BOLIVIA!

Harriet, Rosanna and I left for Bolivia on the 3rd of July at 7.30am. Hannah had gone with Sophie L to meet Sophie W and Gabriel in Cusco for a week there before joining us. Our bus journey to Bolivia was... interesting. Instead of it taking 28 hours, it took around 34 due to protests in Puno. We waited around 2/3 hours in one area as it was the only route through to Bolivia. Teachers had blocked the street with giant rocks so that cars couldn't pass. We then decided to try a different 'off-track' route which after getting our hopes up, we found more protestors. Luckily they'd only just arrived before us so there weren't many rocks yet, then the police arrived and started chucking the rocks off the street. It did mean though that we had to roll along behind the policemen at walking pace as they cleared the path. Finally we arrived in La Paz the evening of the 5th.

First day in La Paz we decided to go for a wander, had a look around the markets, the central plaza, booked our Death Road and Isla del Sol tours and went for a coffee. Somehow when we were in the coffee shop we saw Helen, one of the 3 Project Trust volunteers working in Bolivia walk past so got chatting to her and organised to go round to their house that evening to see the other guys Jack and Alex. Earlier we'd been in a market where it smelt amazing so we went back there to where this supposed 'restaurant' was. It was a little old lady's kitchen with a little table in the corner where she cooks food for all of the market stall owners. So when we realised it wasn't a restaurant we started to turn around until they asked us if we wanted food, so we said yes and they invited us into the tiny kitchen, sat in the little corner table and had the best and cheapest meal ever. 9 Bolivianos, i.e. 90p for a huge bowl of soup and massive plate of food better than we'd had in any restaurant. That night we went over to visit the Bolivian volunteers and see where they'd been living all year.

The World's Most Dangerous Road

On our second day in Bolivia we decided to go and do the death road. For those that don't know, it's called the death road as it was once named the most dangerous road in the world due to the amount of deaths on it each year. Makes sense really. It's a very narrow track along the edge of a cliff and until recently it was open to the public. Now it has been closed off to cars but is open to tourists to bike down for an adrenalin rush.

Chilling on the cliff edge.

This is what we did and it was amaaazing. I can't say I was very fast and I was always the one at the back as we seemed to be in a very speedy group. But, apart from sh***ing myself at the speed I ended up accidently going at times and trying to dodge the biggest rocks in the way which my bike always seemed to head straight towards, it was pretty fun. I was more worried about actually falling off my bike on the road rather than the cliff edge. That was the fun bit. The scariest part was definately the drive back up the road at the end of the day as there was no other way back. It got to one point where the mini bus wheel was about 30cm from the vertical cliff edge and there was a car coming towards us.

Cliff edge and on-coming car

After the death road, part of the tour included going onto an animal sanctuary where we saw monkeys, parrots etc. There was a 'natural swimming pool' which we could go for a swim in if we wanted. I don't quite understand why the rest of our group pussied out but Harriet, Rosanna and I all manned up and got into the icy river for a nice swim. So, we all survived the death road.

Lake Titicaca / Copacabana

Day 3 of Bolivia we did a day tour to Copacabana to see Lake Titicaca from the Bolivian side. We left at around 7am and got a 5 hour bus to Copacabana, a cute little touristy town on the way to Isla del Sol. When we got to the island we did a couple of hours walking up to the top to see the views from the highest point. I can honestly say it was absolutely stunning. The pictures are amazing but are still nothing compared to the real thing.

We didn't end up getting back to La Paz until around 11pm ish when we went straight back to our room in Loki, our hostal. After being in bed for about 5 minutes a drunk guy wandered into our room looking lost until he saw us. Turned out it was Jack (Bolivia PT volunteer) who then proceeded to drag us out of bed for a night out. Can't say we were too objecting. We ended up having a few drinks in Loki then as they'd lived there for a year they took us to a couple of bars not really known about by many tourists. We went to one underground reggae bar where they did amazing fish bowls and we could sit on pillows on the floor in a little cave room. Then they took us to a Bolivian bar where we spent the rest of the night with our drinks being topped up by a group of Bolivians we met and salsaing. I think it's a Bolivian thing that you can never have an empty glass.

I can't say we did much with our Saturday due to slight headaches, but in the afternoon Hannah and her three friends from home, Sophie L, Sophie W and Gabriel turned up after being in Cusco for a week. So we went for a wander into the markets with them, went for a visit to San Pedro prison (if you havent, you all need to read the book Marching Powder about San Pedro. It's amazing and they used to do tours around the prison led by the prisoners. Not anymore). We then bought some food and went back to their hostal where we cooked some tea, had a few drinks and then headed back to Loki for another night. The Bolivian volunteers joined us again and we ended up having a pretty amazing La Paz night out, spending about an hour of it successfully pretending we were Russians and Jack pretending he was all of our Jamaican husband. I can easily say that La Paz provides the best nights out that i've ever been on.

Sucre

Typically after that night we ended up getting up around 2pm, sorting ourselves out by 4pm to go and book our buses down south to Sucre for 8pm. One reason I love Bolivia. Everything is so chilled out and last minute. There's no pre-booking things weeks in advance. Sometimes you just show up and that's that. So we got the bus at 8pm and arrived in Sucre Monday morning, then spent the day wandering the town and just settling in really. Tuesday was an interesting day. For some reason we booked to do a 6 hour round trek to see some ancient paintings. I again for some reason agreed to it, knowing that I hate walking/trekking. It took about double the time that it should have to reach the painting due to me falling off a rock at the start and twisting my ankle (or general unfitness *cough*), Sophie W's asthma and our general need to chat the whole way and 'take in the scenery'. Much to our fellow keen trekkers unamusement. Then when we reached the painting it was average and definately not worth the trek. Then to top it off we had to walk the same route back to the bus which meant mainly uphill walking. So my idea of fun. So after a bit of pressurised walking with the keenos walking behind us and saying 'we're only as fast as the slowest walker', we persuaded them to go off ahead and we'd just walk on behind with the guide and they can meet us on the bus. Worked out so much better as although it was bloody difficult, there was no pressure to go faster than we could. So me and Sophie W walked with Robert our guide and arrived back at the bus around 45 minutes after the others. There were some beautiful views and we had some nice long chats... but I wouldn't be signing up to do it if we went again. That night we decided to play a bit of Ring of Fire on the hostal rooftop and then go see what kind of nightlife Sucre had to offer. Turns out not much but we did find one club. Naños. Sticky floors, prostitutes all over the place and watered down drinks. But saying that, after a while loads of Gringos (white people) started to turn up and we kind of took over the place dancing our Danza Kuduro and Balada Boa. That also turned out to be an amazing night.

Killer trail.

The day after, Hannah, Harriet, Rosanna and Sophie L went to a Dinosaur park with supposed real life footprints. Me, Sophie W and Gabriel just spent the day wandering Sucre again and having a pretty nice relaxing day, topping it off with watching 21 Jump Street back at the hostal. We also found Jack again that day who then came over to the hostal for a bit more Ring of Fire.

Potossi Mines

The day after, we got the bus down to Potossi to do the mining tour. The bus that we got there was lets say... fun. There were chickens in the overhead storage and people who didn't have seats in the carriage underneath. Talk about making the most of the space available. The mining tour is one of my Bolivia highlights. I was a bit apprehensive at first as I get a bit claustrophobic. We had to buy the miners 'presents', or not really as it wasn't optional. We got them dynamite, orange juice and 96% whiskey, which we actually had to have 2 shots of before going down into the mines. Funny customs. The mines are still fully functioning and we got told before going down that the only form of security that we're going to have will be our wellies and helmet. They were right. Everytime one of the carts came down the centre carrying out rocks etc we had to dodge to the side as they couldn't lose motion of pushing such a heavy cart. there were giant holes right next to the path so deep that you couldn't see the bottom. The best/worst bit is that they exploded some dynamite whilst we were down there and took us to show the guy lighting it, then gave us 50 seconds to run away. We ran, waited, thought it was a joke and started to relax then the whole place went BOOM. It was so bloody exciting. Maybe slightly dangerous too but we're all safe so whatever.

In our mining outfits.

4-Day Salt Flats Tour

We finished the day by booking our Uyuni Salt Flats tour, leaving at 11am the next day. The trip took 5/6 hours so we arrived in Uyuni at around 4pm. The bus journey ended up going quite quickly as Sophie W and I watched Jackass 3.5 on my mini dvd player, then Jeepers Creepers with Gabriel and the Bolivian guy behind him who we put Spanish subtitles on for ha. Uyuni is a cute little town, quite expensive due to it being the only place where you can leave from to do the Salt Flats so there are lots of tourists. We went for a wander to the market and got some Mexican for tea.

The morning we were supposed to set off on our 4 day tour didn't start off too great. None of the 6 bank machines in Uyuni were working so we didn't think we had enough money for all of us to afford the entry fee too the national park or the entrance fee to climb the volcano. After everyone scrounged from everyone and we changed our remaining dollars/soles in the money changing places we JUST had enough for everyone to do everything, apart from climb to the top of the volcano, only half way. The next problem was that the company we booked with said that there was no room in the jeep for an English guide so we would only be getting a solely Spanish speaking driver. A few 'discussions' later, after they'd tried fobbing us off with 30 Bolivianos (£3) back each from the 1000Bs (£100) we'd all paid, we got our English guide and there was plenty of space, even if a bit cosy.

Our jeep. Rofl.

The first day consisted of seeing the train cemetery which was amazing. Loads of old trains that used to transport goods too and from Chile. And also going to the actual salt flats where we had llama steak for lunch and then took our salt flat photos.

Nothing like a bit of nakedness on the flats.

The flats were amazing. Just miles and miles of salt. After this we went onto our hostal for the night where we had a bit of a sesh outside with the car doors open and music blasting out. Had a good bit of Eminem, Black Eyed Pees and a lot of skanking. Think we might have scared the hostal owners as to what had arrived.

Day 2 was volcano and fish island day so we set off early to start climbing the volcano. None of us could afford the entrance fee to climb past half way so the plan was to just do half, which me and Harriet didn't even do. We got a bit up, then sat and chatted for a couple of hours looking at the view of the salt flats which was stunning. When the guys came back down we went for lunch in the hostal then headed over to fish island. This was a tiny island on the flats absolutely covered in cactus and was apparently shaped like a fish (couldn't see it).

Harriet, Gabriel, me and Hannah on Fish Island

That night we stayed in the Salt Hotel which was actually made of salt. The walls, floor, tables etc were all salt. Pretty cool. Literally too. It was bloody freezing.

Day 3 there was a lot of driving so we got up by candle light as it was 5am and the electricity didn't come on until 6.30pm. This meant a pitch black walk to the bathroom which wasn't too fun. We stopped on the salt flats again for breakfast which was the absolute coldest breakfast i've ever had. It was around -10 degrees. As per we went a bit crazy in the jeep rapping along to the driver's Eminem CD. They told us we were their favourite group. Unsurprising really, specially as we'd taken our clothes off on the salt flats. We saw quite a few things that day like a rock shaped like a tree, some more bigger rocks and the national park where we went for a swim in the hot springs, then went on to see some Geezers before heading to the next hostal. As it was the last night we had a bit of a celebration. We got spaghetti bolognese for tea which was an absolute treat, specially as we'd not had it in a year. We also got some drinks in and played quite a few drinking games with a few other groups of people that were there on their last day. This lasted until about 10.30pm when the hostal owners came out to remind us that it was a hostal and not a bar. Oops. Then came the worst nights sleep I've ever had. I was wearing leggings, trackies and peruvian trousers with 2 pairs of socks, a short sleeved top, long sleeved top, hoody and fleece with two hats and a pair of gloves. I've never been so cold in my life. Apparently it was -15 degrees and the hostal had no form of heating, including holes in the walls etc. I think I shivered non-stop from 11pm to 8am. Horrendous.

Day 4 we got a lie in until 9am, came out to an amazing breakfast (compared to the bread we'd had the other days), then set off to our last stop which was the red lake. It was amazing as it had all iced over so we decided to be little kids and play on it until it cracked.

Twisting on the Red Lake

 La Paz, Again

We then made the rest of the trip back to Uyuni, then got our night bus back to La Paz. Again, this night was probably as cold as the night before, maybe worse. Especially as I was next to an ice cold window and there was no heating, then we had to change buses at 4am to a very slightly warmer bus. Unsurprisingly I got pretty ill and then spent the next day once we'd arrived in La Paz in my bed. This meant a day of watching Stepbrothers then listening to the rest of the guys chat about their money problems as they'd all nearly run out and still had 3 weeks travelling left. I'd have run out too if I hadn't left early.

The next day, as Harriet, Rosanna and I had done the death road before the other guys arrived, they went to do it and we stayed in La Paz for another day of exploring the city and markets. It was a lovely day until around 8pm when the others arrived back from doing the tour after Gabriel and Hannah had completed the 2litre challenge. That means drinking 2litres of rum and coke in an hour on the bus journey back up the death road. Unfortunately they both succeeded. So our night didn't turn out quite as planned but after Rosanna finally got Gabriel to sleep, we went up to the bar and ended up having a really good night. The police raided all the bars in La Paz that night so at 1am we had to leave, so Jack and I headed out to a club and got salsaing.

The next day wasn't too productive after everyone got up around 2pm again, then just sat around in bed, watching films etc until 6 when we decided it was time to move as we were planning a big final night out due to it being my last night in Bolivia and it was Rosanna's birthday the day after. So we all got dressed up to the nines (or more like fives) and went to this really nice thai restaurant, way classier than anywhere we'd been pretty much all year. We didn't get back from the meal until around 11pm ish when we got 'ready for the night', meaning putting on our most bright and ridiculous clothes, drawing on our faces and then heading over to Jack's house.

The reason why we're probably on a lot of Bolivian facebooks

We got there around 11.45, ready to celebrate Rosanna's birthday at 12. I think the Bolivians that were there were a bit shocked by our gettup as they were all dressed respectably, sat around the room chatting and socialising. Ah well. We ended up going back to the bar that Jack and I had been to the night before and staying there until the lights came on around 4am. I felt like a celebrity that night. People were videoing us, asking to take photos with us and just generally staring at us. I'm not too surprised though. Everyone else were Bolivian, dressed in normal clothes and dancing on the dance floor. We're white, dressed like d*cks and dancing on a raised platform probably doing dance moves (skanking) that they've never seen before. After that we headed to Blue Bar to carry on the night until coming home around 6am. It was definately the best night out I've ever had and the most amazing way to end my time in Bolivia.

The day after, we chilled around the hostal until around 1.30pm when I had to leave the guys to go and get my bus back to Lima for my flight home. Luckily the bus back didn't take so long this time and I met another British girl, Marie, who had been travelling for two years and was flying home the day before me so we chatted most of the way.

Got back to Ciudad in the afternoon of the 23rd leaving me a day and a half to get packed and spend some quality time with Laura, Micheal, Ryan and Christoph. I mainly just packed, sorted my stuff out and we had a last trip to the market, last pollo a la brasa and watched a couple of films together before leaving with Christoph to the airport on the night of the 24th.

I got into London Heathrow the morning of the 26th and we headed down to Devon for my cousin Katy's wedding. All very surreal. Lots of white people, everyone speaking English, and I don't know what has happened to girl's fashion this year but I never thought that orange faces and shorts that show your arse cheeks would become so popular. Strange. The weirdest thing though is putting toilet paper down the toilet and drinking from taps. I'm slowly getting used to it all again though.

Got to say though, it won't be long before I'm heading back over to South America. My time there has not finished!

Chau Ciudad!

My last couple of weeks in Ciudad were definitely ones that I’ll never be able to forget. I decided that as there was such little time left, I would spend my weekends working in Sonrisa with my older boys. The look on their faces when I turned up to work on the first Saturday morning nearly made me cry. They came running up to me, jumping on me and I’ve never had such sloppy kisses. I spent the day playing with the boys, them showing me all their new toys, cuddling up with them to play memory cards etc. It was just such an amazing day and I think that I used to really take for granted the little moments that I got to spend with them. I also for the first time showed people (Elsa and Maribel) the completed version of the Ciudad video project that Laura and I have spent the last 3 months doing. It’s a 20 minute long video with videos and photos of all the houses in Ciudad, events that they do and what goes on inside the walls. I have to say, I’m very proud of it and luckily they really liked it too and wanted a copy! I’m going to try and get it onto Youtube so that everyone can see it but I’m not sure how to just yet.

Even though during the last week I was trying to keep it out of my mind that we were leaving, it was pretty hard. As news spread through the boys that it was our last week more and more people came up to us asking why we were leaving, whether we would be coming back and why can’t we just stay. Difficult questions to answer, especially with the younger kids that just don’t understand. We spent the whole of the weeks breaks packing up our things, doing a final big clean of the apartment and the ludoteca, trying to get a copy of our dvd round to all the tutors.

Our last weekend was absolutely amaaazing. It started on Friday which was a religious holiday so our boys didn’t have school. We decided to take them on a paseo (field trip) to a park around a 10 minute combi ride away. (Off note – I’m writing this in Miami airport and I just got seriously asked if i’m going to London to compete in the Olympics HA). The park had playgrounds, football pitches, sandpits, basically any 3-6 year olds dream. I’ve never seen the kids have such fun. They just ran around kicking footballs, chasing bouncy balls, falling off monkey bars, running up slides etc. I obviously had to join in. When  we left there were no combi’s that went past Ciudad so we had to do the 45 minute walk back along a dirty, nasty side road all holding hands with their partners. It was like an extension of the trip with the kids having races at certain parts, avoiding the dead dog in the path and splashing through the puddles. So much fun.

When we got back we were told that there was a visita (normally where a group comes in and gives stuff/plays with the boys) at 4pm so we had to shower the muddy kids straight away. This is where my density came in useful. There were so many signs, yet I didn’t know that this ‘visita’ was actually a party for us leaving, until we got right to the door and saw all the other volunteers, Nino Jesus, Sonrisa, San Antonio and Anita saying “SORPRESA, ES PARA USTEDES” (SURPRISE IT’S FOR YOU GUYS). Literally didn’t have a clue so it was the most amazing surprise. There was a huge banner in the room with all of our faces on saying ‘Gracias Jesus’ and a huge chocolate cake that they made in the Ciudad bakery with a poster of our faces on it. 

Cake made for us in the Ciudad bakery

Huge poster of us found on the wall

Christoph was the main host and did all of the introducing of the house acts i.e. Cesar, Enrique, Jossepf and Esteban danced the Wachiturros (google it), Gerardo, Quimper and Josue sang a song written for Rosanna and the San Antonio boys read something for Harriet. Then after the acts, there were 2 pinyatas which immediately got knocked to the ground and resulted in huuuge pile ons of both kids and volunteers being tackled into the pile. 

Pinyata Pile-On

The music was blasted and all the kids went a bit crazy which was so so nice to see as it just doesn’t happen that much. And it was so nice for all three houses to be able to do something together for once as my two houses never normally communicate due to the tutors. But Christoph, Laura, Michael and Ryan are amazing and managed to get them all together just once for us. At the end Hugo gave a little speech and gave us a big cardboard copy of the photo of everyone in Ciudad and a big one of all us volunteers. Then, just before it finished, Maribel handed me a little bit of paper saying “te esperamos en la familia Sonrisa Franciscana, hoy a las 7:15pm.” (We will be waiting for you in the family Sonrisa Franciscana, today at 7:15pm.”

So, at 7:15pm I went to Sonrisa to find all the kids outside with Rosanna and Miriam playing games. I went to join them, then Maribel leant out of the window to say that it was ready so we all went back around the front, they blindfolded me and Rosanna, we went into a dark room then they all yelled SORPRESA as they turned the lights on. They had decorated the whole place with balloons, put up posters on the wall saying thank you and there were two tables covered in plates of sweets, popcorn, juice etc.

Decorations and Guillermo about the introduce the night

 I can’t even explain how much it meant to me that they even invited me along after leaving and changing to Nino Jesus. They led us into the centre where we sat down and the games commenced. First they had ties a string with 6 balloons with either sweets or flour in them. They blindfolded me again and Maribel walked me to the line where I had to try and pop the balloons with a ruler. She spun me 3x then I went for it with all the boys shouting ‘mas alla’, ‘no mas aca’. I don’t know if they realized that I couldn’t see where here and there meant. I ended up whacking the line down instead. Me and Rosanna had a couple more goes then the boys had a few goes which was funny. Specially watching Ricardo, the smallest boy jumping up and down blindfolded swinging a pointy ruler around his head. 

Rosanna being directed to the balloons

The next few games were where you tie a balloon to your leg and try and pop everyone elses, where you had to race to a chair and pop the balloon by sitting on it and pin the tail on the donkey. All with hilarious endings. After games we handed out the food to the boys and some of them gave speeches saying thank you and wishing us well. Diego’s speech was so cute. He talked about how Rosanna is like a flower growing inside their hearts and developing. I don’t know if he wrote it but it was adorable. After speeches came dancing which is always fun. We got to see the boys salsaing, getting down to reggaeton etc. Alex, my biggest boy, kept coming up to me and pushing all the other boys away so that he could grab my hands and dance with me. At one point I was dancing with all of the boys that I had last year which was so nice, like being back at the Christmas visitas dancing with them. At the end of the night the boys gave us the blessing and then a present each of a bag with a really nice Inka key chain and a card with all of the boys names in it. It was easily one of the best nights of my life.

Dancing time

On the Saturday Hannah and I went into Nino Jesus to play in the morning. At about 10am we got a call from the reception saying that something had arrived for us. We went to find a huge envelope each with the Ciudad address on and our names on with the most amazing card inside. Anita and Elisa had made a card in the shape of a heart, beautifully decorated, with the kids fingerprints, and with around 7 pages all signed and written on by nearly all the staff in Ciudad. Got to admit I got a little teary when I saw it. Reading everyones comments made me realize how much I’m going to miss even the people that I don’t spend all my time with but see on a daily basis.

In the afternoon I went into Sonrisa again. I played a lot of football with the boys and a lot of checkers. I even played Maribel but she whooped me. That night Hugo took us all out for a meal which was lovely. We went to an Italian restaurant and he ended up telling us a lot about his life, how we became a monk etc so it was really good to find out a bit more about his life. After the meal we went for our final trip to Café Z for a few piscinas (fish bowls) with all of the volunteers.

Sunday was mainly a day for packing and sorting all of our stuff out. I’d finished around 3pm ish so went to Sonrisa and sat with the boys to watch a film. The only boys that were left during the visit were Alex, Andrew, Quimper and Jean Pierre (all my last year’s boys) and each one of them snuggled right into me which was so nice. During our final Mass we typically got asked up to the front so the whole of church could give us the blessing. Nice, but always a bit awkward. When we got back to Nino Jesus after the kids all came up to us one by one to say bye. It was all going fine until Angels (gorgeous 3yr old) turn. You could see him welling up then once he’d hugged us both he burst into tears which made me get teary. Once we’d said our byes to them I headed to Sonrisa for my final goodbyes. I was feeling fine about it at the time, until I had Andrew on one side and Gerardo on the other side who both wouldn’t let go. Alex made me feel better though cracking jokes to lighten the mood. Man I love those boys. Then came the time to say bye to Maribel and Elsa. We first gave them the flowers that we’d bought them, then they wanted photos with us and the flowers which took a bit longer, then Maribel wouldn’t give me a hug to say bye and instead we walked to the lavanderia together, chatted for another 20 minutes until we finally had to say bye. I’m normally a wreck so I’m quite proud that I kept myself together pretty much the whole evening.

Elsa and Maribel, my Sonrisa hermanas

We left Ciudad at around 7.15am Monday morning, prime time for the school goers so we ended up passing San Antonio and Sonrisa walking to school meaning a couple more hugs but nothing else. Then, we were on our way to BOLIVIA.

I can honestly say that this year has been the most amazing and challenging year of my life and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

I’m about to board my flight back to London now so Bolivia will have to be saved for another day.

I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M ABOUT TO GO HOME! WHAAAAAT!

The Ciudad Olympics- TAKE 2

On the weekend of the 2/3rd of June we had the Ciudad Olympics annual event. Somehow last year it was in September so we were here for it and this year they changed it so we managed to be here for 2 years worth. And i´m so glad we were. It´s definately my favourite event of Ciudad.

Preparations started a couple of weeks before when the poster got stuck up with the team lists. As soon as they were up all of the boys were going around asking who´s in what team, which team is going to win and hassling the other teams. We had a few meetings to sort out who would participate in which event, decide on and learn some sort of chant and team song and to learn the dance. We had all of the meetings in Niño Jesús at around 8pm after all of the boys had fallen asleep. I´ve never known anybody to be in such a deep sleep. All of the lights were turned on, the music was deafening and everyone was talking loudly, yet not one of the 25 boys woke up. Amazing. 2 days before the Olympics the blue team staff (me, Anita, Doris, Elisa and Christoph. Minus Hannah and Pedro) went on a trip to central Lima during the break to buy all of the things; balloons, whistles, things that make a lot of booyah (noise) and stuff for our costumes. It took over an hour to get there and back so we ended up only just getting back intime to pick up the boys from school. Elisa and Christoph had to stay longer though as we´d ordered a giant chinese dragons head which they were waiting for. When they brought it back, it turns out it wasn´t the one we´d ordered and looked more like a duck than a scary dragon. So... Anita, Doris, Christoph and I all went back to Central Lima to sort it out and get what we´d ordered. After lots of arguing we finally got the dragon and 15 sol (about 3 pounds) off the price for the hassle. We´d already missed the whole afternoon of work but then on the way back in our combi (mini bus type bus) a man decided to call the police over when they pulled to the side of the road as the driver hadn´t apparantly stopped at a bus stop where he wanted to get off. This lead to a lot more arguing, passengers on the bus yelling their side of the story, and Christoph yelling that we had to get back for alabanza (dancing in church). We finally did get back but not until 6.30pm in time for tea. Friday night preparations included a full team meeting at 9pm to go over dance moves and chants, then working through until 12.30am to paint the rubbish cart (which ended up looking really nice and blue), blow up balloons to make a balloon arch, make a giant sign etccc. It was a very long day.


The Actual Weekend

Last year the blue team mascots were Smurfs so this year we decided to do Avatars. Hannah, Christoph and I started painting ourselves at around 7.30am and only just finished in time for the grand entrance at 9am.

At 9am all of the teams lined up down the main street in Ciudad. Blue team at the back (obviously to save the best til last). Everyone started walking towards the cancha (pitch where the presentation was taking place) doing their best to out-do the other teams. There were horns, whistles, balloons waving etc. Blue team had a chant going the whole way which went:

Nadie nos puede parar... AZUL                                 No one can stop us... BLUE
Hay que salir a ganar... AZUL                                   We have to go out to win... BLUE
Vamos azul que tu puedes volver a empezaaar.         Come on blue you can start again.

Nadie nos puede parar... AZUL                                 No one can stop us... BLUE
Hay que salir a ganar... AZUL                                   We have to go out to win... BLUE
Vamos azul que tu puedes llegar a ganaaar.               Come on blue you can win.

And our other chant was:

Todo el mundo sabe que azul es bacan bacan bacan bacan x2
A la derecha - la vuelta, la vuelta, la vuelta, la vuelta, la vuelta, EQUIPO AZUL
A la izquierda - la vuelta, la vuelta, la vuelta, la vuelta, la vuelta, EQUIPO AZUL

Everyone knows that blue is cool cool cool cool x2

To the right - turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, BLUE TEAM

To the left - turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, BLUE TEAM

I don´t think, or at least didn´t hear, any other team with a chant or song or anything. Once all of the teams had arrived at the cancha the presentations started. Each team made a dance or a drama thing to try and outdo the other teams. For ours the avatars and older boys all did a dance to Balada Boa, an amazing Brazilian song. There´s a video on the Ciudad facebook which is here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?v=482644045084527  I don´t know if the link will work but fingers crossed as it´s a video of the full dance and also our chants after. So with all of that the winners for the presentation were.... BLUE TEAM!

Josue - LOVE LOVE LOVE HIM!

After all the presentations etc we had the races. Little kids against littles and bigs against bigs. Then the long jump. Sunday was a less dressed up day as we couldn´t really be fussed to paint ourselves fully again. So instead, Hannah and I got the paints out and attacked the kids with them. Made sure nearly all of them had some sort of paint splatter (or a nice pattern/Army stripes). All of Sunday was football so there was a lot of group competition and jeering other teams. Anyway it finished Sunday afternoon with the presentations of medals to the boys and the copa (cup) to... BLUE TEAM! So we won over all much to all the other teams annoyance as Blue team won last year. It also lead to other tutors claiming that blue team cheated and lots of arguments going on in the last tutor meeting. But, we know we won through effort so all´s good.

Next year´s volunteers have a lot to live up to though as out of us 4 project trust girls we´re now called Hermana Avatar, the other Hermana Avatar, Hermana Leon (Sister Lion) and Hermana Abeja (Sister Bee).

Only 2 weeks left of work now. I don´t want to leave my boys!

Eviecita x

Realisation

With the realisation of only having 5 weeks left of working here I have been thinking about all of the things that I am going to miss from Peru.

- speaking Spanish: I´m not particularly looking forward to being back where everyone speaks English and pretty much no-one speaks Spanish. Just the fact that my Spanish has improved so much this year and the thought of not speaking it every day is quite sad. I´m trying to persuade the tutors here to get skype so we can talk and I can keep practicing.

- teaching my cheeky little Sonrisa boys pointless things like making a duck noise with a piece of grass, pretending to cut off half their thumb, trying and failing to whistle with their fingers, getting a good towel whipping motion, etc. Then seeing their faces when they manage to achieve it.

- watching Andrew, Alex and Jhover's faces in church as they sing along to the songs. Never before have I seen such effort. I´m talking red faces, furrowed brows and bulging veins in the neck.

- watching Doris (hermana from San Antonio) and Eliza (hermana from Niño Jesús) in church. Never before have I seen such bad co-ordination. It´s bloody hilarious.

- the bus system: Having men dangling out of the door/window of a bus shouting out where it´s going and trying to persuade you to get on. Being able to get on wherever you are in the street and having the guy come to collect money off you once you´re sat down. I have a feeling when I get back I´ll be trying to wave down buses in the street and just go sit down and forget to pay the driver.

- taxis: as dangerous as some of them can be, it's great just walking down a street and being able to flag one down. Having to pre-call a taxi sounds ridiculous right now.

- milk: It comes in a bag and doesn´t need to be refrigerated. Amazing.

- how friendly everyone is: Probably down to the fact that we´re gringas (white foreign girls) so everybody wants to practice their limited English on us, but still.

- that a weekend trip can be a 9 hour bus journey somewhere: It only costs around 15 pounds and you can just hop on most buses without pre-planning.

- food and drink: specifically- pisco, maracuya juice (passion fruit juice, so not the same in England), piscinas (giant blue fish bowls with vodka, rum, gin, pisco and a couple of non alcoholic drinks. Sounds nasty but tastes good), pollo a la brasa (basically chicken and chips but you don't get it like this in the UK), ceviche (raw fish marinated in lime and chilli with onions and sweet potato. I didn't like it at first but i've grown to like it).

- surprisingly, the religion: It has been a struggle this year but now that we´re finally settled into the routine of praying before and after every meal, going to church every day and doing God knows (lol) how many Padre Nuestros (Our Fathers) and Hail Marys, I have a feeling I´m going to miss it. Especially seeing nuns and monks wandering around. Nun punch wont be half as fun to play at home.

- general cheapness: The fact that a taxi to Miraflores (40 minutes away) costs about 3 pounds, whereas a taxi from my House to Huddersfield (5 minutes drive) costs 4 pounds. That a kilo of mandarins costs 50p, avocados cost 25p and ciabatta bread costs 5p.

- my night time walks: The only alone time I can really have here. As long as I go out after curfew at 9pm, Ciudad is all mine to wander.

- mototaxis: These little death contraptions definately need to be brought into the UK. Basically a motorbike with a little hut over it which can take up to 3 people (4 if you lie across everyone). So cheap and can weave in and out of cars and down little back streets.

- meeting people: I´ve met some amazing people from all over the world being here. America, Australia, Ireland, France, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, etc. Most people are either travelling or working abroad so there are so many interesting stories to hear.

- small moments with the boys: just when you're watching a film with a boy on your knee and they cling onto your arm, or when they run from one end of the street to the other just to give you a hug, or making sure they get their kiss before bed. Little things like that really make my day.

It's really starting to sink in now how little time I have left here and how different it's going to be when I get home. I feel like I'm sort of ready to finish working at Ciudad (although I probably wont be thinking the same in my last week when I have to start saying my goodbyes) as we have worked so hard here and I really feel like we need a good break and a long rest. Even starting work at 8am when I get home and finishing at 5pm would count as a long rest for me. Just not getting up at 5.15am and finishing at 8pm anymore would be amazing.

But over all as much as I want to see everyone at home and experience British life again, I still don't feel ready to leave Peru. I feel like this is my second country, my second home and I have a very large extended family here. I'm trying to keep my mind off leaving for now and juse enjoy the rest of my days here and the people that I'm spending them with, then think about travelling in Bolivia after. At least we've got that to look forward to so it's a step-by-step process. First is to leave the kids and the people but not South America, then 3 weeks later leave South America. Honestly, I'm shitting myself about leaving knowing that I'm most likely not going to see any of the people again that I've spent my whole year with. I'm definately going to keep a list of my boys names then in 10 years time stalk them all on facebook to see who's about and what they've turned out like. If I remember anyway.

Mucho amor,
Eviecita

A Firing and a Traditional Easter

Good stuff and bad stuff in this one. Times are looking up for Niño Jesús and in general but other shit is going doooown.

More Big Changes

I have never really written about the full goings on abuse wise that happened whilst I was working in Sonrisa. I guess it was because this blog is public and I didn´t want the wrong people reading it and problems to come from that. But the problem has finally been taken care of so I feel like I can finally talk about it openly.

From the first week I was working in Sonrisa in September, one of the hermanas would pull the kids ears, cheeks, necks, any open skin area, hit them across the face, hit them with books, bags, belts and just generally use physical punishment rather than anything that would actually work and not just make the kids cry and want to punch the hermana but then go punch another kid to let it out. This was one of the reasons that I left Sonrisa as it was awful being there when for example the boys were being smacked round the head with their school bags (everyone knows how heavy they can be), and the worst things would happen when the other hermanas weren´t there to see and it was just me and her.

So 2 weeks ago all the volunteers and I had a meeting with Hugo to discuss a few topics such as our new oven, homework time and then treatment of the kids in the houses. We were quite vague about it as we didn´t want to name names and get anyone fired. We were just hoping to let him know that there is a general problem of discipline in the houses (I.e. Sonrisa but again we didn´t want to name names) and that maybe there could be some more training on how to discipline the kids in other ways or just raise the issue with the tutors to let them know that it isn´t acceptable. So in the next tutor meeting Hugo mentioned it to the tutors as right now the laws are changing in Peru to make it illegal to take forceful measure against children (about time) and that they need to be aware of this and what it could mean for them if they contine. So we thought that this was successful as it had been brought up infront of her and the other hermanas. However, even though she apparently improved a bit over the next couple of weeks, last Thursday she took it waaaay too far.

One of the 7yr old boys had pooed his pants so she decided as a punishment it would be good to take his shitty underwear and rub it all over his face, then in the faces of 4 other boys who had gotten bad grades in their exams in school. Bearing in mind these are 7-9 year old boys who have come from families of abuse and are here to get away from it all. I don´t think I´ve ever been so angry in my life. My heart was beating way over the limit, I was shaking and eventually burst into tears from anger. Rosanna and Harriet had to literally yell after me after I´d started marching off to go and 'talk' to her. So instead, all 4 of us Project Trust girls went to talk to Hugo, the director here about it and just told him direct what has been happening. He asked me and Rosanna to write down a list of everything that we´ve seen her do to the kids, we gave it him and by Monday, she had been fired and there is now a new hermana working in Sonrisa who used to work in San Jose 3 years ago.

That whole weekend was such a stressful one for all of the volunteers as we all had such strong views and opinions on what had happened. It also made it worse that on Saturday, Rosanna went to ask Hugo what was happening and he said that if Flor (head hermana who has been working here 15 years and Hugo thinks she can 'control' her) accepted her, she was possibly going to just be moved up a house to San Antonio. Hearing this, Laura who works in San Antonio went to talk to Flor to give her a heads up and let her know the real situation (as Hugo didn´t tell her the real reason why she was being made to leave Sonrisa) which lead to Flor giving Hugo a downright no, that she didn´t want to work with her. So thanks to Laura, and also Elsa who had been to talk to Flor too, she no longer works here. It´s such a relief though and I feel like the kids are so much better off not having to be flinching every time she walks past etc. I do feel a bit sorry for her though. She had plenty of warnings about it, decided not to change her behaviour and now she has lost her job, 6 months into being pregnant. I just hope that for her sake she decides to get some help as no-one can treat kids as she does without having had her own problems.

Anyway, on to better news and happier times.


Pascua / Easter

Easter here was a lot different from any other Easter that I have experienced. We actually celebrated the real reason for it. I.e. Jesus dying and resurrecting. I never really knew much about the Easter story apart from what we learnt about in Primary school which I had forgotten most of. I knew it would be a big deal here as it´s obviously a Catholic organisation and everything they do it about Jesus/God. It first got mentioned around 3 weeks before Easter during a tutors meeting when everyone was deciding how we were going to organise everything over the 4 days (Holy Thursday, Holy Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday). That was when I realised we wouldn´t just be eating chocolate eggs and slobbing about all day. As Jackie, the main woman that runs things in the office here, knew that us 4 Project Trust girls aren´t Catholic she kindly printed us off a sheet giving us, in English, the basic details of what Easter is so that if the boys asked us any questions we would know how to answer. So, as it was such a big deal to them, we did some more homework beginning with watching 'The Passion of the Christ' which was gruesome but we learnt quite a bit from that. Surprisingly it quite interested me and I wanted to learn a bit more about it so Laura showed me the part of the Bible which talks about Easter and everything that happened so I read 4 whole pages of the Bible! Crazy I know. And before you all get worried, I´m not converting, it was just really interesting to learn about what they actually believe in here.

So actual Easter turned out to be a very long process. The Sunday a week before Easter Sunday was Palm Sunday and as it was Niño Jesus' turn to run alabanza, we had all of the boys up by the front waving palm leaves around whilst singing. This Holy Thursday and Friday the boys had off school which meant working 14 hour days again. However, for me there was a very Christmassy feel to it all as everyone was feeling festive and in a good mood. Eliza even brought us Pisco Sour´s whilst we were watching the kids play which was nice and bien rico. The first Eastery thing that we did was Mass at 7pm on Thurday which was for 1.5 hours, then from then until 10pm everyone sat in the church in absolute silence with a few songs inbetween to break up the silence. This was painful. Sitting in silence for an hour and a half is hard enough for me, never mind 26 3-6yr olds. By 9.30pm ish even though they´d had a 2 hour nap during the day, the majority of the little ones were fast asleep or crying because they weren´t allowed to sleep, so luckily Hugo just came over and told us we could take them back early (win win).

Friday was a day of 'silence' or more like 'attempted silence' as it was the day of Jesus' death. Each house had a half hour time slot in the morning to go and sit in the church in silence and pray to God. Then at 3pm we had another Mass, 1.5 hours again, then at 5pm was the 'Stations of the Cross'. This was a re-enactment of what happened the night that Jesus died. It was re-enacted within a rope made into a square so that no-one apart from the actors could enter, then everyone else followed behind to watch the action performed by Familia San Francisco. It started at the entrance to Ciudad and went around all of Ciudad passing by each station which had been set up by each house. At each station they stopped, acted out what happened then someone read a prayer and we did a 'Padre Nuestro' (I.e. said the Our Father prayer). In the part where Jesus is getting whipping whilst carrying his cross the boys didn´t let up on the whipping, they were full on whipping the poor boy acting as Jesus with a giant rope. Everyone was wincing a bit at the sound of the thwacks! Hannah, Amy and I also had to do some acting as we were given the roles of crying women so had to enter the acting circle at one point!

Jesus Dying on the Cross


Saturday was our free day so we were off until Mass again at 6.30pm. This one was actually a really nice service. It started with a bonfire outside San Francisco, then everyone lit their candles that they had been given and we walked into the church which had all the lights turned off. As everyone entered more and more light obviously came in which was to signify light coming back into Jesus' life as he resurrected. It was a little bit of a tricky situation as 3yr olds with candles isn´t too safe but overall it went fine. Minus our youngest, Jossepf, trying to lick the candle like a lolly which I quickly had to blow out. After that it was just a lovely service, they had the same choir and band in that they had for Christmas with amazing singers. They made the hymns that we sing every day with the boys actually sound really nice rather than kids just shouting the words.

The boys with their Candles

Sunday started with Mass at 6am which was just a normal style Mass and like the ending to Easter. This was followed by a big breakfast of Spaghetti Soup, a boiled egg, a chicken leg, canchitos, a bread roll and coffee. A bit weird for a breakfast but it´s what we had on Christmas and one of the ´Day of the Saints´ so it felt special. Plus the section where Niño Jesus eats is normally closed off from the rest of the comedor but for the day it got opened so we were technically sat with everyone which was nice. After that we had a few photos of the familia Niño Jesus and then the boys had an easter egg hunt. All very festive and it was such a lovely last couple of days. I have to admit that with over 11 hours of Mass and churchy things over the space of 4 days it was nice once it was all over but I´m definately glad that I have experienced a real Easter and actually understand it now.

The boys with their Easter Eggs.

General Ciudad Stuff

- I find alabanza quite funny these days as a lot of the boys in Niño Jesus either don´t know how to dance, stand there looking really dazed, or they full on go for it with a really angry face which is hilarious to watch. It´s either that or they are asleep which can also be slightly funny. The other day Enrique was asleep and somehow managed to fall off the bench and crack his head on the floor (not a funny bit) during a silent moment prompting everyone in the church to turn around and stare. Jossepf also managed to smack his face on the bench infront when asleep. I also got one of the other 3yr olds, Angel, mid-prayer saying outloud "Hermana Evie, vamos a comer?" (Sister Evie, are we going to eat?) which again prompted a lot of stares and dirty looks my way. All fun though.

Angel all dressed up during Easter, the cutie.

- A few weeks ago we put on a bit of a puppet show for the boys. I was sapito (little frog), Hannah was azulito (little blue), Anita was chanchito (little pig) and Elisa was tigre (tiger). It was a little show about tigre stealing toys off us and how we should share toys etc. The boys loved it, cheering outloud and shouting YES and NO when we asked questions. There was even a charge at the stage at one point! After that when we were putting the boys to bed one boy, Abram, came up to me and gave me a ´blessing´ where he drew a cross on my head and said something about Maria and Jesus Amen. Then loads of boys came up to me asking me to give them a blessing so I had to kind of make something up whilst drawing a cross on their head, saying Amen and giving them a goodnight kiss. I don´t think I did it right but they seemed to be happy enough with it.

- The other week I witnessed one of my favourite punishments since being in Ciudad. Elisa, an absolutely hilarious woman who I work with, decided that the kids who wouldn´t get into bed would go and sit in the roperia (clothes room). This is a normal punishment for 1 or 2 kids but after she´d sent around 10 kids there, there was no other thing to do than to put the radio on and have them all dancing the night away until they wore themselves out enough to fall straight into bed.

- Once the workers had finished the patio roof, me and Hannah had to clean the patio outside Niño Jesus as it was disgusing. We did it during alabanza and teatime so there was no-one else around so we blasted 107.7 musica ingles, got a hose out and blasted out our amazing singing voices to Adele whilst spraying water and soap around. It was bien divertido. Due to the nun convent being right next to Niño Jesus the nuns came out at one point and I thought that they were telling Hannah to turn the music off but apparently they told us to keep singing as they were enjoying listening! Haha.


2nd Gap Year

Recently, a lot of my plans have changed with regards to what I´ll be doing when I get back from Peru. I´ve had to start thinking about it a lot more as scarily I only have 7 more weeks working here and 11 until i´m back home! So to update everyone or any family that still haven´t been informed, I have deferred my entry to University by another year and have decided to take another Gap Year. I am planning to go to Canada to do a ski season from November until April/May time. Then after that depending on the money situation I might stay out seen as though my visa would last until November, or maybe travel a bit of Canada/America. That´s all depending on me being able to get my visa anyway. It has been a long and complicated process and depending on whether there are any remaining spaces for UK citizens, I should be good. But that´s the plan and it gives me something very exciting to look forward to when I get home. I found out last week that one of the jobs that I applied to has accepted so even though it´s not definately the job that I´ll take it´s just exciting to know that I´ll have one and don´t have to search when I arrive. It´s with Affirmity Rentals which is the rental shop at the bottom of the mountain where everyone rents their boards and skis. Sounds awesome.

All this has made me realise though how little time I have left here! Only 7 more weeks of work and 11 weeks until I´ll be back in the UK. I´m quite nervous about being home as I know how different it´s going to be compared to here. Just simple things like seeing so many white people again. I kind of understand why Peruvians stare at us now as there as so few white people that if we see another white person, we stare too. I am looking forward to starting a whole new adventure though but hating the thought of leaving everyone here behind. The hermanos/tutores, the boys, the Americans, Christoph and just in general Peru. It has definately become my home away from home and adjusting back will be difficult but I guess I´ll pull through. Cannot wait to see all the family though for Katy´s wedding 2 days after I´m home and then back to Yorkshire to see everyone!

Hasta muy pronto!

Evie x

Big Changes.

I realise that my last few blogs have not been too positive so I felt that I´d best write another one to let people know how things have been changing in the last few weeks.

The main change that has happened is that I am no longer working with the 7-9 year olds in Sonrisa Franciscana. I´m now with the 3-6yr olds in Nino Jesus which is the age group that I had wanted to work with from the start. I really loved my time working in Sonrisa before Christmas. I had a great relationship with the boys and the hermanas and by the time it came up to Christmas I really felt like a part of the family there. The only trouble is that since being back after Christmas, the majority of the boys were new and I still wanted to work with the babies so thought that rather than regretting not changing and never getting the experience to work with them, I spoke to Maribel, Anita and Hugo to check that it would be alright and the next week I changed houses!

So far I have to say that I am loving being in Nino Jesus. The work with the kids is a lot more the kind of work that I have wanted to do rather than the disciplinary role I was fulfilling in Sonrisa. Now, I am teaching kids how to tie their shoelaces by making the cross and bunny ears, I´m brushing the 3yr olds teeth telling them how important it is to have lovely white healthy teeth (they all have naaasty teeth in Peru) and I have 3 4yr old boys to do homework with and teach how to write out letters and numbers etc (technically I preferred teaching the older boys how to do mathmatical equations and write stories but this is good too). I also actually look forward to seeing the boys after my breaks rather than just getting stressed as I knew that it would be another afternoon of telling kids off, playing a bit, them losing respect then telling kids off again. It´s made me realise that I don´t actually hate kids which is the idea I was really starting to believe. There is one little boy in Nino Jesus called Angel. He´s 3 and is the cutest little kid i´ve ever seen. He waddles around with his big watery eyes and says things like "Miwa el cawo" instead of "Mira el carro" i.e. Look at the car. I love him.

The only problem I´ve had since changing houses has unsurprisingly been with the Sonrisa hermanas. If you´ve been following my blog from the start you´ll know that I had my problems with them in the first couple of months too. I thought at first maybe it was the way I work or my personality but i´ve come to the conclusion that they just have weird personalities. Before leaving Sonrisa I spoke to Maribel, but never actually said I was changing to Elsa and Marisol as Maribel had already told them. This gave me a bit of an easy way out really as I´d been a bit worried about telling them both anyway. Never take the easy way out. Since them both finding out, neither of them hardly said a word to me in my last week in Sonrisa and haven´t made eye contact with me since. I didn´t know whether it was because I left them or whether it was that I didn´t say to their faces that I was leaving or another reason but it was really getting me down as these are women I´d worked with for 7 months yet were able to drop me so easily without even telling me why they were so pissed off. So after having enough of the awkwardness whenever Nino Jesus and Sonrisa passed, I went to speak to Elsa (as Marisol did speak to me a couple of times when Elsa wasn´t there) to ask her what the problem is and just to explain to me the exact reason so that we could try and sort it out. She sat there and told me that there is no problem whatsoever and that the only reason she doesn´t look at me, smile at me or even say a quick hi is that she has to put all of her attention on the kids and doesn´t have time for things like that. Bullshit. It takes nothing to turn your head and say hello which Maribel does everytime. So if she´s not wanting to tell me the real reason and throw away any relationship that we had before Christmas then fair enough. It´s not worth me caring about. At least the boys haven´t deserted me and everytime I walk past any of them they all yell things like the typical "buenos dias hermana Evie" or the more unusual " te adoro hermana Evie" (I adore you sister Evie). I do miss a lot of the boys that were there last year and a few of the new ones. And I really do miss working with Maribel but I´m so glad I changed. Anita and Eliza are great to work with. After a week in Nino Jesus I already feel like more a part of the tutoras there than I ever did in Sonrisa. We had a tutora meeting straight away and they told me that what´s theirs is mine and that I should feel at home in the house, if I need anything to go straight to them and that if i´m ever feeling a bit ill, upset or anything that I just need to say and I can go take a break. They´re definately a lot easier to talk to than the others. I´m now working with Hannah too which was PT´s plan from the start!

On other news, our new (or 1 month old) Project Trust foursome partnership is going swimmingly. I just don´t think PT really thought too well about the fact that there are now 3 Yorkshire girls together and when you add a Scot and an American into the mix, things get messy. We´re all loving it though. To say that before Christmas we´d only been out about 3x, we´re definately making up for it now. Every week we go through the whole ´I´m not going out this week´ malarky, just to find ourselves getting dolled up (putting mascara and jeans on) and heading out. I´m really not looking forward to going out when I get home as it will involve spending more than 10 minutes getting ready just to go out and listen to only english music in the clubs. I´m going to miss a good bit of reggaeton!

So in general, things are on the up. I look forward to work again, have a social life and have realised that I don´t actually hate kids. Always a good thing!

Also, crazy thought. 3 months today we´ll be setting off to Bolivia and 4 months today I will be flying home! Don´t quite know how to feel about that.

Boys and rules.

I realised I haven´t actually mentioned about the new boys yet. Last year we had 24 boys, this year we have 30 and 21 of them are new. I´m not sure what´s gone on with a lot of my boys from last year as only one boy (Jesus, my absolute favourite who I miss so so much but still gives me hugs everyday and comes to talk to me through the fence) has moved up to San Antonio and the others don´t live at Ciudad anymore. I know some of their situations have improved which means they can live at home again which is great but there´s still some boys that i´m not too sure about. Having so many new boys also added to the stress at the start as there are so so so (I can´t stress how many so´s I need right now) many rules in Ciudad, a ridiculous amount. So obviously a lot of my job was to teach them how we work here. Just a few of the rules are:

- when praying you have to hold your hands together perfectly flat.
- when praying you must chant along to all the prayers.
- when praying in the comedor you must face the front at all times.
- when stood still / sat in church / walking, you must have your arms folded, you can´t scratch an itch, play with your hands, hair etc.
- in church you are not allowed to turn around, swing your legs, fidget etc.
- distancia, firmes, descanso, atencion. I.e. an army march that all the kids have to do to get their attention.
- when stood in distancia your hand musn´t touch the boys shoulder infront.
- no talking in the comedor until you´ve finished everything on your plate.
- even if you obviously struggle reading and writing you still have to stay inside until you´ve finished the obviously too hard homework that you´ve been given.
- when stood in line in the house on the checkered floor you must be stood 2 square blocks behind the boy infront with your feet together.
- everyone helps with limpieza (cleaning) in the mornings.
- when playing outside you´re only allowed on the patio, no-one is allowed to go up the steps to the higher level where there is sand, monkey bars, swings, a slide and a see-saw.
- no-one is allowed to go play with the San Antonio boys on their side.

I´m pretty sure there are loads more which I can´t think of right now.

I find it hard to be an authoritive figure when there are ridiculous rules like some of these. Like walking with your arms folded is obviously not a very comfortable way to walk and sitting for an hour in church with your arms folded is made even worse when it´s bloody boiling and everyone is sweating. The worst one is definately them not being allowed to play on all the monkey bars, slides etc. When I was a kid, that would´ve been the first place i´d go play, especially when there´s nothing to play with on the patio. Their excuse is that dogs pee in the sand up there and there´s lots of illnesses in the sand so they´re not allowed incase they get ill. That´s fair enough but the kids go up there anyway before we see them and get them to come down, so they kick sand down when they jump and pick up as many illnesses in other places as they would there. Sometimes I just wish they were a bit more relaxed here as I feel my job is more to direct the kids rather than actually build up relationships with them and enjoy my time with them rather than feeling like if I left right now, I wouldn´t be too bothered.

Again another depressing blog but i´m just getting so sick of rules. And as there are so many, the boys break them all the time which then means that I have to tell them off which I hate doing when it´s something that I don´t believe in anyway. But then if I don´t say anything they think they can get away with anything when i´m around. Its just a vicious cycle. I feel bad for Hannah as she loves her work with the 3-6 year olds but I need someone to chat to about it which means that she has to hear all my rants. I guess that´s what PT partners are for.

Missing home,

Eebs x