Feels like ages since I last wrote about anything, but then it's been a pretty busy week this week so I'll make up for it...
So I thought now that all the kids are in the aldea 24/7 it would be a really intense couple of months, but turns out that the aldea organises classes for majority of the older kids everymorning till lunch time which gets them out of our hair for a while. It's actually pretty cool, I'm half jealous of them-they get acting/dancing/singing/cooking/manicure/hairdresser and like 3 different types of music lessons! Alex made friends with the piano teacher so we've managed to let him give us the keyboard after the lessons and keep it in our house so we can use it too. Definitely didn't realise how much I'd actually missed playing the piano until I tried to do anything and couldn't remember a thing! We even got to keep it over the weekend so it's got it's own permanent little place in our loungey room :)
A few days after we got back it was Dansia's birthday-the oldeset girl in the Aldea who's now 18.It was exciting but at the same time it brings the time when she has to leave even closer, she will be going to live with her godmother, but typical Peru she's still actually in the Aldea and they don't even know when she's actually going to leave! On her birthday we got all the older girls to help decorate our casa and then watched films with them, it was really nice and I think nice for her to spend some time with just the girlies. Last week we took Danisa into town with us too on our mission to buy a dvd player for us/the aldea after we leave. We did drag her round quite a few boring shops but she also got treated to a new top and an ice cream! I had a really really enjoyable time with her because when she's in the aldea I just see her as another one of the kids when she's actually our age. Hopefully once she has left the aldea we'll be able to meet up with her and see how she's getting on, maybe even take her sister out to meet her too to give them a chance to catch up.
Our other exciting news is that we got 4 new volunteers last night!! Standardly in the aldea they didn't actually tell us anything. The first we heard of it was on Saturday morning when one of the tías turned up outside our house with some of the kids armed with all their cleaning equipment...Turns out there are 2 boys and 2 girls they're all from Lima and willl be staying with us for 5 weeks. They only stay in the aldea Friday to Monday and then during the week they work in a school in the jungle-basically what the 2 spanish girls were doing who were already in the aldea when we arrived back in August. It feels seriously weird having more people in our casa-especially guys, definitely going to take some getting used to but they all seem very nice! I'm hoping it will give us more of a chance to meet some other people through the people they make friends with in their jungle school but also just to be able to chat to people our age will make a huge difference for me, and probably improve my spanish a lot more too! So even if it was very unexpected fingers crossed it will be a massive improvement.
It feels like we've had a pretty busy week this week, I think we've both been more full on with the kids which makes a massive difference with your energy levels. We went out for a really nice meal on Friday night to get away, we ended up in town in the middle of the daily rainstorms absolutly soaking wet looking for somewhere to eat but it was a gorgeous meal! Then today is our first day of proper sun in a while, it feels like it did back before we went on holiday so we're off to our treetop hostel with the pool and yummy coffee.
Hasta lugeo todos :) xx
Sunday, 22 January 2012
Sunday, 8 January 2012
First blog of 2012!
So we're finally home, back our jungle town surrounded by kids and true to form we were welcomed back by two lovely jungle storms yesterday and then all day today too! It feels nice being home but I do half miss our holidays too.
We had 5 days with the other Project Trust girls in Mancora over New Years, which was awesome! I loved hearing about everyone else's projects and all the stories of their kiddies, although it definitely made me feel so lucky to be where we are. New Years was pretty relaxed, turns out there is this tradition in Peru where they celebrate the New Year in yellow? So everywhere had yellow banners and flyers and ribbon hanging everywhere and the place where we stayed invented a yellow fancy dress theme for free drinks..sadly I don't actually own anything yellow but i definitely made up for the lack of free drinks so its all good! We said bye to all the girlies on the 2nd they all went up to Ecuador and Alex and I got a bus back down to Trujillo. We'd both had enough of the touristy, drinking side to the holiday-to me Mancora just didn't feel like South America I swear the majority of people I met there were all gringos! So Trujillo was awesome. It's such a big big city and the culture there was just beautiful, even the Plaza del Armas (their main square) made the one in Iquitos look absolutly tiny compared to it. We got a cute little bus, absolutly tiny like people carrier size (but they somehow managed to squeeze in about 20 people plus us two with our rucksacks!) over to Huanchacho like 20 minutes away from Trujillo. Although it's only 20 minutes away it's on the beach and it was beautiful, nowhere near as hot as Mancora and so much more culture around, it was a smallish village with a beautiful coastline and definitely the perfect end to my holiday.
Alex and I attempted a surfing lesson, which was absolutly hilarious! For those of you who know me you'll know my balence is just absolutly horrific but it was a once in a life time chance right? I'm glad I did it, it seriously tired me out, my muscles were aching ALL OVER the next day and I only managed to stand up once but it was awesome, I felt proper beachy carrying my surf board back across the road in my wetsuit...Seriously jealous of Wendy and Frances for having that beautiful place on their back doorstep.
We got a night bus on the 6th down to Lima and arrived at the airport at 6 in the morning, just 5 hours early of our flight! Haha, we killed time by splashing out on the Macdonalds and starbucks in the airport because we won't be getting any of that luxury for another 5 months right!?
So now it's home sweet home. Not going to lie, it feels pretty scary how quickly we settled back into our routine- by Sunday evening we were sat back in the comedor eating tea with everyone. There are also a lot more new kids which amazed me, it's also given me way too many names to have to remember all over again! I hadn't realised how much the aldea just feels like our home, I already can't imagine leaving them for good, we're both determined to throw ourselves into life full on to this half of the year because all the kids are now off school for their version of summer holidays until March! We're determined to fill up the days so we know we've made the most of it all here!
We had 5 days with the other Project Trust girls in Mancora over New Years, which was awesome! I loved hearing about everyone else's projects and all the stories of their kiddies, although it definitely made me feel so lucky to be where we are. New Years was pretty relaxed, turns out there is this tradition in Peru where they celebrate the New Year in yellow? So everywhere had yellow banners and flyers and ribbon hanging everywhere and the place where we stayed invented a yellow fancy dress theme for free drinks..sadly I don't actually own anything yellow but i definitely made up for the lack of free drinks so its all good! We said bye to all the girlies on the 2nd they all went up to Ecuador and Alex and I got a bus back down to Trujillo. We'd both had enough of the touristy, drinking side to the holiday-to me Mancora just didn't feel like South America I swear the majority of people I met there were all gringos! So Trujillo was awesome. It's such a big big city and the culture there was just beautiful, even the Plaza del Armas (their main square) made the one in Iquitos look absolutly tiny compared to it. We got a cute little bus, absolutly tiny like people carrier size (but they somehow managed to squeeze in about 20 people plus us two with our rucksacks!) over to Huanchacho like 20 minutes away from Trujillo. Although it's only 20 minutes away it's on the beach and it was beautiful, nowhere near as hot as Mancora and so much more culture around, it was a smallish village with a beautiful coastline and definitely the perfect end to my holiday.
Alex and I attempted a surfing lesson, which was absolutly hilarious! For those of you who know me you'll know my balence is just absolutly horrific but it was a once in a life time chance right? I'm glad I did it, it seriously tired me out, my muscles were aching ALL OVER the next day and I only managed to stand up once but it was awesome, I felt proper beachy carrying my surf board back across the road in my wetsuit...Seriously jealous of Wendy and Frances for having that beautiful place on their back doorstep.
We got a night bus on the 6th down to Lima and arrived at the airport at 6 in the morning, just 5 hours early of our flight! Haha, we killed time by splashing out on the Macdonalds and starbucks in the airport because we won't be getting any of that luxury for another 5 months right!?
So now it's home sweet home. Not going to lie, it feels pretty scary how quickly we settled back into our routine- by Sunday evening we were sat back in the comedor eating tea with everyone. There are also a lot more new kids which amazed me, it's also given me way too many names to have to remember all over again! I hadn't realised how much the aldea just feels like our home, I already can't imagine leaving them for good, we're both determined to throw ourselves into life full on to this half of the year because all the kids are now off school for their version of summer holidays until March! We're determined to fill up the days so we know we've made the most of it all here!
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