Photo courtesy of Cynthia Manthei
Gavi Azoff
News Reporter
Spanish teachers Cynthia Manthei and Helena Alfonzo will be leading this year’s Peru trip, which hopes to combine community service with Spanish language immersion and culture.
For the past 12 years, the Spanish department at South has run this bi-yearly service trip. The two and a half week long trip was started by Spanish teachers Maureen Maher, Viviana Planine, and Marla Wiener.
Students live with host families in Cusco for the majority of the trip, attending school in the mornings and volunteering in either a hospital or an orphanage in the afternoon.
Though the trip takes a lot of extra time to plan and requires chaperones to be on constant duty, Alfonzo feels that all their efforts are worth it.
“Seeing [the student’s] faces, how [they] are growing, how [they] are taking advantage of those experiences, I think the whole efforts we are doing, Ms. Manthei and I, are worth everything” Alfonzo said.
Reflecting on the last year’s trip, Manthei notes that the trip allows students to learn about another culture different from their own. She agrees with Alfonzo that the experience of being immersed in a new culture helps students grow.
“Students learn an amazing amount of Spanish and culture, and they reflect on themselves and their lives, and they have this contrast. The growth that it brings to people is remarkable, and it doesn’t matter what age you are,” Manthei said.
Throughout the two week home stay in Cusco, students have the experience of working in either an orphanage or a hospital.
Many of the children in the orphanages live there because their parents cannot afford to raise them themselves, or their homes are not a safe environment. Despite the lack of parental support these children receive, they are generally happy with what they have.
For senior Niamh Bayliss, who went on the trip in 2016, working in the orphanage taught her to be more grateful for what she has.
Seeing how grateful the children were for the little positions they had was so eye opening for Bayliss, especially since people in Newton have much more than people in poorer countries like Peru, and tend to take what they have for granted.
“It was really an eye-opening experience…It was kind of at first a little bit of culture shock cause it was just very different. People had a lot less, but they were still very happy, and when we went with the orphanage, that was especially true. So, it kind of just opened my perspective to how much I have and how sometimes I can be a little ungrateful,” Bayliss said.
Senior Catherine O’Brien, who was also on the 2016 trip, found her experience in the orphanage to be similar to how she spends her summers as a camp counselor, and loved playing and singing songs with the children.
Additionally, O’Brien found that her Spanish skills improved while spending time in the orphanage, which fulfilled one of her goals leading into the trip.
“It was definitely a lot of Spanish immersion, which helped my Spanish improve a lot, because they didn’t speak any English,” O’Brien said.
As for the hospital, the pediatric patients generally live there full time, receiving health care that their parents cannot pay for at home.
On the last trip, Alfonzo found that these children were intrigued by her camera and enjoyed using it to make art. She and Manthei then decided to purchase the hospital patients their own camera that they will bring on the upcoming trip.
“I decided that maybe they needed a camera so that they could explore and make art through photography. So, Ms. Manthei and I decided to buy a small simple camera so they could use it and have it in the hospital while they were doing art or recreational activities while they were there as inpatients,” Alfonzo said.
This year’s Peru trip leaves for Lima on Wednesday, February 14, and sophomore Nate Raisner is excited about the entire trip, especially the opportunity to engage with the children and learn more about Peruvian culture.
Traveling to Peru has been a dream of Raisner’s, and being able to do so while giving back to the community is an added bonus for him.
“I wanted to go on this trip because it’s always been my dream to go to Peru…I also really like working with children. So, that’s a plus cause I’ve worked in a preschool for community service, so I really wanted to work in an orphanage with children,” Raisner said.
This service trip to Peru serves as an rewarding experience for participants according to Bayliss, who also says that missing a few weeks of school for the trip is definitely worth the once in a lifetime experience.
“It’s just such an incredible experience, and you miss a little bit of school, but the homework is something you catch up on, and it’s just so worth being able to explore and learn about a new culture and give back,” Bayliss said.
Adding on, O’Brien says that visiting a country different from one’s own can be a culture shock, but it also remains the best way to immerse oneself in another culture and see the world from someone else’s viewpoint.
“I think it’s really important to try and see different cultures and communities, and understand how people’s perspectives can differ from your own, and I think the Peru trip was a really good way to do that,” O’Brien said.
