Just a thought

Ok so it’s really time I got another blog up! Not sure how long it’s been but it’s been more than 2 weeks for sure!

So last time I wrote I had just got back from Bolivia and was settling into a new routine of work. Well fair to say I'm settled now and the work is crazy! We’re back to the 12-14 hour days which was a bit of a shock to the system after having taken 2 weeks off. We’re up early every morning and we take the babies in casa 5 to therapy and stimulation for 4 hours. We then come back and help get them all fed then washed and sometimes put down for a nap. In the evening we are still continuing with the Self-esteem classes which are really popular with the kids. They ask every week without fail if it’s on and what we’re doing this week. It’s really great they enjoy it so much as we started it up not quite knowing what to expect or how they would react. Lou and I have also started going to the gym in our spare time. Eating rice everyday has taken its toll on us and we’re determined to get fit and healthy for going home and for the long trek up Machu Picchu in 6 weeks’ time!

So now to some of the stuff that’s been happening in the aldea. Sheyla recently had her 15th birthday which meant a huge fiesta. People just love to party here! The army cadets showed up and once again the aldea boys showed them who the better dancers were. If anyone didn’t read my first blog then I’ll explain again. 1th birthdays here are the equivalent of a sweet 16 or an 18^th birthday. Although you’re not legally allowed to do anything different it’s still “the big birthday”. A group from the local army cadets show up and help the girl make her entrance in style then loads of speeches and toasts are made by family, friends and people of importance in the girls’ life. Then (at least in the aldea) the birthday girl and her friends do a dance routine or two for everyone. The secretary Annie choreographed one which was really impressive. She had all the youth up dancing some really great moves in perfect sync. Then as with any party here everyone dances until the early hours of the morning. Definitely going to miss aldea parties when I’m gone, so we’ll make sure our despedida is a good one!

It’s not unusual for kids to come into the aldea or even to leave but recently I’ve been thinking more and more about it. On Sunday we had 2 new arrivals, Josue (4) and Carlos (2). These 2 boys came in after having been abandoned on the street. I don’t know how long for but judging by the state of them it had been a while. They were filthy and little Carlos didn’t have any shoes. Josue said that their mum didn’t have money to look after them. Today one of the school age boys is leaving to go back to his family. He’s only been here 10 months and I’m not sure of his family situation. He’s a sweet boy and says he wants to go back home but I can’t help but feel worried for what’s next for him. Yesterday whilst in a moto taxi with Louise, I spotted a boy who had left the aldea a few months back. He left the aldea to move back with his family as in some way their situation had changed. He was on the street, washing car windscreens at the traffic lights. I felt sad at seeing him like this. For all I know he’s happy but at the same time he was happy in the aldea, where he had a house, food, an education and opportunities. Now he’s spending his time washing windscreens. Another case is of Pancho and Meche. They were the 2 toddlers I wrote a blog about a few months back when they were taken home. I personally haven’t seen them since however 2 of the Tias have on separate occasions come across them in the hospital and they both said the same thing, they look thin, dirty and sad. I’m not saying they aren’t being looked after or loved, but I know that when they left they went back to a family who didn’t have any money to buy necessities. The aldea is such an amazing place and I can’t say that enough. The kids here are safe and have enough food, clothing and toys. They all have an education and even get extracurricular activities such as baking classes and cosmetology. The kids who can’t read or write are all learning how to.  Josue and Carlos both now have shoes and Josue is going to school! For him, that probably wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been brought into the aldea. Seeing that boy yesterday made my heart sink. He’s not yet old enough to get a job or a house of his own. He left the aldea when he was young and now he’s back to what he was possibly doing before he came here. I always thought the aldea was amazing but now more so than ever. The children that can’t fend for themselves are given what they need to live for free. Not only that they are given role models, safety and a family. It’s hard to look at some of the kids and wonder what they’ll be doing in 10 years’ time because the truth is for a lot of them if they leave the aldea before their 18 and finished their education, they’ll be back to square 1.

So, just a short paragraph at the end about little Jessica. Basically she’s doing amazingly. She’s continuing with her physical therapy and is also now getting speech therapy. She’s almost walking although still needs a finger to hold on to for balance but she’s nearly there! Every now and then she’ll take a few solo steps between people but when she notices people praising her she turns into a show off and starts laughing and won’t do it again. She also has so many words now. She likes to mimic what other people say though. One day a couple of weeks back I was trying to feed Emiliano which is a tough job trying to get him to eat as he never wants to. Anyway I was telling him that he needed to eat when I heard a loud shout from Jessie. She was yelling “COMER! COMER! (EAT! EAT!)” at Emiliano from her own high chair. It was so funny! She just likes to tell people what to do. She’s a bossy little madam sometimes. One of the things I love most is playing with her in the evenings when all the other kids have been put to bed. She gets so hyper and is such fun to be around. I often have a sore tummy laughing so much at Jessie. She’s so big now and recently the news came that when she is able to walk alone she will be moving back to the aldea in Huarmaca to be closer to her mum.

Ok so I think that’s about all for now!

Bye

As seen on Top Gear

Blog time I think!

So this blog isn’t about the aldea, is about my recent travels to the beautiful country of Bolivia! We recently took 2 weeks out of work as we needed to cross a border to renew our visas and saw the opportunity to take a holiday while we were there. 

The journey there was incredibly eventful. We first had to get to Lima which in a bus took 13 hours, however we broke this up by making a brief stop in the city of Trujillo to stretch our legs and save some money on a direct bus. Trujillo is a lovely city although sadly we only saw a very small part of it as Louise tripped and fell into a fountain 10 minutes after arriving and badly sprained her ankle and cut her leg. We ended up spending all our time in Trujillo with the local police officers who were very helpful and insisted on staying with us until Louise was ready to hobble off to catch the bus. Her ankle stayed swollen and bruised the entire 2 weeks of our trip which sucked but she soldiered on. The next bus we took was to Lima which was overnight. We arrived at around 5 am and had arranged to meet 4 other volunteers in Miraflores at around 9am so hopped in a taxi hoping to find somewhere open for a coffee whilst we waited. We arrived at parque Kennedy and waited a short while for the MacDonald’s to open (the only thing open at that time) so we could grab some coffee and sit with our rucksacks. At about 8 we realised that it would be possible to catch a bus to La Paz at 9am which would give us an extra day in Bolivia and 1 day less in Lima so we flagged down a taxi and got in.

 Everything seemed fine at first, there was a lot of traffic as it was rush hour and we didn’t seem to be getting there very quickly so the driver turned off onto one of the less busy streets and explained this would be quicker as there was less traffic. He continued to go into smaller and smaller streets, going deeper into the poorest areas of Lima. We asked if he knew where the bus terminal was and his answer was “yes it’s just round this corner”. We knew fine well it wasn’t round the corner so just assumed he didn’t know where it was so got his to ask directions. The man he asked told him it was miles back the way we came and when we asked the driver where we were going he again said “it’s just round this corner” that’s when we started to feel uneasy. At one point he crashed the car into a lamppost down one of the backstreets; he quickly backed up and drove on. When he reached another spot where there were less people he got out, took a good look at the car and got back in. By this time we had been in the taxi for an hour and a half and had missed any chance of catching the bus anyway. Louise said to him “look sir, the bus has gone, we’ve been here an hour and a half and we’re lost, we want to get out so we can get another taxi’ That’s when he started speaking in English,  he said “ok, I’m sorry, I want your money, your documents, your passports and everything” it took a minute for me to register what he had said and what was going on and my mind blacked out for a few seconds altogether. It was only when Lou, who was sitting in the front, started crying that I even realised he was pointing a gun at us! I took all the money that I had on me out and threw it at him, Louise did the same, shaking her purse out and handing him all the money we had. He then started yelling at us in English “get down, get down” By this point, Louise was crying uncontrollably and I felt seriously sick and generally terrified. I didn’t know what he was trying to say so I was shouting at him too “what do you mean, get down or get out?! Get down or get out?!” With my yelling and Louise having a minor panic attack in the car he freaked out a little, pushed open my door and told us to get out. For some reason I grabbed my rucksack from the back and Louise managed to grab hers too, I also said “thank you” to him but I’m not sure why. He drove off leaving us safe with all our stuff minus 400 sol! Thankfully I had all the passports, bank cards, documents and important things in a money belt under all my clothes so he didn’t know I had them and fortunately got away with everything. As Louise was still hobbling from Trujillo I helped he across the street where a bunch of the locals helped us out. They gave Louise stuff to drink as she kept vomiting up water and calmed her down whilst I phoned the other volunteers and our desk officer. The local people were so kind and helpful to us which was especially good as our nerves were in bits. There was even a guy who spoke good English who turned up and helped us. He accompanied us to the local police station and translated all the bits we couldn’t say (fair to say our English wasn’t very good at this point let alone our Spanish). I then had to go and identify the place where the car had crashed whilst Louise stayed in the station. The locals again were very keen to help, I had originally thought the car was white but they told us it was grey which obviously was going to be a better lead than what my confused memory was saying to them.  They also told the police what they had seen of the man and what kind of car it was, all stuff that wasn’t quite clear to me at this point. After we had given all our details to the local police force we were driven to the tourism police offices where we spent hours giving full statements and getting questioned. We were absolutely shattered by the end of the day and thankfully the director of the project in lima let us stay 2 nights with the other  Project Trust girls to chill out and prepare for the next big event…the 30 hour bus to La Paz.

The bus to La Paz thankfully went really smoothly. We watched movies and slept most of the time so it passed fairly quickly. The first night in La Paz was spent with the Bolivia volunteers. It was Jacks birthday so we went to their house for drinks then hit the town. It was really good seeing them again as the last time we saw them all was on training! We spent the next 2 days in La Paz, sightseeing and generally chilling out. We also ate our first curry in 9 months at the “world’s highest curry house” which was awesome! After La Paz we headed to the capital city of Sucre. Whilst there we went to an amazing market in Tarabuco where I bought a ridiculous amount of Alpaca jumpers and socks, ate some local street food and basically just did the whole gringo thing. The day we left Sucre we spent at “Cretaceous Park”. Basically 30 years ago a cement company unearthed a wall covered in more than 5000 dinosaur footprints which is apparently the most found in the world. There’s a museum there now with skeletons and models of the dinosaurs which have been made to be exactly as the dinosaurs would have been. For a dinosaur freak like me it was pretty cool and I really enjoyed it! Next we headed to the city of Potosi which I’ve been told is the world’s highest city (?). Sadly the only thing there really is to do in Potosi is visit the mine which neither myself nor Louise were keen on as small spaces just don’t do it for us. However we heard that it was an amazing place and an amazing experience. In Potosi we were feeling a little homesick. The experience in Lima was still fresh in our minds and we had since had another close encounter with a taxi on our way to the hostel in Potosi so we decided to take it easy for a couple of nights. We made spag bol, bought 9 movies for 50p on the street (totally illegal but sooo cheap!) and spent a day lounging about, watching movies, drinking tea and feeling like we were at home again! Sounds like a bit of a waste of a day but we haven’t felt so relaxed in a long time! That evening was spent playing cards with our dorm mates, drinking something vile we called “Raz” and building a fort out of our bunk beds (yes I think we had probably drank too much “Raz”).  After Potosi came the big trip. Bolivia’s claim to fame. The Salar De Uyuni. 

We arrived in Uyuni at 5pm on the Wednesday and spent 1 night in the backpacker’s hostel there. We’d booked a spot on a tour leaving the next morning with the Bolivian Project Trust in country reps, who also happen to run Salar de Uyuni trips! There was a group of 6 of us altogether. Myself, Louise, Rudy from New Zealand, Alan from Hong Kong and Clement and Basilia from France. It was a pretty awesome group; we all got along really well and had some great banter. We spent 3 days touring round the area of the Salar. The first day we visited the Salt flats themselves along with the Train cemetery, salt hotel, salt museum and Los ojos del Salar. The Salt flats are like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It’s just white as far as the eye can see and I’m guessing further. The sky was so clear that it contrasted amazingly with the salt. It was amazing fun to take photos on too! We got hold of a plastic toy dinosaur and got some great shots with that along with some cool jumping photos and general silliness. In the evening we sat playing cards and drinking vino with the group. We managed to get a 15 person game of presidents going which was great fun! The next day was pretty busy. We visited lots of volcanic rock formations, mineral mountains and loads of stunning lagoons including Laguna Colorada; a lagoon which is made bright red by algae and microscopic organisms. We also saw a surprising amount of wildlife like wild chinchillas which were adorable, llamas, alpacas and in the lagoons were huge amounts of “Sexy Flamingos” as our guide liked to call them. I was surprised to see flamingos in such a cold climate but apparently their really keen on the algae in the lagoons so they stay there most of the year then fly to Chile. The 3^rd and final day was a long one. We got up at 5am and headed to the volcanic geysers. It was Baltic cold despite the fact the ground was spitting out 190DC air! People had warned me it would be cold but I didn’t realise how bad it would be. When we got to the hot springs I could even face the 10 second freezing cold walk from the changing rooms to the hot water, neither could anyone else in our group so we all passed on the chance of our first wash in 3 days! The final stop on the tour was “Laguna Verde” and “Volcan Lincancabur”. We then dropped Alan off at the border to Chile so he could continue on from there whilst the rest of us headed for the long journey back to Uyuni. Back in Uyuni Lou and I made the decision just to go straight home to Piura in the quickest time possible. We hopped on the bus to La Paz from Uyuni, and then straight on a bus from La Paz to Lima (another 30 hour trip) then after 3 hours in Lima, got straight on a bus to Piura. It was as quick as we could possibly make it although it still took us a total of 58 hours on a bus… 

So that’s the tales from Bolivia! I’ve been home in the Aldea for just over a week now and found settling back in far easier this time round after travels. Not much has changed in the Aldea, however in my town of Piura there has been a significant change. On which has made my life here very different...the supermarkets are finally selling bacon! In total, I only have around 9 weeks left here which is pretty scary as I’m sure I’ve said before the time is flying by. In 3 months’ time I’ll be home with my family and sleeping in my own bed and starting yet another chapter of my life. It’s crazy to think that it’s almost been a year! 

Anyway, Ill close up for now. Watch this space!

BYEE

My Heart is Dying. Why? I dont have a pencil....

Hola! 

So the title is actually something one of the 6 year olds said to us the other day.  Fair to say he was being a little over dramatic.

Got a few things to write about today as it’s been a while since I posted last.

Louise and I have at long last got a finalised copy of our new post summer timetable! It took forever but I’m just glad we have it now. It’s looking pretty good too. A lot of the summer activities are being carried on for the children who don’t go to school for a full day. These include the Baking class, cosmetology class and the art class. Although we aren’t needed at these classes we like to go along as it’s a really good way to bond with the kids and get some good banter going. Another thing that’s being kept on the timetable is swimming! It means giving up our Saturday afternoons but we don’t really mind as swimming was our favourite summer class. One downside to the new timetable is the length of days we work. We’re up every day at 7.30 and don’t finish the day until 8pm nearly every day. It’s a lot of work but we’re busy with things we enjoy and activities we want to be doing with the kids so the 12 hour days aren’t a problem. Fingers crossed I’m still saying that in a months’ time!

A big part of our new timetable is the Self-esteem classes we take twice a week. We’ve joined up with a local Peace Corps Volunteer, who was interested in creating a project within the aldea, to start up self-esteem classes for both the primary school kids and the older kids. From what we know schools here aren’t big on teaching things like self-esteem, respect and individuality so we thought it would be a great to do it with the children here. It’s really important that the kids learn to appreciate themselves and respect others which can be difficult especially as so many of them have had difficult pasts and a lot of problems to deal with. So far we’ve had great feedback from all the kids that came. The younger children don’t understand it as well as the older kids but they still enjoy it as it’s mostly all fun stuff for them. The first classes were pretty easy going for everyone. We did activities like getting the kids to write nice things about their friends on their backs and make their own Coat of Arms. Hopefully as the classes go on we’ll be able to take it a little more seriously but still keep it fun…if that makes sense. Currently we’re taking the classes alone as Christina is away on her holidays but when she gets back we’ll have all 3 of us to keep control of the 30 odd teenagers that turn up! The hope is that we can continue this class until we leave at the end of June when Christina will be left to take it alone or with the next volunteers. 

Other big news is the change about of the Tias and some of the kids. We weren’t really expecting it and it pretty much came out of the blue, well for us at least. On Sunday the 31^st all but 3 of the mama Tias left their houses to be mamas in new houses. It’s a pretty big change for everyone as the kids now have to get used to new rules and their new Tia. This has been easier for some than others. One example is Emiliano in casa 5 who hasn’t stopped crying for the Tia this whole week! The poor boy has worn his voice out by crying continuously through the day and night. He has some attachment issues which is understandable as Tia Isabel is the only Tia he can remember having, it’s like he’s had his mum taken away from him. The crying is hard to put up with and not just for us. We came into casa 5 the other morning to be greeted by a very sad David. We asked why he was sad and he told us it was because he had sore ears from Emiliano’s crying. He’s only 3 and although it was very cute it was sad to see him so depressed and tired. This is a good example of why the Tias change though. Not just for a change of scenery but for the benefit of the children. It may seem silly to disrupt the routines of the kids but it’s so important that neither the Tias nor the children get too attached to each other. The kids here can leave with barely any warning so it would be distressing for them to be taken away from someone their really attached to. There are a few exceptions though. The Tias who work with the severely disabled kids have stayed put. I’m guessing this is because it wouldn’t be wise to change them for the sake of the kids and because their used to the routines of the kids that need extra attention and help. There have been changes with a few of the children too. I’m not sure why some of them moved casas but for the others it’s because they need to move on to a casa more suitable for their age group. 

The next few weeks are going to be fairly busy for us. We have a visit from our UK desk officer Samina early next week, my first birthday away from home is also coming up and mid-April we’re heading for a 2 week break in Bolivia to visit other volunteers and renew our passport visas. I’m pretty excited to be out seeing more of the world again. Another thing I should maybe mention is the length of time I have left here. In total there are only 18 weeks left in South America for me and 10 left in the aldea! It may seem like a while but the days are moving so fast now that it’ll fly past and I’ll barely notice. It’s sad to be counting down such a short time but I’m going make the most of it whilst I can. 

Until next time!

X

8 months in! Crazy huh?

Hey,

I know it’s a little late but better that than never eh?

The 1^st of March was a really busy day. It was our Directors birthday so a lot of the staff were busy making preparations for the big party in the evening. The kids were in the bakery making bread and biscuits and the Tias were cooking enormous pots of food for the meal. During the day I went to the doctors with baby Andrea as she had a triple whammy, tummy,  ear and throat infection and understandably wasn’t eating. When I got back there was another new baby in casa 5! He was literally left on the doorsteps of the aldea for someone to find. He had no name, apparently no family and nothing with him but the clothes he was wearing. However he was absolutely gorgeous! Always smiling and wanting attention. As it was the director’s birthday it was decided that he would be called baby Angel after the boss. We were told that he would only be here until they figured out a little more about him and where else they could put him and as expected, by the next evening he was gone. He was sent to another aldea about an hour away from Piura. I’m not sure why but I have a feeling it’s so no one can turn up and just decide they want him back even though they already abandoned him. Anyway, the director’s birthday party was a great night. It was the least Aldea-ish party we’ve ever had! The night started with cocktails and dinner, followed by speeches and more cocktails, and then there was the all-important dancing along with shots of vodka (!), a jester and lots of conga lines. As the night wore on the vodka was put away and the beer came out! It was an amazing (all staff as I should probably add here) night. Lou and I got plenty of compliments on our perfectly in time Macarena (we were the only ones doing it)! It was good to see that the people we work with like to party ;)

A little someone I haven’t written about in a while is the one and only Jessie! She’s come on leaps and bounds in the past few weeks, especially in terms of her posture and speech. She can say loads of new words and make new sounds. She’s recently started sorting like a pig which before she couldn’t do, it’s unbelievably cute (like most of the things she does). It doesn’t sound that impressive but for Jessie and her Tia, Paquita; it’s a huge step and shows how much she’s learning and developing. Another thing that’s improved a lot is her posture and strength. Paquita recently pulled us aside the other day to watch Jessie haul herself around on the stage in the auditorium. It was hilariously funny but again is a perfect example of how much stronger she’s got. She can also pull herself up from a lying down position onto her knees and kneel in an upright position as well as crawl a little. I know I say it a lot but it’s amazing what her therapy has done for her and obviously the help of Paquita. Something I haven’t mentioned yet is the fact that Jessie no longer lives with us. During our Christmas break Paquita moved out to a different casa with Jessie as she was needed elsewhere. We still visit her every day to play and catch up with Paquita. However being in a new casa has meant there’s more than triple the attention for Jessie and she’s turned into a little madam! She gets jealous when people hug each other when she’s around and she gets stroppy when she’s not the centre of attention and yells “bad, bad!” at everyone. It’s very funny and Paquita often winds her up by getting either myself, Louise or one of the other children to sit on her knee.

So that was just a short blog this time. There hasn’t been a lot more to tell. The kids are back at school and we’re enjoying being able to just hang out and help in the classes until our final timetables are out. A lot of the summer projects have continued for the kids who enjoy doing them in the evenings and for the kids who don’t go to school which is good as they are still learning more practical skills. 12 of the older kids were given scholarships to a learning academy where they will learn more of these skills, earn a diploma and hopefully when they leave here, get into university or get a job. That’s the idea of the program anyway which is great as it means that some of these kids will be able to fend for themselves once they’re out of here.  

Right I’ll stop now.

Chau x

End of the Summer Holidays

Hola!

So as of today it’s the end of the summer holidays. The kids are back to school and their normal routines and classes and Louise and I are going to be starting a new timetable. Sadly this means no more trips to the pool for a while which is disappointing as we were enjoying them a lot! To mark the end of the holidays the aldea had a sort of show and tell event. It was a pretty big deal. The regional president’s wife (who does quite a bit of work with the aldea) came along with lots of the most influential ladies in Piura. There were a lot of speeches, awards given out to some of the kids and singing.  All the teachers of the different classes and activities came and set up tables with what the kids have made and learned about over the past 2 months and some even did demonstrations including Lou and I who had taught some of the youngest girls a bit of “our God is a great big God” in english. My favourite was the primary school teacher, who taught 3 of the kids how to read and write. It’s even more special as they were 3 teenagers who never learned when they were young. Listening to Anjelica, Alfredo and Jhon read a few words of a paragraph made everyone smile and they got a huge applause! Hopefully they can continue to improve with help from people around them. It’s such a necessary skill and it still amazes me that there are people out there that have never learned to do it. The end of the event was marked with the “official opening” of the panaderia (bakery)! Prayers were said around the building and even more speeches were made. The president’s wife then sprinkled water around with some herb leafs and to finish off smashed a jug of “chicha” over the entrance and cut the ribbon. The panaderia has been in use some weeks now but never for more than just baking a few cupcakes or practicing how to make a couple of bread rolls. However today the kids had been up since the early hours baking biscuits, bread, panetone and cakes for the party.  4 of them came round in adorable chef outfits and handed out samples. I was very impressed! The cakes were awesome and they made garlic pizza bread which me and Lou loved. We liked it so much we snuck in when everyone was out mingling and nabbed some from the racks for dinner!

A new girl came to the aldea the other day. She’s called Michelle and is 1 and a half years old. The first day she was here she spent the whole day and whole night crying at the top of her lungs and the next day was pretty much the same. Tia Anjelica and I took her to the hospital as she was sick with a stomach infection when she came in. Anjelica was knackered as Michelle had been crying the entire night and hadn’t slept at all so she handed her to me and I took her happily to give the Tia a break. It didn’t take long for me to realise why the Tia hadn’t slept at all and was so tired. Every single time I sat down Michelle screamed and nipped my face so I had to stand up and rock her back and forth just to get her to quieten down a little as there were very little babies sleeping in the waiting room. However what I haven’t mentioned is that she’s 17+ kilos and can’t walk yet despite being 1 and a half. So basically I’m carrying a very big, screaming baby round whilst waiting for the doctor to turn up. He ended up being 3 hours late and I now have guns like Arnold scwartznegger in the terminator. I really feel for the Tias when new kids come in as it must be so stressful trying to help them adapt to new faces, sight and sounds. What’s even more difficult in Michelle’s case is that she has been breast fed all her life so won’t take any bottles or food and as she’s sick she’s becoming dehydrated which is pretty worrying. Although we have our work cut out over the next wee while I’m sure she’ll soon become used to us and start making some progress with walking and eating.

Last week we were meant to be heading to Carnaval in Cajamarca but couldn’t as recently both our bank cards were sucked into ATMs, leaving us moneyless till replacement ones are sent out. However the local town of Catacaos has its own month long carnival celebrations so Me, Lou and our friend Christina headed along together on the first day to check it out. I’m not sure what the theme was, but there was a huge parade with big floats all covered in silver decorations, girls in spangly outfits and lots of dancing! It was raining but it was kind of welcome rain as it was so warm out that night. At the end of the evening we were walking back to the car when all of a sudden we hear “GRIIINNGGAAAAAS!!!”  and see about 30 guys running at us with buckets of paint. Next thing I know my eyes are burning and I’m having paint rubbed into my hair and face. I’m not gonna say it wasn’t fun, cause it was totally hilarious. I didn’t have a clue what was going on for a while! Anyway, fingers crossed we head back to Catacaos soon for more carnival. There’s a day long Piura Carnaval on Sunday so hopefully it’s as good if not better!

Anyways, that’s all for now folks

Bye xxx

Adios Pancho y Meche

So as you may well guess, we sadly had to say goodbye to 2 of the kids last week. Pancho and Meche were two of the kids in casa 5 with the toddlers. Last Friday whilst we were out taking the kids to swimming lessons their parents came and decided they wanted to take them home. Within half an hour of them turning up Pancho and Meche were gone. It’s sad that we didn’t actually get to say goodbye as they were 2 of the kids I was most fond of and it’s scary at how fast it moved. There was no pre-warning and, as far as we can tell, very little paper work.  From what we understand they were in the aldea for mostly financial reasons which is a relief as at least we know they won’t be taken to a dangerous or violent home. Hopefully they will be given a good chance at a normal family life and their parents can finally provide for them. The Aldea’s social worker has scheduled monthly visits to check up on them and make sure they are being cared for properly and if not then there’s a chance the two of them could be back. Who knows, maybe they’ll come back to the aldea at some point.

Other than that things have been chilled in the Aldea. We’ve been taking the kids to swimming twice a week which is a lot of fun. Partially because we get to spend two mornings a week getting out of the 40 degree sun and into some cold water but also because the kids make it fun. They love the water (although the odd one or two are still pretty afraid of it) and it’s one of the only things that we’ve seen them be really excited to learn. We can’t help but laugh at some of the techniques they come up with but their having fun and can mostly keep their heads above water which is all that really matters I guess. One boy called Carlos was so afraid of going in the water without help that he put armbands on his arms AND legs. Needless to say the minute he got in the pool he regretted that. He flapped about a while and didn’t get very far. However it gave me and Louise a good laugh. The swimming pools really pretty cool. Its’ in a complex called Chilalo where there’s a restaurant, football pitches, bar, concert venue and a mini zoo. There’s quite a few monkeys, turtles and other animals and it’s quite cool getting up close to them, and the kids love them!

The weather in Piura has been pretty nuts recently. Its summer, so the heat is ridiculous. Every day is above 35 degrees and we’ve found the only way we can cope is by taking cold showers 3 or 4 times a day. Funny how I used to complain about only having cold water whereas now even the mention of a hot bath makes me feel a little bit ill. I’ve taken to cuddling a bottle of cold water on occasion in the nights to cool me down. It also rains every single night now! Pretty insane rain as well. It starts at about 7ish and goes on well into the early hours of the morning. The clouds start to get thick and dark at about 5 which then makes everything clammy. One day we left the house around this time and everything outside had been turned yellow by the air. A mixture of the sun being low, the clouds being thick and the general sandy dust of Piura had put a yellow haze over everything.  It was like walking about in a sepia photograph. 

There’s  not really much other news right now so ill finish up there, however, watch this space for future news!

xxx

Did you know Piura is known as the City Of Eternal Summer?

Hola! So I haven’t written a blog in a really long time so I thought I should get on it now. Guess it’ll be my new year’s resolution to keep up with it! 

As you may guess by the title, things are hotting up here. Some days can get to over 36 degrees which is an uncomfertabe heat to say the least. Its not very important to the blog but its just a little fact about where I live and the reson behind it....

So things have been going really well in the aldea, I’m learning loads of new things about the kids every day and lots of cool things have been happening. It’s been so long since I last wrote that I won’t be able to fit everything in so again, I’ll just choose a selection of the most significant things to happen recently.

The run up to Christmas was pretty hectic and seemed to go on forever! From around the last week in November to Christmas day there were people coming in and out of the aldea to run ‘chocolatadas’. Chocolatadas are basically events put on by people who want to give the kids Christmas presents or sweets. They come in and set up a party for them, give them a bag off goodies and a present. It’s such a good idea as otherwise the kids probably wouldn’t have had many presents at all. They were really good but so tiring as we sometimes had 2 or more a day, every day for a month. We also spent quite a bit of time going round different places selling handmade chocolates to raise money for the aldea and the kids Christmas. We started selling the chocolates at the beginning of November and were selling them right up till Christmas. It was again a lot of work and not as easy as it sounds. We went everywhere! Police stations, the market, doctor surgeries, hospitals and shops! The Tias spent hours every night making chocolates with peanuts, manjar, raisins etc. they were pretty professional chocolates and a lot of effort went in to making them.

Christmas in Peru is celebrated on the evening of the 24^th of December. It was a pretty different experience to say the least. Me and Lou spent the day in a nearby town called Catacaos, eating ceviche (raw, marinated fish) and wandering round the market. It was pretty bizarre knowing that it was Christmas time, even though we were wearing shorts and vests and eating ice cream! When we got back in the evening the festivities kicked off starting with Los Posadas. At around 9pm we had a knock at the door. Two of the kids dressed as Mary and Joseph were there asking for a place to stay the night. We were meant to tell them through the window that there was no room and to go away, however as the only Los Posadas I know of is Catterline Los Posadas where we welcome Mary and Joseph into the house, I almost ruined the aldea one by flinging open the door and telling them to come on in! The kids looked a little confused but the situation was saved by one of the Tias shouting over at me to close the door and tell them to go away. After the rejection we left to follow the gathering crowd. This happened at every casa. Mary and joseph knocked, were rejected, moved on and the ‘inn owners’ left their house to follow. After we’d visited every house the kids from each casa sang Mary and joseph a song. We then headed to the front of the aldea where they played out the nativity story. It was a pretty cool way of doing it. Everyone felt involved in some way even if they didn’t have an acting part in the play. There were a few differences though. There weren’t any shepherds and the wise men brought gifts of bananas and mangoes. Maybe it’s just because gold frankincense and myrrh don’t fit into the aldea's budget but maybe that is always how they do it here in Peru…

After the Los Posadas we all headed to the auditorium for Christmas dinner. All the kids set up tables and everyone ate together in their casa groups. We were invited to eat with the older boys. We had duck stew, chifles (salted banana chips) and spaghetti whilst we were eating we listened to songs by Paul Simon, Men at Work, Soft Cell, the Boomtown Rats and Atomic Kitten amongst others. Definitely not like the Christmas dinner I’m used to, and the fact I found a little cockroach mooching about in the spaghetti made it even weirder! After dinner we had mass and then some of the staff made speeches about the kids and the aldea. The speeches were mostly about how another year has passed and how the kids need the aldea every year. It got pretty emotional at points but it was really nice to hear how some of the staff feel about the kids. There’s a real sense of family here with all the staff, not just the mamma Tias. After the meal there was a huge fiesta! Lots of dancing and singing and fiesta things. Just before midnight the countdown started, it was like New Year at home, we counted down from 10 and once it turned midnight everyone hugged each other, said Feliz Navidad a lot and set fireworks off! The party continued for an hour or so after then the aldea gave the kids the presents from them. We headed to bed after that as we were pretty partied out. Christmas day was totally chilled. We spent the day in the aldea. I spent a lot of the time on Skype to my family as it was pretty tough being away from all my home comforts, especially the roast dinner. However the rest of the time was spent with the kids, playing outside in the sun with their new gifts.

As I said before things have been running pretty smoothly in the aldea. We just got our summer timetables which are looking pretty cool. Twice a week we’re taking some of the kids to a local pool to teach them how to swim, we’re also getting to take art with the disabled boys and help teach some of the youngest kids English. However the thing I’m most excited about is the addition of the bakery room to the aldea. Seeing as cooking and baking are one of my favourite things to do at home I jumped at the chance to be able to help out in that class. As of yet I don’t know what the kids are going to be baking but hopefully I’ll come home with some good South American cake recipes!

In other aldea news Jessie, the little girl I live with had her cleft palate fixed! A charity from America called ReSurge International came to Piura for 3 weeks to perform surgery on kids mostly with cleft lips and palates. They were a really nice group of people and what they did was really wonderful considering many people here wouldn’t have been able to afford that surgery. Jessie was in and out the hospital in a day and although she was really groggy she didn’t change much. Once the anaesthetic had properly worn off she was back to her giggley, gorgeous self again although now her voice is very different. She’s now getting speech and language therapy along with physiotherapy for her spine and muscles. Fingers crossed she’ll be able to walk a little before I leave!

We’ve been here almost 6 months now so since my last blog (a long time ago) we’ve got some exploring done. We visited two other volunteers in Chiclayo one weekend, Mancora beach in October and for our New Year travels we spent 3 weeks in Ecuador! It was absolutely amazing. We started off In Mancora for New Year where we met up with all the other Peru volunteers. We stayed there for 3 days then Louise, Myself, Harriet and Rosanna (Chiclayo volunteers) took a 15 hour bus journey to Quito the capital of Ecuador. It’s a very beautiful city and we did loads of things there however my favourite was definitely visiting Volan Cotopaxi. We hired a local guide at the gate who took us round the park in his incredibly sketchy combi van, then lead us up the side of the volcano to the first mountain refuge where we drank well deserved hot chocolates at 4800 metres up! It was a cloudy day but every now and the clouds and fog would part just enough to give us a glimpse of the summit. It was a very beautiful mountain and the views were pretty special. After we’d spent some time in Quito we headed to a town called Banos 3 hours south. In Banos we booked a rafting trip in the jungle. We and 3 Finnish people spent 3 days rafting down a tributary of the river Napo, sleeping under the stars on the river banks and hiking in the jungle. It was an awesome experience however I got really badly bitten by sand-fly’s and when we returned to Banos I had local people telling me I looked ill and flinching every time they saw my legs. In total we spent about a week in Banos/ the jungle. There was so much stuff to do there that we just didn’t want to leave but we had to move on eventually. Louise and I then split off from the other 2 girls as we wanted to visit Ecuador’s highest mountain, volcan Chimborazo. We spent one night in a town called Riobamba then headed off to visit it, leaving our bags in the hostel. We hadn’t been told that there were no return busses from Chimborazo so we had no choice but to sleep in the refuge at 5000 metres. It was a very cold, uncomfortable night. It felt like I was being punched in the head all night because of the altitude and I didn’t get much sleep. Some kindly Russians took pity on us earlier in the evening and lent us spare sleeping bags so at least we didn’t freeze to death! We we’re given a lift back to Riobamba the next day and got straight on a bus to Cuenca after collecting our bags. We spent 2 days in Cuenca, a pretty colonial city in the south, as there wasn’t a lot to do there and we were running out of time. We then took another lengthy journey by bus to the coastal town of Montanita for our last couple of days to top up our tans and meet some fellow gringos. Then was the long (21 hours) journey back home to the aldea. Although very tired it felt really good to get back home and back to normality. 

Its strange being back after being away for so long, the kids have all changed in some way or another and especially the babies all seem so much different. The youngest is now walking and they all have more words. Had we been there we probably wouldn’t have noticed the small changes that are happening to the kids every day so it’s quite nice to see it from an outsiders point of view once more. Thankfully getting established back in the aldea hasn’t been hard, the kids were all very excited to see us and so were the Tias. It’s weird going back to the feeling of being settled down and not living out a rucksack but I’m sure I’ll get used to it again soon. 

OK, so I think that’s about it for now. I’ll write again in a couple of weeks to keep people posted.

Byeee

xx