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