Carnival excitement 19/02

I finally got round to uploading some pictures of the quistacocha trip-with my anaconda adventure and some stuff we got up to this week..

These past 2 weeks have been really busy with looking after houses, it feels like we just get a break and then another tía will appear asking us to look after their house. At one point I'd made it through four houses in one day!  We had a really needed break last night, where we went out with the Lima volunteers for tea and then went dancing again which was awesome. Completly hilarious because our dancing is still awful but at the same time it's so funny watching people's expressions to our dancing attempts and the other volunteers make us feel normal by dancing just as embarrassingly.
We also attempted a video night for the girls on Valentine's day, which I think they enjoyed, but it felt like one of the hottest nights we've ever had and we had 10 girls plus us crammed into our little loungey room all watching the film on mattresses on the floor-with all the windows and doors wide open!

We had a little adventure on Thursday when we got a little combi bus further into the jungle, to Milagros which is where the Limeños are living during the week. We got to go with them and all their students on a jungley walk through some of the land behind their school which was absolutly beautiful, they even had  some cows and pigs around too!? We got to go swimming with the little kids in this amazing little laguna at the bottom of the hill to their school which was beautiful, it made me incredibly jealous of where they were. Although I know I wouldn't change our aldea for anything, the only thing it's missing is a little laguna for the kids (and us) to play in! We went to this lady's house for lunch, who the girls have met through teaching at their school and she made us some yummy soup, the whole day felt a bit surreal-from swimming in a laguna to having an incredible lunch in a jungle house on stilts surrounded by hammocks and eating our favourite maduros! By the time we eventually made it back to the Aldea, after being squashed into a tiny combi with about 5 times the right amount of people and all their luggage AND two massive containers that were sloshing around right next to me, we were absolutly exhausted but it was definitely worth it. I loved every minute of it!

This week has been just as busy as last week but beause all this week has been building up to Carnival (Sunday) it's also been an excuse for massive water fights every day after lunch. We haven't really worked out why they have Carnival just that it's all about getting everyone around you as wet and as messy as possible, on Friday we got a tall skinny tree delivered to the aldea and spent the morning decorating it. First they plaited the branches and then tied all these different things on to them, pretty normal. BUT, the things they were tying on were like plastic cutlery, plastic bowls, ladels, colanders, sieves, flannels, little plastic funnels and finally balloons-the only one I could actually understand! We spent the rest of Friday and Saturday playing water fights which I thought were pretty intense but nothing compared to the water fight we had today. We went out this morning for breakfast, got back to the aldea about half 1 and even by then the kids were in full water fighting swing. We barely made it down to our house to get changed without getting pelted with water balloons.

It was hilarious but seriously tiring, the kids all seemed to keep finding these water balloons, like they had an endless amount! Then they were covering us in paints, in clay, in purple stuff that looked and felt like mud and at one point, just as I thought things were calming down the boys dragged me kicking and screaming down to where the tree was and literally rolled me around in the squelchy mud. I got mud EVERYWHERE, in my mouth, in my eyes, up my nose, all over my hair-euch it was horrible, hilarious but horrible. I must have looked like a banshee by the time i finally escaped! No thanks to Alex who was one of the ones dragging me down into the mud! Haha, by 4 they started cutting down the tree (with a machete knife, as you do) when it fell, all the kids went crazy grabbing all the decorations they possibly could, it was a lovely if not slightly bizarre day that I'm definitely never going to forget, even if just because of how long it took me to get the mud out of my hair!

Alex and quistacocha with her anaconda

Me and the anaconda, absolutly scared stiff and afraid to move at alll haha.

The jungle trip we went on with out Lima volunteers in their school in the jungle

Carnival celebrations today (19/02)

All the kids going crazy for the chopping down of the humisha (the carnival tree that they decorate)

February adventures

Yet again feels like ages since I wrote anything so apologies!

It feels like this week has gone incredibly slowly, and I've been desperate for this weekend, more just because I've been really looking forward to spending time with Lima volunteers. We went out last Saturday night with them and got on really really well. Time wasn't really helped along by the fact that Alex has been ill for a few days both last week and this week. The tías were convinced we were going to have to take her for a blood test to check she didn't have Dengue (some jungley disease you can catch from mosquitos) I think before this I've taken for granted how much I rely on Alex to push me, because when it was just up to me to get things going with the kids it was definitely a lot lot harder to get myself to do anything!

I managed to get a few games going in the ludoteca, only to realise I'd taken way too many kids to handle on my own and they were all inbetween 4 and 6 so a VERY stressful games session, which mostly consisted of me running around trying to make sure they didn't kill each other with the massive space hoppers. A game they all seem to find hilarious, until they end up on the floor screaming!

We did a cooking session with a few of the kids on friday, we managed to get it down to the basics so we could still do it in our house, because we don't actually have a hob or oven or fridge! Incredibly messy, but also incredibly fun! The kids were all awesome and loved doing it, it even worked out pretty well, no accidents. They made like chocolate crunchies, basically crushed biscuits with chocolate on the top, their highlight was definitely when we told them they were free to bash their bags of biscuits around until they had crumbs! All the tías were incredibly jealous of them too-I'll try and get some pictures up next week :)

Friday night was cine in the aldea, which was pretty exciting, although instead of the standard popcorn to go with the film we got chicken sandwiches!? I've given up asking now and just take it as it goes, the kids seemed to like them just as much though. I've discovered the kids in our aldea all absolutly love Alvin and the Chipmunks...which I found out on Friday when I had to sit through one and two all in spanish-with squeaky, high voices I literally didn't have a clue what was going on throughout both. The highlights for me were the chipmunk singing because the songs were in english! Haha.

On Saturday we got woken up to no water and no electricity and then got asked to house sit for 2 different houses. Quite a hassle but took us back to basics with old fashioned duck duck goose which they all seem to love with a passion. Alex and I went out with the 2 boys from lima on Saturday night for tea and managed to get caught in an absolutely insane rain storm, so by the time we walked into the restaurant it literally looked like we'd just got out of a shower in our clothes!

Today we went back to Quistachocha (the place we went with some of the kids back in October) but this time with the Lima volunteers. Luckily the rain held off long enough for us to go swimming in the laguna. It was awesome! I can't believe it's taken us this long to get back there, the water was weirdly warm but the further  out you got it was nice and refreshing. I couldn't persuade anyone to swim across the laguna to the otherside with me though....We had a yummy jungley lunch with my new favourite style of banana's-called tacacha and is basically mushed up banana with salt, don't knock it till you've tried it because peruvian banana's are nothing like the sweet english bananas. I'm definitely going to miss them when I get home!!

ALSO the most exciting thing possibly to happen to me since i got here in August...

I held an anaconda!!!!

It was beyond weird, we were walking through the zoo half of Quistacocha and saw these people holding them. It's the weirdest sensation, they didn't feel like I expected-a lot slimier and very very heavy and really bony they look like it's just all fat but you could really feel all the boney bits in them. Still can't believe they persuaded me to do it, but once in a lifetime thing right? And I can safely say it's not something I'll be repeating, once was more than enough!