It seems crazy to think that this time last month we had only just arrived in Iquitos, everything has gone so fast, it seems like just yesterday we were unpacking everything.
We've had quite a quiet week in the Aldea, although on Thursday evening when we went to the school for picking up Nancy we found out from one of the tías that since they went back to school Nancy hasn't been going. The aldea only found out by accident from school, so as of Monday she will be going to school with all the other children in the Aldea in the mornings! It felt like the same thing was happening that happened with Samuel last week, Alex and I were waiting outside the school gates until practically everyone had left and no sign of her! However turned out she was already at the Aldea! We've both asked her about it and all she said was that she has been spending time on her own, a bit weird but at least it has been sorted now.
Friday was the festival of Primavera and Juventud (Spring and youth) so all the younger kids had a day off school and in the evening they put on a film for them to watch, with popcorn for the proper cinema experience! Alex and I were both looking after 2 different casa's whilst the tías went out, I had to feed, change and put one of the babies (1 and a half) to bed which was interesting to say the least! I ended up putting her nappy on the wrong way round, but apart from that it went quite smoothly. We got to catch the end of the first film-Smurfs. Definitely a pirate copy with horrendously dubbed spanish that every now and then would switch back to English, but they seemed to enjoy it. The second film was an Indian film which all the older kids loved. My first indian film experience, interesting to say the least seeing as I had to guess what was going on through the Spanish subtitles and the odd english word from the actors. It was a seriously long film, and a very bizarre experience with a strange plot, but one I can add to my list.
Yesterday we had to look after one casa in the morning and then a different one after lunch until about 8. Pretty hard work, especially trying to get the kids washed and dressed when we didn't have any water! We decided to go out for a drink so were getting ready at the casa, once we had put the younger kids to sleep, all the older girls found our make up fascinating. They were giving each other little make overs and watching us put our make up on which was pretty funny. They were all desperate to go out, so we've decided that some time soon we want to take the older girls out into Iquitos for the day and just buy them an ice cream, because I think they would love having some time outside the Aldea-I know I do! It was really nice last night, we've found a cool little local bar that plays some amazing music (all in English) and pretty cheap drinks so we went there to have a relax, still haven't found any friends yet so just Alex and me haha. Hopefully we can track some english speakers down soon!
Sunday- our long awaited day off, we even managed an amazing lie in till 11! we came into Iquitos for breakfast in an English cafe we found last week. The food is lovely and they have free wifi, so obvious appeal there. We have had a pretty chilled out day, spent most of it in the internet cafe having a massive planning/organisation session about our holidays over christmas and then managed to get caught in the rainstorm. We've finally decided on Ecuador, around Quito and Guayaquil for Christmas day, then we will travel back down across the boarder to spend New Year in Mancora with the other Project Trust girls as all our Christmas dates don't really coincide until New Year. I think finally doing the research has made it seem a bit more real about how independant we are here, if we don't manage to sort out what we want to do then we'll be spending Christmas out here in the jungle. At the moment the thought of being somewhere new for Christmas is actually really exciting and I can't wait till we're out travelling up there on our own! Hopefully it will go to plan but I guess we'll see.
The 2 Spanish girls who have been staying with us in the Aldea (only at weekends) since we arrived left on Saturday. It was bit of a bittersweet goodbye because, although we will definitely miss their company and conversation, we now have a lot more room in the apartment and another bedroom which we're considering moving into. Or even if we spread out our things more so we are not so on top of each other with all our clothes (mainly Alex's though, I'm sure she's bought her whole wardrobe out with her!) it could be nicer. Either way it's given us a project to work towards for a while, I think this week I've been feeling a bit lost just because we haven't really settled into a set routine yet. It seems to be up to you to get any form of activity planned and organised here. I've been teaching one of the boys his alphabet-slow going but we're getting there! Eventually we want to set up an english club for the older kids, some sort of sports club (definitely Alex's idea not mine, especially in this heat!) and something to do with the kids during the day who don't go to school, it's just trying to work out something that is suitable for them all to do. The ages during the day range from toddlers to 11 year olds, which doesn't give us much to go on really!
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