A Very Busy Two Weeks!

There's been so much that has happened in the last two weeks that i have a feeling this is going to be a very long blog so grab a cuppa and make sure you're sitting comfortably.

They've been busy because of a few things: the Ciudad de los Ninos annual Olympics, the 'Xi Te de la Esperanza' which is Ciudad's biggest fundraising event of the year, none of the boys have been to school from last Tuesday until this Monday (i still don't understand the reason why), since then there has been boys still not going to school as there is some form of chicken pox going around, and finally this weekend Hannah and I had our first experience of travelling in Pisco\Ica\Huacachina.

But first, a few interesting facts from the more mundane things we've done:

-We found half of a s/1000 note on the floor on the way to the market! Shame we didn't find the other half as it would've meant 500 soles each, around 125 pounds!
- In the market they sell 'dvds' two for s/5 so we went a bit mad when we first found it and bought: Mean Girls 2, Harry Potter Pt. 2, Bad Teacher, 127 hours, Friends with Benefits, The boy in the Striped Pyjamas, My Sister's Keeper, 21, X-Men, I am Legend, Toy Story 3 and Bridesmaids. And about 90% of them are perfect quality!
- I decided to count how many times here we do the cross sign over our chests and in one day we did it 26 times. We also go to church twice a day but i've opted out of the optional one in the morning as it was getting a bit too much.
- We've gotten to know one of the local fruit sellers as we go so much and she calls us her 'princesas' and always gives us free plantanillas (mini bananas).
- Yesterday we went on a trip with Sonrisa and San Antonio. I was told we were going to a park. 45 minutes later i was thinking this better be a really good park going so far to it and it turned out we were going to a zoo which was great!

The Olympics

The olympics were spread over the weekend and had events like sprints, marathons, long jump and a football tournament. Everyone was split up into four teams - Green (wooo), Blue (booo Hannah's team), Yellow and Red. I wasn't really sure what was going on over the weekend and no-one really told me much about it. All i knew is that Hannah had been going to markets in her breaks with the tutoras from her house, Nino Jesus, and buying supplies like blue paint, smurf outfits etc. So i was assuming that either the Green team was really unprepared or they just didn't need my help organising everything. Turns out it was the latter and when i got there to help set up on Saturday morning they had balloons, whistles, all the boys were smothering themselves head to toe in green paint and some silly person had bought really loud green horns for the boys so i couldn't hear myself think all weekend. To start it all off, all the teams marched their way to the main street down ciudad blowing horns, cheering for their teams and generally just being part of a team and making as much noise as possible. Music was playing really loudly too so the whole thing had a kind of carnival feel to it and even all of the hermanas and hermanos were more relaxed than usual which was nice to see. Even after two weeks of freezing cold weather the sun decided to show it's face for the whole weekend which was so nice. Apart from the fact that no-one had been expecting it so i hadn't worn suncream and therefore burnt my face really badly that it's only just finished peeling (bearing in mind this was two weeks ago!). And i had green stripes of paint on my face so i've just had two white lines on each cheek where i didn't burn since then. Hannah was alright though seen as she was 'Smurfette' and was covered head to toe in either blue clothing or blue paint so didn't burn at all! In the end the blue team won and the green team came last but it was still an amazing weekend.

Xi Te de la Esperanza

This is Ciudad's biggest fundraising event of the year, which meant that all of the volunteers got to go along to help out for the day. This was held in 'The Westin' hotel in San Isidro, one of the districts of Lima about 20 minutes from San Juan. The hotel is the tallest building in the whole of Peru with only 32 floors! San Isidro is like the opposite of San Juan. It's full of business people having lunch and walking around with a purpose to one of the many huge banks or business around. You can see it especially inside the hotel as it's the poshest hotel i've ever seen, literally amazing! The banquet room that we had the event inside was massive. There were fancy tables and chairs to fit 1300 guests with a stage area.

To set up we had to put about 10 leaflets in every persons place so you can imagine how long that took. Some people also helped to set out the raffle prizes and i can say i've never wanted to enter a raffle so badly! The top prizes were things like a bike, microwaves, and flight tickets from Lima to anywhere in South America for 2 people!! I did enter in the end and even asked Hermano Hugo to rig it for us so we could win the flights which we didn't win but we did win a meal out for two in a fancy restaurant in Chorrillos with a mixed grill, chips, salad and sangria so i guess that'll do. When people started arriving we stood on the door to welcome them all in and it was a great chance for people watching. It is so obvious the people in Peru who have money and those who don't. For example about 40% of the women that came had obviously had some form of botched botox or face work done and there was even a woman there who had had some form of Michael Jackson work done to her face as it was like paper white and a little scary. The entertainment for the night was some semi-famous Peruvian band, a must have been very famous older Peruvian singer as when he came on all the women were screaming and there was a rush to the front, Nino Jesus did such a cute dance and also the San Jose boys did a really funny and entertaining dance.

The San Jose Boys

They also had two famous people presenting who were apparently a famous news reader and a woman out of one of the Peruvian soaps. The whole event went really well and Hugo said that he thinks they will have made around 25,000 dollars from it, which only just covers a month's costs in Ciudad! We left at around 10pm and Hugo took us all out for McDonalds, after taking us all for Chifa for lunch (Chinese/Peruvian food) so that was really nice of him.

Pisco/Ica/Huacachina

We found out on thursday last week that the boys would be going on their salida (every fortnight they go home for the weekend) but leaving on Friday at 3pm rather than Saturday which is when they normally leave. This got Hannah thinking so when i got back from work Thursday she told me we were off to Ica and that she'd already settled it with Hugo and Samina back at Project Trust. I wasn't going to complain! So we had a couple of hours to plan it and then Friday at 4pm we got the bus down to Pisco for the night. We stayed in a little hostal called the Hostal de los Inkas which was quite nice (minus the rock hard pillows) and run by a really nice couple who even walked us to where we could get a cheap and safe taxi the next day. There wasn't too much to see in Pisco so we decided to go straight to Huacachina in the morning to go sandboarding! It was definately the right decision as we got to Huacachina at around lunchtime and i can't even explain how amazing it is. It's an oasis in the middle of the desert - a little town surrounding a lake and the whole place is smaller than Ciudad de los Ninos!

This picture still doesn't do it justice.

We went straight to our hostel to dump our things and get some lunch and i think we chose well hostel wise as this is where all of the other tourists seemed to be staying and it was the first time we'd seen any English people since arriving. We were in a room for 8 people but luckily there was only us two and two Brazilian girls. We booked straight onto a sandboarding tour at 4pm that afternoon and spent the rest of the time until then wandering around the lake and looking at all the little tourists stands. We also rented a peddle boat for 20 minutes and soaked up the sun from the first blue sky that we've seen since arriving! Even when it was hot on the olympics the sky was still covered with the grey fog that never disappears in Lima. For the sandboard tour there was me, Hannah, the two Brazilian girls Ivia and Bruna, two Londoners Katie and David, Ock from Korea and another girl from Toronto, then our instructor who was a bit of a mad man driving around the dunes. It was two hours long and we spent it driving around all of the sand dunes and stopping off at the biggest drops to go sandboarding which was amazing. There were about 6 sandboarding places, then we also stopped at another oasis in the dunes and at the top of one to watch the sunset.

Me on the dunes.

Hannah and Me on the dunes.

The whole trip was so worth the s/40 that we paid.We got back at around 6.30pm and happy hour started at 7pm so as we were all staying in the same hostel we showered and all met up again at 7pm for happy hour! This meant for me two pisco sours (not as good as everyone makes out) and two cuba libres (rum and coke), and for Hannah four pisco sours. Happy hour finished at 8 though so we all paid and went to find another place where happy hour was still going on. By this time we'd also managed to pick up Adam and Ali, a couple from California who had just started travelling and wanted to get chatting to people. This was lucky for us as Adam paid for the first round and we got the second round free! It was a really good night and good to chat to other people that were travelling and find out where they were all going and where they'd been. On the Sunday we went with Katie and David, the Londoners, into Ica to the bodega 'El Catador' which is where they make pisco. It was a good find from the lonely planet as it was a free tour around the place and then free pisco tasting after and they weren't even stingy with the amount they gave. We had lunch there which was really nice and then we went to get the bus back to Lima and the others went back for another night in Huacahina.

Pisco Tasting in El Catador

I'm definately tempted to go back to Huacachina again just to see it all again. It's really given us the travel bug though so we've already started thinking about where we want to go next. There's a little place called Chincha about 3 hours south that we're thinking of doing one weekend as apparently it's really chilled out, has an afro-peruvian culture and everyone has dreadlocks so that sounds good. We've been trying to organise a meeting with Hugo for the last couple of weeks to sort out our holiday time so that we can start planning and booking things but with the whole manana manana attitude here it keeps getting put back. Like we were supposed to have it last Monday, then it got moved to Tuesday which was yesterday and now it's been moved to next Monday. But atleast this time we've settled on a time so it's a bit more formal and hopefully it'll happen!

I think i've written about most of the interesting things that have happened. Apart from that one of the hermanas, Elsa, in my house has been ill since i arrived so i never met her until yesterday, which also turned out to be her birthday. It's strange having her around now as i'm a bit unsure what i'm supposed to do as i did a lot of her jobs whilst she was away so i think i'll be doing other things now but we'll see over time.

Anyway this has taken over 2 hours so i'm going to watch a film until my break finishes. I hope everyone's well and that freshers week is kicking off nicely! Remember you can all send me letters etc and maybe even shove a few tetley teabags in there too if you'd like, we're running low!

Adios amigos,
Evie x

Week One & Mine and Moffy's Birthday!

Hola todos!

Firstly, here is my address for all those people who fancy sending me lovely letters or parcels! (Wink Wink)

Evelyn Oldfield (Please write Evelyn NOT Evie, it needs to match the name on my passport!)
Av. Pedro Miotta 180
San Juan de Miraflores
Lima, Peru
But, don´t write Ciudad de los Ninos anywhere on it or it won´t get here!

So, I don´t really know where to start this as i have to much to say so i think i´ll start with arriving in Lima. We had a bit of a panic in Miami airport. There are 12 of us girls and we´d all managed to get from London to Miami without any problems until it came to going through customs. Hannah, my partner, is an American resident so she had to go through a different part to the rest of us and because we all left our phones at home there was no way of contacting her. Typically, there ended up being a problem with her going through as she hadn´t lived in America for 6 months so ended up being sat in an immigration room for ages whilst we all waited for her to come through the exit gate. It got to about an hour before boarding and we´d rung Project Trust to see what they thought we should do and they said we all just needed to go through and hope she´d make her way there. Luckily it got to about 20 minutes before flying and we saw Hannah running towards the departure gate, shoes in hand after being searched. So luckily we all managed to get the same plane and arrived in Lima Friday night around 10pm, 4am UK time so we were all shattered. We spent Saturday sorting out our documents with the British Chamber and getting our Peru sim cards then just chilled out on the balcony of the hostel for happy hour for the rest of the night. Sunday morning at 6am Hannah and I got our taxi to Ciudad de los Ninos to see our new home for the year!

We arrived at Ciudad at 6.30am and breakfast was at 7am with the boys. It was quite full on as we were immediately told which houses we´re working with (Me - Sonrisa Fransiscana ages 7-9, Hannah - Nino Jesus ages 3-6) and then were sent to sit with them through breakfast and spend our first two hours with them. The rest of the day was spent with Hermano Hugo, the main monk of Ciudad, giving us a grand tour of the place (it´s HUGE), and then just unpacking and settling in.

The layout of Ciudad is that there are 9 different houses, each with about 25-30 boys in and all of different age groups. There´s lots of other bits too so i get why it´s called a ciudad (city). E.g. a barbershop, pig and chicken farm (or not chickens anymore as they just killed 400 of them to feed everyone!), shoe workshop, church, ampitheatre, dining hall, tuckshop, school, lavanderia (just a woman handwashing everyone´s clothes), office, and the volunteers apartments where we stay, attached to the back of the church. We also found out that next Saturday there´s going to be a German girl coming to stay for a year too, and as we´re in a room with 6 beds (3 bunkbeds) she´ll be staying with us, and working in Sonrisa with me, so i just hope she´s nice!

Anyway, people have been asking what i do so from only a week i think i´ve got the daily routine down so it´s something like this -

5.15 - wake up to be at Sonrisa for 6am
6am - wake the boys up and throw soapy water all over the floors to speed them up and for cleaning later
6.30am - breakfast with everyone in the comedor (two bread rolls and some form of hot drink)
7am - back to Sonrisa for the hour of cleaning. This included brushing soapy water around all the floors (there are no carpets anywhere) then brushing it out of the house, then following it round with a trapo (wooden stick with a rag on the end to soak up the water), then wiping surfaces and sweeping water into the gutters outside. It´s like a spring clean every morning!
8am - Church
9 til 9.30am - English classes with a couple of the hermanas. We´ve only done one so far but i think this is going to become regular as they´re so keen to learn English!
9.30am til 1.15pm - break which we usually spend sleeping or watching a film or going to the little market a 10 minute walk away.
1.15pm - set up for lunch at 1.45 then do all the washing up and drying after. Lunch is normally soup, then rice, lentils or beans with some form of meat or veg or sauce. I don´t normally know what it is but i think that´s best as i found out we ate liver the other day!
2.30 til 5.30ish - I´m not sure of what exactly happens this time but it´s normally a couple of hours of homework and the rest spent playing football or some form of getting rid of the kids energy so they don´t fight quite so much. I´ve already been accidently punched a couple of times breaking up fights!
6pm ish - Tea (a smaller version of the same meal we had for lunch)
7pm - Church again but this time with all the kids and it´s more like just singing and dancing so it´s quite fun really.
8pm - Depending on what jobs there are left to do i´m normally back at the apartment for this time and in bed and asleep by 8.30 or 9ish. I´ve not gone to bed later than 9.30pm yet.

It´s definately hard work and i´ve never worked this hard in my life but it´s definately more fun than sitting behind a desk!! Yesterday was a proud moment as i managed to learn the last of the 24 boys names in my house! It definately helps knowing their name when i need them to do something like get out of the shower cos they´ve been in there for ages! The boys here are so respectful though! It doesn´t matter who i walk past in Ciudad, whether it´s a little boy or one of the 18yr olds or monks, every one of them says "Hermana, buenas dias" (Sister, good morning). We definately wouldn´t get that in England! It´s also strange being called sister. Although i always knew i had nun like qualities! The language barrier is quite difficult as they speak so fast so it´s hard to know what i should be doing at times but the two hermanas (sisters) that i work with are nice so on the rare occassions they talk to me, they try to explain more than once. With the kids it´s not so bad as i can just say si or no or just nod and they´re happy with that response! It did help though that when i arrived there were already 3 Slovenian volunteers working in Sonrisa who could explain everthing to me that i needed to do, seen as the hermanas didn't really tell me much. Although they left yesterday so we´ll see if i can get along without them until the German volunteer comes next week! It´s also really useful having Tania, an American Cap Corps volunteer, here as she has been here for two years and therefore knows the best places to go, what buses to take and just general tips etc. She took us into the market the other day which is a 10 minute walk from Ciudad and introduced us to a couple of the market stall owners that she has gotten to know, then yesterday she took us by bus to Tottus which is a huge shopping market in the middle of a really rural and run down town

Mine and Hannah's 19th Birthday - today!

As today is both mine and Hannah´s 19th birthday we decided to go somewhere new so we took a bus from San Juan to Barranco and have been for lunch to a quite posh looking place (thought we'd treat ourselves) to try Ceviche. It´s raw fish with lime and chilli. I´d heard lots of good things about it from everyone that´d tried it but to be honest i wasn´t too keen. Probably just for the fact that i don´t like spicy food and even though he said it was sin picante (without spice) my mouth was burning! After we'd had lunch and my mouth had settled down we went to an internet cafe to write this blog, and then onto a wooden rooftop bar which looked really nice and chilled out for a couple of drinks. I was planning on trying my first Pisco Sour but the one that we ordered turned out to be some form of pisco sour cocktail - nice but not the real thing. We ended up coming home at about 9pm as i'd been up at 6am for work and were both shattered. It has been a really lovely birthday for both of us though. The only thing that wasn't great is that i worked for 4 hours with all the kids in the morning and as i've only been here a week i didn't want to go around telling them that it was my birthday, and even though one hermana knew, she didn't say anything so it was like no-one knew. And the only 'Happy Birthdays' i got all day were from Hannah and 2 other volunteers. I had expected that but it was still a little disappointing and a shame that my birthday isn't later on when i know the boys and hermanas better. Still, it was a great day spent with Hannah.

Birthday Ceviche

This has taken a lot longer than i thought it would but i´ll try and keep it updated every few weeks if i can. I hope everything is well back home and that everyone is excited and ready for going to university!

Hasta pronto!
Evie x

Placement Change and Training

Around a week ago I got a call from Samina, our desk officer for Peru, to say that our project that we were going to in Arequipa has fallen through due to construction works going on next year and them not wanting volunteers whilst that's going on. It was pretty gutting to hear seen as i'd psyched myself up for going there and was really excited. The new project that we've been given is in Lima, the capital of Peru, in a place called San Juan de Miraflores. We'll be working in a children's home for 300 boys and working in one of the casas with a certain age group. It's run by monks and is therefore very religious so we'll be going to church at least once a day for the evening services and sometimes in the morning too. Full on. I'm not going to lie and say i'm just as happy with this project as our previous one as Lima isn't exactly rural which i'd wanted, so there wont be people wearing traditional dress etc and i'm worried the culture wont be there. Still though, i'm going to make the most of it and i haven't actually been yet so we'll see when i get there. And on the plus side it's right in the centre which will make when we go travelling a lot easier.

Onto training week...

I just got back from our week of training on Coll which was amazing but intense to say the least. I don't think they could have prepared me better for the year ahead. We had sessions on practically everything that will or could happen whilst we're there for example: rape, health, bereavement, how to start a club, sex drugs and alcohol, you and your partner etc. I definately feel so much more prepared to go now than i did before. Plus the ceilidh on the last night was an amazing night with everyone heading down for a little paddle in the sea afterwards (not swimming in case PT are reading this).

I finally got to meet all the other girls that are going to Peru and it really seems like a great group of people who i can't wait to go away with! I think that out of everyone going they managed to pair us all up really well. The partners are:

Lima: Me and Hannah
Chiclayo: Harriet and Rosanna
Trujillo: Frances and Wendy
Iquitos: Alex and Aneesha
Pucallpa: Shannon and Kirsty
Piura: Emily and Louise

It felt weird to leave them all knowing that the next time we're all together again will be on the 26th of August at Heathrow Airport boarding the plane to Lima! It's seriously kicked in now just how soon that is and what a huge thing this actually is. SO exciting.

These are all the Peru girls.
Back row: Shannon, Louise, Kirsty, Emily, Frances, Wendy, Me, Rosanna, Harriet
Front row: Alex, Hannah, Samina (our desk officer for Project Trust), Aneesha

My next blog will probably be from Lima so until then, adios!
Evie x

Placement Letter

Hola Todos,

Peruvian Flag

I got my placement letter today which was very exciting! Looks like i'll be spending the year in Arequipa in the South of Peru. The orphanage is called the 'Fundacion Por Los Ninos' and it has around 60 orphaned or abused children that live there. There are 8 houses all together where each has its own little 'family unit' with a house mother. Me and my partner will be living in a small self-contained apartment within the orphanage. I'll be helping with the day-to-day care of the children and doing English, homework reinforcement, arts and crafts classes etc (basically like a modern day Mother Teresa). It really does sound amazing. We're living about 15 minutes from the town centre where...wait for it... there's a giant volcano! I've never even seen a volcano never mind live just underneath one. I also did a bit of my own research... it takes 6 hours to get to Cusco where there is South America's biggest bungee jump, that's definitely happening at some point! Also, in Arequipa the temperature supposedly doesn't drop below 20 degrees all year round during the day, but gets colder at night so we can sleep comfortably, amazing!

Another thing i haven't mentioned is that i just about finished fundraising my £5000 which was a huge relief, especially so i'm not stressing during exams. So, thank you to absolutely everyone who attended an event, helped out with anything or just donated money, even those who gave me all their pennies, it all added up! I didn't realise just how much people wanted to get rid of me!

I think i've mentioned everything i need to for now so i'll probably do another blog when i get back from training in July. Everything is getting so real now, i'm starting to get butterflies when i think about it but the excitement well over weighs the nerves so i guess that's good.

Thanks anyone who's bothering to read this. If you're interested in seeing what i'm doing when i'm there then save this link or bookmark it, or even follow me. I don't know what that does but i think it means you'll know when i write a new blog or something? Hopefully i'll be updating this every few weeks when i'm out there.

Adios chicos!
Besos, Evie x

Prep

My first ever blog, how exciting! Not exactly sure what to write but i'm sure it'll get easier when i've done a few more.

I found out the date of my training week the other day. It's from the 9th - 13th July during the summer. I'm actually really excited about it even though i know it's going to be a week absolutely crammed with information and training etc. I don't know yet exactly what we'll be doing there but it's to prepare us for living in a completely different society and living with and teaching a group of children in a different language, so i'm guessing there will be lots of preparation for that. I can't wait to meet everyone else that's going to Peru so i can meet my potential partner for the year, even if i wont know who that is until just before i go. I found out today that i probably wont find out what my project is and which part of Peru i'm going to until May time, which is a bit of a bummer. I actually want to be able to research and look into where i'm going but i guess i'll have to save that until after exams.

Fundraising is going quite well so far. I am just over the £2000 mark and have a couple of bag packings booked in March and a big fundraiser meal booked for April, so hopefully my total will be going up soon. Just £3000 to go! If you fancy giving a cheeky donation my virgin money giving site is http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/evieoldfield :)

I think i've said everything that i need to now so i will probably update this when i next find out some new information, maybe May time? Thank you to anyone reading this. I really appreciate all the support people have been giving me over the last few months. I know all this fundraising can get annoying after so long but i wouldn't be able to do it without you and just think, you'll be rid of me soon so i won't be around to annoy you anymore anyway haha.

Thanks for reading!

Evie xx