Labor Day, Peru Style

Unfortunately, child labor exist here. I don't want to get into the sadness of that, but I do want to recognize the kids who that affects. There is a wonderful group for those kids at my high school that one of the English teachers here created a few years ago. He is a great advisor for them and is very passionate about working with this group. They are called the NATs, the Niños y Adolescentes Trabajadores. In English, Child and Teen Laborers. This is a really cool and active group that holds a lot of awesome activities and does a lot to advocate for children and the areas of Ascope with higher poverty rates. Anyway, since there was no school that day for the holiday, and because this is a holiday for workers, they got together on Labor Day for a full day of fun and activities to recognize the kids and teens for all they do. The group asked me to prepare some fun things for them to do that day. Things that they could do to "enjoy their youth and take advantage of their special day," in the words of their advisor. What's more fun than water balloons, right? 

Here you have some shots of the afternoon, before my camera was made victim to a water balloon explosion...don't worry, it's back up and running after the battery spent a couple of days in a bag of rice :) Crisis averted. 

Posters around the school for the big day. 

NATs group in their club t-shirts for the year. 

Water balloon volleyball! 

Man down. 

Sidenote, that kid in the purple is a host-fam relative, so he was up until 5am with me and the fam the night before. It was like a silent fight for both of us to not appear tired during this event. lol. 

Valient effort, but the boys took the prize. 

This is why you shouldn't keep your camera in your pocket while carrying water balloons. 

Poor choice. 

Sidenote: I realize that I was just talking about our water shortages last month, and now I'm talking about throwing water around and that might be weird. I justify it with this- A- The kids get so hot in the desert that they throw water on each other everyday anyway (flirting is universal and daily teenage water fights irritate the hell out of me) and B-I went Tuesday to Sunday with no showers the week before this event, so the water I didn't use then can be counted as the water I used for the balloons ;)