Just a quick note to anyone planning on sending me a letter/parcel (much appreciated), please write Evelyn, NOT Evie. Just incase it doesn't get all the way to me and I have to pick it up from the post office, the name needs to match my passport name.
Things i have started to miss:
- Carpets. They don't seem to exist here and i'm sick of slipping around on our floors or having to wear shoes inside.
- Greenery. Grass, fields, countryside, castle hill etc. It's all dust and crap lying on streets here.
- A proper English brew. The powdered milk kind just doesn't cut it.
- My duvet. Or any duvet in general. I get cold when i sleep and having 4 blankets just takes the p*ss.
- Hugs. Big bear hugs, not just the little quick hugs when we give la paz (the peace) in church.
- Clothes. 29.5kg of clothes is no-where near enough. I often daydream about the clothes i left at home.
- Itunes. I miss being able to update the songs on my ipod and put CD's on it whenever i like.
- X Factor. Especially seen as though Ashford has been in the live shows this year! We're managing to get our weekly fixes via youtube though.
- Simply knowing that i'm not going to Snowbombing festival next year. It depresses me everytime I think about it and I don't even want to know how i'm going to be feeling the week that it's on!
- Tap Water. Buying bottled water seems like a waste of money so i've been going for boiling tap water and drinking it yellow. Clean, but tasty not so much.
- Dishwashers. I don't so much mind washing up 30 plates, bowls, spoons and cups every lunchtime but that, mixed with cleaning the house every day has left my hands so, so dry.
Life in Familia Sonrisa Franciscana
Life in Sonrisa hasn't really changed too much since my last post. I have gotten more into a routine being here though and i know the majority of my jobs now rather than waiting to be told what to do. My main jobs include: cleaning the classroom, outdoor areas and zapateria, hurrying the boys up and handing out the fruit before school, setting up for lunch and washing up after, helping Gerrado, Moises, Ivan and Elias with their homework (or if they've finished or don't have any, then helping whoever needs it), counting up and taking the day's load of clothes to the on-site lavanderia, getting the boys in and out of the shower as fast as possible (quickest time - 8 minutes 56 seconds for 14 boys, they seem to go faster knowing i'm timing it on my watch and they always want to beat yesterday's time), and just general looking after and playing with them. I'm loving spending time with the boys even more now. My Spanish is slowly improving so i feel as though i'm gaining a bit more authority with them and can just sit and chat to some. It's the little things that i'm noticing that make me feel like i'm getting to know them better. There's one boy called Alex who is an absolute favourite. Normally when i leave for the night i say good night to a few of the boys and that's about it. But, the last few days he has taken to seeking me out for a hug and to say "hasta manana hermana". It sounds like nothing as all he is saying is "see you tomorrow sister", but none of the boys have done that before and it's so nice having that from him. The only bad thing is that he's 9 and the oldest boy in the house, which means that he's moving to San Antonio in February. He's reassured me that he'll still come and say hi to me everyday though which is good.
I was quite looking forward to last week as the boys were off school due to the teachers being on a religious retreat in Tanca, on the borders of Chile. They seem to have had quite a few days off since i've been here from the teachers being on retreats or from the boys having chicken pox. But it generally means that the hermanas are more relaxed as they don't have a strict routine of get the boys to school, back in time for lunch, homework etc. So normally a week off for them would've meant more work for me, but also more time to play with the boys and just generally get to know them better. However, on Monday, Hannah and I went to Lince to pick up a package i received from home and decided to have Ceviche (raw fish marinated in Lime and Chile which was really nice compared to the first time i tried it!) from a little cafe on the street. Definately a bad move and i won't go into details but this was 4 days ago and both mine and Hannah's stomachs haven't been right since. Therefore meaning i've been off work the last 3 days and missed a magic show, extra playing time, more chicken foot soup (not a bad thing) etc. I did manage to watch the Peru vs. Chile match with them on Monday night though which was fun. Lots of cheering when Peru scored, even though they lost 4-2 in the end.
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| Jean Pierre, Andrew, Elias and Brayham |
Staff wise in our house, things are a little strange. Laura (the other volunteer) and I work with 3 hermanas in Sonrisa who, as nice as they are when they talk to us, don't talk to us very much, even to the point that on my first day, the only time they spoke to me was when Hugo sat me next to one of them at breakfast. It would be fine, but the hermanas in Hannah's house are always asking her how she is and even whilst we've been ill these last few days, they both came round to the apartment the other night to check on her. I was just hoping that there would be at least one woman that i'd be working with that I could see as a sort of a mother figure here for hugs and reassurances etc, but so far it looks like Hannah's going to have to be my mother figure for the year!
Travelling / Time Off
As i mentioned in my last blog, we finally managed to have our meeting with Hugo about time off. It was actually a really nice chat where he'd asked how everything was going in general and how we were getting on, and also organised for us all to have Pepsi and biscuits. I'm definately glad he's the director here as firstly he can speak fluent English so it's easy to talk to him about any problems we're having and he's just in general a really nice guy and sort of a father figure here. He also said that he would talk to the hermanas of our houses because Hannah and I were the only volunteers that were still expected to work weekends when everyone else had it off. So now, our free time has gone from half days on Saturday and Sunday to a full day Saturday and until 5.40pm on Sundays which is great. We spent our first full Saturday off having a BBQ with all 9 of the volunteers - Hannah and me from PT, Laura and Christoff from the Red Cross in Germany, Tania, Jeanette, Laura, Michael and Ryan from Cap Corps in America. It was the first time we'd all been able to sit down together and just relax which was nice. At the meeting, we also discussed holiday time which will be 3 weeks over Christmas (25th Dec - 15th Jan), a week or two in May for a Visa run and around a month before we come home at the end of the year. The boys don't actually come back to Ciudad until mid-February but we're going to come back to help the staff with organising the new boys that will come and then staff orientation which is a couple of weeks from the start of February.
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| Jeanette and Hannah Barbequeing Fajitas |
Other general things that have happened:
- I got my first bite. I thought it was a mosquito bite but we're still not sure as it stung quite a lot and didn't itch, then it swelled up (which my mosquito bites never do) and when it was healing it started peeling. All very interesting, i know.
- We've managed to make our apartment look a bit more homely since we arrived. We spent one day moving all of the furniture around, changing shelves with some that weren't being used downstairs and we swapped one of our desks for the table from Christoff's room. We put up a couple of posters too, one of Peru and one of South America to help with planning our travelling. We could still do with a few other things to make it look like home but we're getting there. A carpet would be the best thing we could get!
- About 3 weekends ago i met up with my friend Charlotte in Barranco for the afternoon. We went to Malaysia together for a month in 2009 with World Challenge, but she lives in London so we hardly ever see each other in the UK, so it was such a coincidence we were within 20 minutes of each other in Peru!
- We finally used the raffle prize that i mentioned about in my last blog. Hannah, Laura, Christoff and I went to Chorrillos to El Hornero restaurant. I expected something nice but not what we got. It was the poshest restaurant i've seen in Peru! Our raffle prize was a mixed grill, chips, salad and sangria for two people. I've never seen so much food! It could have definately fed all four of us. The mixed grill consisted of; two big fat medium rare steaks, chicken breast, pork fillet, black pudding sausage, cumberland sausage, two beef hear skewers and beef kidney. It was the most amazing meal i've ever had in my life and the best bit was the beef heart! Never thought i'd say it but i can't wait to eat beef heart again. Plus the Sangria was the best i'd ever had. And it was all free!
As much as we're both loving working with the boys in our houses, there have been more days recently where we've been feeling quite down about the fact that our project is now in Lima rather than Arequipa, in a much smaller, rural project where we were first going to be. It does feel here as though we are working in a well resourced and well funded boarding school, in a job that could easily be in England. It is quite down heartening when for the last 10 years or so i've always known what kind of project i want to do in my gap year, i.e. a really rural, back to basics type project where there is tradition and culture and it would be a novelty for them to have volunteers to come and help. Whereas here, we're in the capital of the country, in a huge city, in a huge project that has volunteers come and go all year round. We have constant internet access from our bedroom which we didn't want as it means we're not 'cut off' from the outside world which we'd wanted. Neither of us brought a laptop for this exact reason but unfortunately Laura brought one, so it's all too tempting when we're bored to just see what's going on back home. It shows how well developed and resourced the project is by one of the jobs that i did last week - inviting 3000 people to Ciudad's 'Aniversario' event from their facebook page. To me it doesn't even feel like we're in Peru, apart from the language. Obviously we're trying to just enjoy what we've been given, but it is difficult knowing that we spent a year raising 5 grand for a project where we don't experience any Peruvian culture and that we could probably be doing in England. But, looking on the bright side - i'm working with some great boys, I get to travel Peru, and even better - it's just an excuse to have another gap year!
Here's just a few more photos from Ciudad.
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| With Andrew, Luis and Elias |
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| Watching the Peru vs. Chile match. |
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| Maribel and the boys |
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| Races up and down the street in Ciudad. |
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