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CAS Blog
Luciana Pun
Lunahuana
Lunahuana is a small village located in Cañete, Lima, Peru. Each year, Markham College sends P6's to Lunuahuana in an outdoor education trip. This year, I was chosen as a leader which involves helping out with the activities, being incharge of certain groups and most importantly to motivate the young students to participate in all the activites and have fun.
The learning outcomes from this trip will be LO5, LO6 and LO7:
LO5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.
LO6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global signficance.
LO7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions.
Day 1:
On our first day, we had to arrive at school at 5:00am so that we could help out the teachers with various things. We had to take register of the kids, carry boxes to the bus, give out the Helix journals and organize the groups.
When we arrived to Lunahuana, the teachers told us that we had to organize some games so that they kids would get to know each other and most importantly, collaborate and work as a team (LO5).
After lunch, my group had their first activity: Mountain Bike. To be honest, the kids did not want to do it as they thought is was going to be boring and not challenging enough. I think their perspective changed completely when we got to the track.
First of all, the ride was 9km long which is a lot if you consider they are eleven years old. Also there were many sections where they had to cross through sand and rocks.
I think it was very important that I acted as the activity was fun and easy because the kids were influenced by my behaviour and they ended up having a good attitude towards the activity (LO7).
We had some time left so we went to a place where pisco was made. The people in charge took us on a tour of the company and after we tried different types of honey. It was delicious!
When we came back to the hotel, we had camp cook. The idea behind this is to prepare students for the next trips they will do. They were separated into two groups; some had to prepare the noddles and the others were the "Choperoperas". They had to chop different vegetables for the "magic" sauce.
The past two years I had taken cooking classes so I helped the children cook. It was very fun and satisfying to see them learn and have a good time while being healthy.
In the night, we were asked to organize activities for the little kids. We ended up making them play a game where they had to run and find their partner. If they lost, we would punish them by making them dance or declaring their love.
CAS supervisor: Damien Ballantine
Day 2:
On the second day we had Service and Adventure. In the morning, we went to a school where every year Markham College does a service project. (LO6)
This year we were going to build a chicken shed as the poeple in the community did not have an area to place their chickens. When we arrived, we devided into two groups: one built the shed and the other went to socialize with the students of the school.
I decided to be in charge of the second group. First, we introduced ourselfs to the headmaster of the school and he told us which classroom we could go to.
It was hard to choose what activity we wanted to do with them but we decided to teach them english. It was a great idea becuse we could share with them our knowledge and the kids interacted a lot.
For example, Leandro Pestana (one of the boys in my group) taught them shapes and colours. He would draw on the chalkboard, read the words outloud, translate them to spanish and answer questions.
After our english session, we decided to play games such as tag. This really worked to integrate the kids even further because they would talk to each other, plan strategies and they even tried to work as a team.
Before going to the bee hive's located around the block, we had a small break where the kids got to know each other better. They talked about what they did in their normal days, what they liked to do, etc.
This was a very unique experience because Markham students heared what it was like to live in a small village. (LO6)
They were shocked about how diferent their lifes were. I think this was important because they acknowledged how furtunate they are and they finally understood why it is so important to help out to those in need.
Afterwards we went to the bee hives. This was very scary for the children because they would be surrounded by hundreds of bees. When they finally let the bees out, you could see their how frightened they were.
In this moment, Alec and me had to be strong and tell the kids everything was going to be al right. They ended up loving the bees and they even asked to see them again.
In the afternoon, we had adventure. This was going to be a very difficult for the leaders because it involved risky activities and the children were very scared.
First we had to pass a zipline across a huge river. To make the kids feel confident I went through it first. Then I waited for them at the other side and took them pictures.
When we were all together, we walked towards the mountain to do rappell. They would have to go down a 50 mts wall. by their own and they had never done it before.
Again, I had to go first to show the kids nothing would happen to them. I was super scared but I had to turn around and smile so that the children thought it was fun. (LO7)
In the night, the children were so tired we did not do any special activities and just went to sleep straight away.
Day 3:
The third day we wqent to Incahuasi. We had heared fro mthe other leaders that this activity was very difficult as the kids got bored easily. We took this in considerations so we decided to give the winning team five toffes each so that they would be motivated.
The first thing we did was a tour around the site. Avelardo (the guide), showed us different places like the houses of the nobes, the storage, etc. The boys became tired quickly and they where begging to go but then we told them that we where going to do a treasure hunt.
They ran around and looked for questions and they had to answer them to get to the next. The team with more points would win. My job was to supervise that they stayed in the tracks and did not go into any of the prohibited sites. This was important because the local people had just repaired the zone and we had to help maintain it.
After Incahuasi, we went to a plaza where we waited for the rafting to begin. Meanwhile, we separated into groups and acted out what we learned in Incahuasi.
One of the groups did a rap which turned out to be awsome as they included facts Avelardo had said. Afterwards, we had free time where Alec and I decided to organize games. We made mixed teams which helped to continue to integrate the sexes.
Just before beginning the rafting, a big battle took place. Everyone was fighting about who would go in the front because they all wanted to get wet. Fortunately, we would do the rafting twice so everyone calmed down.
In the first go, they learned how to paddle, spin the boat, and other basic things. There were sections were we would go very fast and the boys would get very excited. It was fun to see them like that because you see how they are learning new things and it reminded me of when I had that age. Also it reminded me of how scared I felt and this helped me relate with them and I knew how to help.
At the end of the first time, we practices how to paddle in a synchronized way. All the guys were super hyped as the next time it was going to be a competition.
When we arrived to the start, we ran to the boat so that we could be the first to get in and have an advantage over the others. When we starte our boat only had a liitle advantage but at the end we would have a lot.
I am not exagerting when I say we did not stop counting, paddling and screaming for all the journey. We decided to win the competition and the guys put all their effort into it. We got extremely wet because each time there was a rock, they would paddle even faster so that we would bump into it.
At night we had the traditional party. Our job was to make the children get enthused and put the music. At the start, we (the leaders) were the only ones dancing so we began to dance with the children so that they would get involved. Slowly, the boys and girls ended up dancing together and having a good time, which made the party better than what we had expected.
Day 4:
The last day we had escapade. This activity was very similar to adventure but the zipline in this one was much longer and the rapel was smaller.
We walked to the zipline area where we had to put on our gear. Alec and me had to help t he kids get them on perfectly because if not, there was the possibility the gear would loosen and they would fall.
Again, I had to go first so that the kids would feel secure. When half of my group arrived, we started the fifteen minute walk to the rapell site.
This was a very tiring walk for my group because we were under the hot sun and we had to walk over rocks and dirt.
They were very excited when we got there because the rapell was very high and it looked difficult. This time I did not do the activity because there was not enough time for everyone.
After everyone had a go, we walked back to the zipline and went back to the camp. We helped the kids do their bags and find anything that was missing.
Then we had lunch, said goodbye to everyone from Lunahuana and got into the bus. The ride back to Lima was fun because it was our last moments together. I was really sad because I had built a bond with my group and I was used to be with them all day.
LO5: we had to work together because we had to make sure that the kids did not injure themselves and we had to keep them busy.
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LO6: the children got to see how people can live in different realities and we helped poorer people in building a small farm in their school so that they can have something to eat.
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LO7: I had to be careful in the way I spoke and behaved because I was a role model for the children so I had to set an example.
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