is 2 times more power than touchy tech equipment likes to receive. Well that tripped the power conditioner breaker but did not blow the fuse. I did the same thing in the Phillipines 2 years ago, and because I did not know what I was doing even more then, I paid a guy $20 to "fix" the power conditioner when all he porbably did was replace a $1 fuse.

Round 2 was to plug into the right power converter box plug. Well this made things work for about 2 minutes until the power we were drawing to run an ampliflier, 9 wireless mics, a CD player, a mixer board and my computer essentially vaporized the fuse in the power coverter box. When we looked at the fuse to see if that was indeed the what happened, we couldn't see a burnt wire as it was splattered on glass tube of the fuse.

Tic Toc, Tic Toc. The time Kieri and the kids and the rest of the chaperones were going to arrive was soon approaching. Jim's language skills and ability to warm up to the Peruvian people immediately had already proved invaluable today, and in this situation, I couldn't have solved these rolling issues without him.

Round 3 involved using converters I had brought which claimed to convert power at the levels we needed. Well Radio Shack, your estimates were a little off. Fuse #3 blew. Luckily we had purchased a few extras.

Round 4, I pulled out a big old heavy converter that I had thrown in "just in case". It worked and we have been using it ever since. During all of this the group had had a few hours to relax and get ready for our big show that night. I am glad someone did.

Our first performance was set up to be at the ICPNA, which is the most prestigious English school in Peru. The local Lion’s Club organized the performance as a fundraiser for the Albegue Ceras Calpanchis.

Our first show went great! The kids did feel the affects of the high altitude. A box dinner was served because our schedule didn’t allow a normal sit down meal –essentially pasta with a pesto sauce. The local Lion’s Club sponsored the performance and provided us with a great auditorium, advertising, help setting up and oxygen - yes oxygen. Nurse Erin put a few of them on oxygen back stage. A few songs such as Kasha’s "Crazy" solo, Reed’s "Aladdin" solo, and Rachel’s “Strongest Suit” highlighted how hard our performers were trying to catch their breath and still belt out their numbers. The audience understood and even cheered them on. The theater was beautiful, but the stage was small and we didn’t have the best lighting. But the kids just dealt with it, and the audience loved them. After the show and requested pictures for the newspaper were taken, it was time to clean up and get the kids to bed for a few hours of sleep before their 3:30am wake up call for Machu Picchu.