3rd ever weekend in Iquitos

So this week’s blog is more of a week in pictures, although even the pictures don’t sum up how much we’ve done. We’ve finally booked our flights out of Iquitos, on Friday 13^th July which gives us 2 more weekends here and pretty much no time with our babies. I can’t believe that I'm already at this point of going home, getting ready and having to say all my good byes so soon. But we’re both really really determined to make these last few weeks full of stuff and time with the kids and are throwing ourselves into it 150 %.

One of the girls who’s been with us since the start left this week for adoption to Italy, they arrived on Monday and she had a week of seeing them during the day, sleeping in the Aldea and  getting to used to them before they finally got to take her back to their hotel on Friday. Maria’s 6 she can’t read and barely knows her letters so this whole time we’ve been waiting for her parents to arrive as been so hopeful because I know that at least one of the kids here will finally be given the opportunities and education that they need. On the second day they had already bought her an Italian alphabet book! So that was pretty awesome, seeing how quickly she adapted to them and was so so happy.

We’ve had a few new addictions this week to Aldea life, more older girls which is a relief because I was starting to feel a bit baby claustrophobic! All this week the kids at school have been going on trips and celebrating in school the festival of San Juan.

San Juan is the area of Iquitos where the Aldea is situated and for some  reason, no idea why but 24^th June is the day they celebrate their queen who apparently ordered a traitor of their jungle village to be caught and ordered her men to chop off his head. The biggest part of this festival is where everyone gets together to eat Juanes, which is basically just rice and chicken (standard Peruvian diet) but wrapped and cooked in banana leaves because when it’s finished it sort of looks like the shape of a head…if you squint at it! So yesterday me and Alex got invited by one of the Tia's to help her sister make up the Juanes for her family. We turned up with our contribution of 24 eggs and she pretty much put us straight to work. It was awesome I had such a great time, we wrote it all down as well so we can attempt it again back home. I had no idea how much went into it, even just the rice had loads of spices and bits and bobs we had to fry, chop, sizzle it was crazy. Sylvia  taught us all these funky knots and how to keep everything together once it’s been put into the leaves so that nothing falls out when you are boiling them. Took us nearly 5 hours but we did it. Alex and I actually made our own Juanes-probably around 40 of them and got to take some back for our own aldea Juane celebration today.  So be prepared for Aneesha’s Juane making craze once I get home I’ll be impressing you all!

Tambien on Friday tia Magdalena took us down the road to see another Aldea which work with our aldea sometimes, the only difference being that ArcoIris is privately owned and ours is funded by the government. It was amazing seeing this whole other place and means of working/living for the kids of Iquitos. It was smaller, they only receive around 30 kids and all are between 5 and 12 years old, they categorically don’t receive babies. Apart from that, the difference and seeing the support available for the kids there was absolutely mind boggling.  I know that it’s obviously a hundred times easier when you have all the money available to you but some of the differences between our aldea and Arco Iris showed the gaping holes in the system of our Aldea. Simple things like all the beds had mosquito nets, even when malaria and dengue aren’t problems within  ArcoIris, and  the fact that numerous children in our aldea over the years have been in hospital for Dengue doesn’t seem to change the fact that there is still not enough money to replace all the holey mosquito's nets that are sporadically placed throughout the modulos. They had teachers who worked in partnerships with ArcoIris and a local school who came over every afternoon for 2 hours to do extra tarea with the kids who need it. There were set hours for the children over the weekends to work in the vegetable gardens with the gardeners and any produce that they made they were allowed to sell in the local farmers markets every weekend.  It was crazy, I mean not only does that feed back into the Aldea more money, but it gives the kids who don’t go to school something to work towards. It made me really annoyed that our kids don’t and can’t have these kind of opportunities because there simply ‘isn’t the money from the government funds’ to provide them.  It makes me so angry that my kids have to suffer, that they will go through life without ever learning to read because they didn’t go to school and there is nobody to pay for an extra teacher in the Aldea or that they will never learn another task as a way of earning a living when they leave the Aldea so will probably end up cleaning the streets.

I don’t want this to sound like an angry ramble but I just want to make everyone aware that there are still so many things lacking here for the kids. Even if they do have the safeness of the Aldea, clean clothes, food and water every day, other children to interact with there are still a million and one things that they lack. And  you know what, it just makes me a hundred percent more determined to continue with my fund raising when I get home to ensure that these kids, my babies will be able to get all the things and education that they deserve! 

 

My baby Maria guadalupe, getting bigger every day!

Orlando with his own flag at our jubilee party

with our Bolivian volunteers

my handmade Juane

Jubilee party

So this week's has been quite hard work, our first full week back in the Aldea since our visa run and for one reason or another it's all been quite full on. On the upp side though one of the tías lent us her TV on Saturday and we just conveniently kept forgetting to give it back so we've had a Harry Potter filled week-making the most of the TV and Alex's new Harry Potter disco, I've now seen every single film in the space of the week that's got to be some sort of achievement! 

Other news two of our kiddies have left this week to go back to their family which I surprisingly managed to cope with without crying. My little baby Eveyln who has been here since we arrived here in August left on Thursday so it feels seriously bizarre without her running round, although her grandma works by school so hopefully we'll see her chubby little face on the school run. The other girl Milagros, is 11 and arrived after December but her liveliness has been a massive part of our time in the aldea and they will both be seriously missed but it's amazing to know that two of our kids are back safe and sound with their families, because I guess that's the most important part of this!
Iquitos has been sufferring some crazy cold spell at the moment, for us it's a nice break but it's been pretty funny seeing all the kids all wrapped in their chompas even though it's only about 15 degrees outside. This morning at breakfast a little girl walked past me wearing a big puffy coat, her wooly hat and gloves-definitely wasn't that cold!

Yesterday we took advantage of the break in sweaty sweaty hot weather to hold our slightly belated jubilee party. Alex had loads of bunting and paper chains and all things cheesy english style which we decorated the Ludoteca with, gave out fizzy drinks and left over bread from breakfast-that's our equivalent to snacks and nibbles when you live in a carbohydrate crazy country. It was awesome though, the kids loved looking through this little magazine we had full of pictures of the Royal family, doing their own versions of the Queen which were hilarious and drawing the flag which they kept comparing to the Peruvian flag (red, white, red) and saying how much cooler it was! First time we've done something like that for ages and I'd forgotten how absolutly crazy the kids can go, they were jumping all over me grabbing balloons and pan off me-like they hadn't eaten in days!

Photo's of the jubilee party coming soon, as soon as i can get to a normally functioning computer te prometo!

LA PAZ

So some mammoth blog today despues de the Bolivian road trip and enough bus journeys to last me a lifetime! WE left Iquitos on the 23rd and said goodbye to our Spanish girlies on the Monday-which was felt very strange, it just brought it home how quickly our time  is going. Anyway we somehow managed to get persuaded by the travel agents that a Buscama company was the way to go, assuring us they are never ever delayed so the fact that we'd have to change 3 times was all good. Word of advice? NEVER trust that crap, we got a 4 hour delay only 4 hours into our first bus cama ride and I can safely say by the time we'd arrived I'd sat through more films that I have in the past month! After the coldest 6 hour bus journey of my life, (me and Alex were literally snuggled up as close as possible on two bus seats where I lost all feeling in my toes) a boat ride over Lake Titicaca we finally arrived in La Paz 35 hours later.

La Paz is beautiful, cold, absolutely freezing, all mountainy and so so different from Iquitos. But I loved all the time we spent there,we got see our fellow Project Trusters which was awesome. They took us to a funky funky reggae bar-alcohol and altitude sickness wasn't such a great combination the next day but hey it was fun, Alex (Bolivian volunteer) took to the most insane view point where you could see all over the mountainy, snowy La Pazness which was just beyond incredible. Over the weekend Jack the other volunteer was in some traditional dancey procession so we went down to try and spot him in the crowds. Turns out we totally underestimated the number of people who would be watching and how many Bolivians would be filling the streets and dancing. It was awesome, there were huge groups of women in skirts with massive petticoats and fringey shawls twirling and clicking away, broken up by big, big walking bands. We followed the flow which was literally never ending, somehow ending up at the start and there was every possible kind of dancing I've ever seen, some funky women in tutus and massive platform shoes and little Bolivian men alongside the dancing handing out cans of beer (this is all at half 10 in the morning!) The whole experience was so beyond incredible that I can't even think of the right words to describe the atmosphere up there, bus a massive sense of community and friendliness that you get through the groups of dancers. It was one of the most interesting morning of my life.

On Monday, through sheer craziness, definitely affected by altitude- we rode down THE world's most dangerous road. It was insane and exhilarating and beautiful and amazing and breathtaking and so so many other adjectives that will just not do it justice. We got taken up to the top of La Cumbre from La Paz with our group and guide where they gave us all our safety bikey gear . From there it was downhill the whole way, completely freezing, starting in the mountains on proper tarmac and after the Bolivian tax point it was all dirt track on the skinniest road I've ever seen. Even permanently braking I somehow still managed to fly down, it felt like I was never going to stop! From the dirt track downwards, it all became jungley, like something out of Tarzan it was gorgeous-If Iquitos was in the mountains that is what it would look like...it was insanely gorgeous.

we actually managed to ride down that!


Alex managed the first fall going round a corner in front of me, all I saw was a cloud of dust. Nothing too serious and she's all scabby and healthy ahora :) I'm still pretty impressed she fell and through some crazy miracle I stayed on my bike the whole 56km! By the end though my wrists and arms felt like they were about to fall off, (3hours of downhill will do that to you) every tiny jiggle was absolute agony BUT I did it. I rode the world's most dangerous road-check that out for a gap year adventure

cleaning up alex's injuries with pure alcohol!

We left La Paz on Tuesday after some hasty successful souvenir shopping -where I bought yet another scarf haha! Although it's handmade by Bolivian mountain ladies.

the fronter between Bolivia and Peru

Such an easier journey home, on one bus the whole way although the second 12 hour stretch was full of travel sick Alex throwing up which wasn't as relaxing. But we made it back in one piece and even got to see our Peruvian volunteers in Lima for a few hours  también. It was so lovely spending time with them again and being able to update them on all that's gone down in the aldea since they left.

Our awesome visa run break was topped off by being welcomed back by all mi kiddies when we got back tot he aldea, coupled with the arrival of  gorgeous new 3month old baby  Olga in the modulo next door-meaning we now get a lovely wake up call about 4 every morning!
hasta pronto xx