The other weekend my whole family of 18 people, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles and obviously my mum, dad and brother had a huge get together for my Grandparents joint 80th birthdays. They rented a house in Cornwall, had a fancy meal, all dress up nicely and had formal family photos taken. I was the only one in the family that wasn't there so i'll admit it made me feel quite homesick after talking to each and every one of them on the phone after they'd made a queue to talk to me (skype wouldn't work).
I also found out a few weeks ago that my cousin Katy who i'm really close to is going to get married to her now fiance Anton, so obviously I really don't want to miss her wedding and all the family will be together again then too. She's having it next summer on July 28th when i'm supposed to still be here, so I thought long and hard about it and decided that I can't do with missing that as well.
Soooo, I have changed my flight date with Project Trust from August 18th to July 25th. Only around 3 weeks less than before and it will definately be worth it as I know how much i'd regret missing out on Katy's wedding for just 3 more weeks in Peru. The plan now is to leave Ciudad sometime in June, travel for a month and then fly back on my own on the 25th of July and go straight from Heathrow down to Devon. And i'm so excited now I know i'll be at the wedding!
Sorry to those of you who read this title and thought it meant that i'd be coming home and you'd be seeing me anytime soon. Didn't mean to get your hopes up haa.
Sloppy kisses,
Evie x
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
Friday, 4 November 2011
Earthquakes & Halloween
Last week I felt my first ever earthquake!! It was during lunchtime when we were eating in the comedor with all of the boys and hermanas. At first I thought I was feeling ill as i just started shaking, until I saw Marisol's face across the table who looked really worried and then noticed that hermanas were starting to stand up and all boys were looking around. The whole place shook for about a minute. Not bad enough that anything fell over so i'm not sure why the hermanas looked quite so worried and to be honest I found it all really exciting. I had to try and hide my huge grin whilst it was happening just incase it was going to get worse. Obviously it wasn't serious where we were but after talking to Elsa (hermana I work with) that afternoon I found out that there had been a big earthquake in Ica with houses falling down etc (4 hours south of here where we were actually going for the weekend but decided not to last minute!), which is where her 6yr old son and mum live so she was obviously worried and couldn't even leave to visit as the Panama highway which leads down the south coast had been closed.
El Aniversario
This was a couple of Sundays ago and was Ciudad's 56th anniversary. There were stands set up all down the main street of ciudad with each house selling one type of food, then Ciudad selling all the products that they make here like shoes, bread, cakes etc. At 12pm there was Mass which was absolutely packed, i've never seen a church so full. Then we had lunch where i chose Pachamanca which is basically pork and potatoes all cooked underground which was really nice apart from that everyone else that ate it was ill for a few days after. Not so sure why I wasn't ill too. Then at 3pm there was a show where each house did a dance. Nino Jesus did such a cute dance where they all wore suits and sunglasses. My house, Sonrisa, did a traditional dance so were all wearing traditional outfits and dancing to flutey music. but obviously the highlight of the event was the volunteers dance. There are 9 of us here so we ended up starting off with Glee's Don't Stop Believing, then the three boys learnt the dance to Beyonce's Single Ladies (which was hilarious) then for the finale, we did a rendition of Titanic's My Heart Will Go On seen as the boys here seem to love that song. Slightly embarassing but over all it was just funny and people seemed to enjoy it.
Halloween
Due to it being Halloween on Monday the boys had Monday and Tuesday off school (why don't we get that in England?) which meant that instead of coming back from their salida on Sunday like they normally do, they came back at 3pm on Tuesday so we got Sat-Tue off. Lauren, Hannah's friend from home who is working in Arequipa, decided that she would come up for the weekend so we all went to stay in Pariwana, a hostal in Miraflores half an hour away from here. Far enough away that we can be ourselves without the religious eyes judging us for wanting to have a drink and just sit around getting a tan. It seems to have become our home away from home when we just need to escape. We spent Saturday looking around the Mercado Indio which has all the touristy style clothes and bags etc. I ended up getting an alpaca wool jumper, some reggae style Peruvian trousers and an alpaca wool hat. So when I wear them all together I'm a 'Twat in a Hat' according to Hannah. I actually miss the insults that get thrown between friends in England and just general English banter. No-one here really gets that when we call each other 'oy dickhead' that it's a term of affection. Atleast Hannah makes up for it with her own range. I have to admire her for that. It was so good staying in Pariwana again. Everyone that stays there is a traveller so everyone has good stories, advice and is there to actually have a good time, which we made sure we did. There were 6 Irish people and two Aussie guys that we spent most of the time with and they were all hilarious. One of the Australian's actually looked like Jesus so the two lives that we seem to lead here may have crossed over a little bit. We decided to all dress up for halloween as there was a party at the hostal. The Irish went as Greeks and as we hadn't really thought about it until 7pm that night we just ended up borrowing red paint from the guys, facepaint from the Irish and cutting up our own clothes and covering them in 'blood'. Gutted I didn't win the first prize of a free night and bottle of vodka after all that effort. Turned out to be a really good night though and lets just say, after not drinking much for 10 weeks, nights out are a lot cheaper.
Religion
"Evie, you need to fold the clothes neater because they're the clothes of Jesus Christ."
This is the one line that was said to me last week and I haven't been able to get it out of my head as I was just that stunned at how deep their beliefs seem to go. I have to admit, I think i'm going slightly crazy with being surrounded by religion 24hrs a day, feeling like we're being pitied because we don't believe in God. We pray around 12x a day, and prayer here isn't a quick one. It means holding your hands out whilst saying the whole of the Lords prayer (Our Father, who art in Heaven...), doing the 'Hail Mary' and then lots of others. I did a sneaky timing of it on my watch one morning at breakfast and prayer took 4.27 minutes. Morning prayer is the longest one and at other prayer times it probably lasts about 2 minutes but we do it before and after every meal, a quick one before we leave the house for meals, when we get back to the house after the meal and before bed. This is on top of going to church 5 days a week (since opting out of going to church in the morning with the hermanas too) and having to hear things like 'Did you sacrifice yourself and have your hands and feet nailed to a cross? Exactly, no.' and when the boys are naughty, 'Do you want to get into Heaven?'. I'm even tempted to try out the 'What would Jesus do?' seen as though using religion seems to be the best way to get them to do things, sort of like blackmail. It also doesn't help living in an apartment attached to the back of the church as even though we don't go to church in the morning, we can still hear it from our room, and it means that we also get to hear them practicing the church songs everyday which seems to always be during our free time or at night.
The Boys
I feel like little by little I am making more of an impact on the boys here. For one I taught them all how by putting a bit of thick grass between their thumbs and blowing, it makes a noise like a duck. A skill which they can keep with them forever. I also taught them how to pretend to cut their thumb in half so that it looks like the two halves are separate. They love it! Another thing I thought i'd teach them was to play 'Bulldogs Charge'. Maybe not my best idea as I can now remember why it got banned in my primary school. They seem to have adapted the rules from just tagging someone, to having to swing them by their necks to the ground. No accidents yet but it's nothing worse than how they play or fight anyway, this time it just has rules. I love how here the boys are free to play with big metal poles, pieces of wire, huge wooden sticks etc and no-one says a thing. Health and safety is riduculous in England so it's nice to see the boys playing with whatever they find, and if someone gets hurt, so what. They're boys and are going to get hurt anyway. That's how they learn what to do and what not to do. One of the boys, Jean Pierre, last week asked me when i'm staying until (for about the 5th time), then when I said July he asked me whether I planned on coming back to visit once I'd left because he wants me to. This is one of the boys who hardly talked to me in the first 6 weeks or so and now he's saying things like this, always asking me about my home life and wanting me to help him with homework. I am definately noticing changes in the boys towards me which is nice. There were 3 boys in my house at the start that i'll be honest, I really didn't like. Then there was one boy who I thought was the cutest boy in the whole house. Now, 10 weeks in, I don't find him the slightest bit cute as he is such a troublemaker, yet out of the three boys I really didn't like at the start, two of them I am probably closer to than most of them. And the boys who I didn't think were cute at all to start with, now i've gotten to know them, they're absolutely the most gorgeous boys and just want to squeeze their faces whenever I see them. I've had my doubts and obviously still have my doubts about this project but I do understand what Samina was on about by saying it would be a waste to change projects now when i've gotten so far with the boys here.
Travels
51 days until Christmas Day and our travels begin! In Pariwana we met lots of people who had worked in the Loki hostal in Mancora where we're staying for New Year and it sounds absolutely amazing. Apparently people only go there to relax, surf and party! Plus all of us girls are meeting there so I literally cannot wait! I mentioned everything else that we're doing in my last blog but there is now more...my Mum and Dad are coming to visit!! So the day Hannah and I get back from travelling up North, I will be meeting my parents and heading down South to firstly Arequipa, Lake Titicaca and then Cusco to do Machu Picchu and the Cusco 120m bungee jump! I'm so excited to see them and we are counting down the days!
It's been 16 days since I last purposefully cracked my knuckles! Not so great when I see the boys copying me and cracking so it had to stop.
El Aniversario
This was a couple of Sundays ago and was Ciudad's 56th anniversary. There were stands set up all down the main street of ciudad with each house selling one type of food, then Ciudad selling all the products that they make here like shoes, bread, cakes etc. At 12pm there was Mass which was absolutely packed, i've never seen a church so full. Then we had lunch where i chose Pachamanca which is basically pork and potatoes all cooked underground which was really nice apart from that everyone else that ate it was ill for a few days after. Not so sure why I wasn't ill too. Then at 3pm there was a show where each house did a dance. Nino Jesus did such a cute dance where they all wore suits and sunglasses. My house, Sonrisa, did a traditional dance so were all wearing traditional outfits and dancing to flutey music. but obviously the highlight of the event was the volunteers dance. There are 9 of us here so we ended up starting off with Glee's Don't Stop Believing, then the three boys learnt the dance to Beyonce's Single Ladies (which was hilarious) then for the finale, we did a rendition of Titanic's My Heart Will Go On seen as the boys here seem to love that song. Slightly embarassing but over all it was just funny and people seemed to enjoy it.
 |
| My boys ready to go on. |
Halloween
Due to it being Halloween on Monday the boys had Monday and Tuesday off school (why don't we get that in England?) which meant that instead of coming back from their salida on Sunday like they normally do, they came back at 3pm on Tuesday so we got Sat-Tue off. Lauren, Hannah's friend from home who is working in Arequipa, decided that she would come up for the weekend so we all went to stay in Pariwana, a hostal in Miraflores half an hour away from here. Far enough away that we can be ourselves without the religious eyes judging us for wanting to have a drink and just sit around getting a tan. It seems to have become our home away from home when we just need to escape. We spent Saturday looking around the Mercado Indio which has all the touristy style clothes and bags etc. I ended up getting an alpaca wool jumper, some reggae style Peruvian trousers and an alpaca wool hat. So when I wear them all together I'm a 'Twat in a Hat' according to Hannah. I actually miss the insults that get thrown between friends in England and just general English banter. No-one here really gets that when we call each other 'oy dickhead' that it's a term of affection. Atleast Hannah makes up for it with her own range. I have to admire her for that. It was so good staying in Pariwana again. Everyone that stays there is a traveller so everyone has good stories, advice and is there to actually have a good time, which we made sure we did. There were 6 Irish people and two Aussie guys that we spent most of the time with and they were all hilarious. One of the Australian's actually looked like Jesus so the two lives that we seem to lead here may have crossed over a little bit. We decided to all dress up for halloween as there was a party at the hostal. The Irish went as Greeks and as we hadn't really thought about it until 7pm that night we just ended up borrowing red paint from the guys, facepaint from the Irish and cutting up our own clothes and covering them in 'blood'. Gutted I didn't win the first prize of a free night and bottle of vodka after all that effort. Turned out to be a really good night though and lets just say, after not drinking much for 10 weeks, nights out are a lot cheaper.
 |
| Us with Joel and Jesus. |
Religion
"Evie, you need to fold the clothes neater because they're the clothes of Jesus Christ."
This is the one line that was said to me last week and I haven't been able to get it out of my head as I was just that stunned at how deep their beliefs seem to go. I have to admit, I think i'm going slightly crazy with being surrounded by religion 24hrs a day, feeling like we're being pitied because we don't believe in God. We pray around 12x a day, and prayer here isn't a quick one. It means holding your hands out whilst saying the whole of the Lords prayer (Our Father, who art in Heaven...), doing the 'Hail Mary' and then lots of others. I did a sneaky timing of it on my watch one morning at breakfast and prayer took 4.27 minutes. Morning prayer is the longest one and at other prayer times it probably lasts about 2 minutes but we do it before and after every meal, a quick one before we leave the house for meals, when we get back to the house after the meal and before bed. This is on top of going to church 5 days a week (since opting out of going to church in the morning with the hermanas too) and having to hear things like 'Did you sacrifice yourself and have your hands and feet nailed to a cross? Exactly, no.' and when the boys are naughty, 'Do you want to get into Heaven?'. I'm even tempted to try out the 'What would Jesus do?' seen as though using religion seems to be the best way to get them to do things, sort of like blackmail. It also doesn't help living in an apartment attached to the back of the church as even though we don't go to church in the morning, we can still hear it from our room, and it means that we also get to hear them practicing the church songs everyday which seems to always be during our free time or at night.
The Boys
I feel like little by little I am making more of an impact on the boys here. For one I taught them all how by putting a bit of thick grass between their thumbs and blowing, it makes a noise like a duck. A skill which they can keep with them forever. I also taught them how to pretend to cut their thumb in half so that it looks like the two halves are separate. They love it! Another thing I thought i'd teach them was to play 'Bulldogs Charge'. Maybe not my best idea as I can now remember why it got banned in my primary school. They seem to have adapted the rules from just tagging someone, to having to swing them by their necks to the ground. No accidents yet but it's nothing worse than how they play or fight anyway, this time it just has rules. I love how here the boys are free to play with big metal poles, pieces of wire, huge wooden sticks etc and no-one says a thing. Health and safety is riduculous in England so it's nice to see the boys playing with whatever they find, and if someone gets hurt, so what. They're boys and are going to get hurt anyway. That's how they learn what to do and what not to do. One of the boys, Jean Pierre, last week asked me when i'm staying until (for about the 5th time), then when I said July he asked me whether I planned on coming back to visit once I'd left because he wants me to. This is one of the boys who hardly talked to me in the first 6 weeks or so and now he's saying things like this, always asking me about my home life and wanting me to help him with homework. I am definately noticing changes in the boys towards me which is nice. There were 3 boys in my house at the start that i'll be honest, I really didn't like. Then there was one boy who I thought was the cutest boy in the whole house. Now, 10 weeks in, I don't find him the slightest bit cute as he is such a troublemaker, yet out of the three boys I really didn't like at the start, two of them I am probably closer to than most of them. And the boys who I didn't think were cute at all to start with, now i've gotten to know them, they're absolutely the most gorgeous boys and just want to squeeze their faces whenever I see them. I've had my doubts and obviously still have my doubts about this project but I do understand what Samina was on about by saying it would be a waste to change projects now when i've gotten so far with the boys here.
 |
| Alex and Jean Pierre |
Travels
51 days until Christmas Day and our travels begin! In Pariwana we met lots of people who had worked in the Loki hostal in Mancora where we're staying for New Year and it sounds absolutely amazing. Apparently people only go there to relax, surf and party! Plus all of us girls are meeting there so I literally cannot wait! I mentioned everything else that we're doing in my last blog but there is now more...my Mum and Dad are coming to visit!! So the day Hannah and I get back from travelling up North, I will be meeting my parents and heading down South to firstly Arequipa, Lake Titicaca and then Cusco to do Machu Picchu and the Cusco 120m bungee jump! I'm so excited to see them and we are counting down the days!
It's been 16 days since I last purposefully cracked my knuckles! Not so great when I see the boys copying me and cracking so it had to stop.
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