An unforgettable experience

Hey Guys,

So I arrived home safely on Saturday morning. Sorry I stopped updating you guys during the last half of my stay, things got busy and I decided to just enjoy the experience and update you when I returned home. I can also add photos now as I have am writing on my laptop.

So my time in Lobitos went by in a blur! I had so much fun, it was an unforgettable experience! I spent the rest of my stay teaching in the schools, cementing another floor, gardening, painting and surfing. I didn’t surf every day as there were a few occasions when it got too big for me, but when it was small I loved it! I did have a bit of a scare on my last surf where I got stuck in the shallow where the waves were breaking. I got crunched and copped a fin to the thigh, so I was a bit shaken up after that. But my surf previously had been awesome! The waves are all left handers, so if you are goofy footed you should definitely head to Lobitos! I am a natural so I stuggeled a bit at first.When I finally managed to ride the wall of a wave for a fairly long way I was pretty stoked!

As for teaching in the school, on my second week they managed to keep the strikes to a minimum. There was a public holiday on Monday, but other then that I got to attend most classes. I really enjoyed teaching in both environmental class and English! To the kids I was Teacher Mecha, which was pretty surreal. It is now strange to return to Australia as a student!

The entire High School lined up to sing the anthem after being donated 5 computers for the school.

We also spent the week preparing the garden so that the primary school could start planting things during environmental class, and learn about their native plants through a hands on experience. We did this by preparing a sun shade and clearing the ground underneath it. We also planted nine trees along the boundary of the Waves land. I think I planted about 15 trees in Lobitos, so I feel like I counter balanced the emissions from my plane flight there and back. Waves have two gardens. One they are wanting to become a community garden, and that is the land in which we built the sun shade. The other one is a small vegie patch outside the house. The aim of this is to show the locals through example how to grow fruit and vegies. It was nice to see a few plants starting to be looked after in front of the locals houses across the street!

The Vegie patch outside the Waves house. During my stay I planted a few strawberry plants and a lime tree in it.

building the sun shelter. Girl Power!

On the 13th of October we also hosted a skate competition. The aim of the event was to fundraise money that would go towards the community garden, as well as giving the local children the chance to compete and win some cool prizes. The prizes were skate decks and head phones.In the end only 8 people competed in the competition which was rather disappointing as we were expecting a large number of competitors.  Despite this, the competition was still pretty cool! There was about 70 people who turned up throughout the whole night to check things out. We had a screen and projector playing surf movies in the background with music throughout the whole night, which added a cool feel to the place. We also sold quite a few hamburgers and raised money from that. The kids seemed to love it, and it was evident how much they looked up to the older skaters and tried to mimic them. All in all, it was a good learning experience for waves and a lot of fun!

The Skate ramp! Here in Australia it would be scorned, but they all loved it!

On top of the skate comp we also painted the bathrooms in the waves house, and cemented another local family’s floor.  By the end of my stay I had managed to have a few successful trips to the shop, (although if there was a big list I wrote the order on my hand :P). The team were so much fun and I am already missing them and Lobitos greatly! Although I must admit that I am enjoying access to warm water, and the absence of wind, as Lobitos was like living in a wind tunnel.

Cementing a local family’s floor. We had to mix the cement ourselves. This was towards the end when most of the cement had been used up in the pile. Cement mixers are now beautiful machines in my eyes!

Unfortunately that is all I have time for. If you would like to hear more about my trip and see more photos come to my year 12 project talk!

Posted in: News

Tags: Lobitos, Lobitos Surf, micro loans, Surf lobitos, volunteering peru

About the author: WAVES Volunteer

WAVES is only possible because of volunteers who come from all walks of life. Here, they share experiences and perspective from their time as volunteers.

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