So this week as you all know already from my pictures and my rambling about leaving, was my last week in the aldea, with my babies. Honest to god this week was the fastest week of life, it went past in a blink of an eye and it still feels completely and utterly surreal. I cannot comprehend that I've spent 11 months living,eating, sleeping and playing with my babies and now that's all over and I will never get to see them again. BUT this week was awesome, full of happy happy memories that I will have forever.
We had our leaving party on Tuesday, which is where that beautiful and ridiculously yummy cake picture came from. We got to give out all our regalos to each house, spoil all the kiddies with too many crisps and then we'd organised some party games for them. I never realised running around popping party balloons could be so much fun, they went crazy for it.Also musical bumps-totally underestimated party game, they would have played that all afternoon I swear!
On Wednesday we were treated to a surprise party by all the older girls.They had all got together to organise a little surprise show for us, some dancing and modelling and they made us both little 'recuerdos' like letters and messages and memories. It was so unbelievably amazing to see them make that effort for us, it really really showed me how much we meant to them and that they have appreciated our year here more than I realised. I know that the memories I've got not just from the Aldea but this week will stay with me for the rest of my life, but that however much I think about it, those kids have still made a massive impression on me that I will never forget.
que mas? well Alex and I being the super organised people that we are,left all our packing to Thursday,which was also the day we were giving out all the clothes and little presents to the kids AND the night we decided to have all the tias over for a little leaving get together. basically to cut a long long day short,we were both up until quarter to 12 sorting out our rucksacks..BUT despite the disbelief of the tias, we did it! My mother would be proud of that packing. So we left the Aldea Friday morning, had our last ever school run and a beyond emotional despedida to all the other tias and children. But despite how sad it was,I feel so proud of all that we've achieved and that I've been able to leave my babies with some incredible memories and made some friends within the tias for life. I've already decided to start saving up as soon as humanly possible to get back to Iquitos,not just to see how much it will have changed but also I hope to be able to see how much the situation within the aldea has improved.
hasta pronto! Only one month more...
Saturday, 14 July 2012
my last week in pictures
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| right before we took down all the artwork from this year in iquitos |
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| on our souvenir shopping trip with Alex's nottinham visitor Tom:) |
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| one of our leaving presents for the director |
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| Baby Muaricio,who arrived at the aldea 25 days old and is now growing teeth and practically walking! Very bizarre |
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| last ever iquitos picture |
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| our leaving cake,might have to turn your heads i can't work out how to rotate! |
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| a visit to one of the tias houses, trying out the traditinal cumbia dancing |
Monday, 9 July 2012
ultima semana
So apologies for the lack of blogs recently but i don't know where the time goes, we constantly have stuff to do leading up to leaving here.
Yesterday we were here there and everywhere, ordering a cake for our leaving party (tomorrow) buying souvenir presents-because we standardly left them to the last minute, rushing round trying to get to our favourite little restaurant in time to watch an amazing sunset only to be surrounded by massive grey moody storm clouds on our last Sunday tea EVER in Iquitos.
Last week we had our paseo with all the kids to the laguna, the same laguna which we went to in March but it was SO much better this time. I got to take my favouritest baby, Maria Isabelle for a splashy paddle in the water, which she absolutly loved. Maria is 2 and a half and has downs, she's starting to walk at the moment, or has been going to therapy for the last 10 months and we're trying everything we can to get her to practice but from her point of view why would she walk when now she gets a free ride everywhere! So that's an uphill struggle that leaves her behind all the other kids of her age, but in the water she was loving it. whenever I give her a wash in the sink in the Aldea she's splashing around trying to drink the water straight from the tap so it made me so unbelievabley happy to see her in her absolutle element splashing all the other more terrified kids. One of my best memories for sure! I also half taught one of the older to girls to swim/doggy paddle, wasn't fantastic but she'd lost all her fear by the end of the day and was jumping off all the pontoons which was awesome.
I got to take Maria Isabelle (aka Chao Bella) on a last therapy trip on Thursday, seeing my last jungley centre with it's therapy pool surrounded by coconut trees-something I am definitely going to miss. The fact that here I can just casually buy coconuts for 1 sol!!! from the market down the road, or greet everyone on the way down to school who just know us as those gringitas from the Aldea.
We've had a visit from one of Alex's Nottingham neighbours this past week, who brought out an awesome package of well needed chocolate which we've devoured already! It's been really awesome having another person around, having someone else to speak English to and show off all our babies too, as if we haven't done that enough already. Showing them some Iquitos daily life, yesterday and impressing him with our Spanish skills. I still can't believe we're up to this point already, all those people in the Aldea asking us about that day sometime in the near future when we'll be leaving has actually arrived.
On Tuesday we're having our leaving party at the Aldea, so not only has that been a crazy Peruvian nightmare to arrange but it means we get to give out our leaving presents to each house. We've made some really beautiful little collages for them and I'm really super excited to give them out because we've spent so much time on them. We're going to whip out some traditional party games for the kids as well, and even got permission for the kids in the afternoon school to go, meaning they get a day off school and get to play games and eat cake instead so they're buzzing!
Todo for now, off to actually make a start at all the packing we still have to do!
besitos :)
Yesterday we were here there and everywhere, ordering a cake for our leaving party (tomorrow) buying souvenir presents-because we standardly left them to the last minute, rushing round trying to get to our favourite little restaurant in time to watch an amazing sunset only to be surrounded by massive grey moody storm clouds on our last Sunday tea EVER in Iquitos.
Last week we had our paseo with all the kids to the laguna, the same laguna which we went to in March but it was SO much better this time. I got to take my favouritest baby, Maria Isabelle for a splashy paddle in the water, which she absolutly loved. Maria is 2 and a half and has downs, she's starting to walk at the moment, or has been going to therapy for the last 10 months and we're trying everything we can to get her to practice but from her point of view why would she walk when now she gets a free ride everywhere! So that's an uphill struggle that leaves her behind all the other kids of her age, but in the water she was loving it. whenever I give her a wash in the sink in the Aldea she's splashing around trying to drink the water straight from the tap so it made me so unbelievabley happy to see her in her absolutle element splashing all the other more terrified kids. One of my best memories for sure! I also half taught one of the older to girls to swim/doggy paddle, wasn't fantastic but she'd lost all her fear by the end of the day and was jumping off all the pontoons which was awesome.
I got to take Maria Isabelle (aka Chao Bella) on a last therapy trip on Thursday, seeing my last jungley centre with it's therapy pool surrounded by coconut trees-something I am definitely going to miss. The fact that here I can just casually buy coconuts for 1 sol!!! from the market down the road, or greet everyone on the way down to school who just know us as those gringitas from the Aldea.
We've had a visit from one of Alex's Nottingham neighbours this past week, who brought out an awesome package of well needed chocolate which we've devoured already! It's been really awesome having another person around, having someone else to speak English to and show off all our babies too, as if we haven't done that enough already. Showing them some Iquitos daily life, yesterday and impressing him with our Spanish skills. I still can't believe we're up to this point already, all those people in the Aldea asking us about that day sometime in the near future when we'll be leaving has actually arrived.
On Tuesday we're having our leaving party at the Aldea, so not only has that been a crazy Peruvian nightmare to arrange but it means we get to give out our leaving presents to each house. We've made some really beautiful little collages for them and I'm really super excited to give them out because we've spent so much time on them. We're going to whip out some traditional party games for the kids as well, and even got permission for the kids in the afternoon school to go, meaning they get a day off school and get to play games and eat cake instead so they're buzzing!
Todo for now, off to actually make a start at all the packing we still have to do!
besitos :)
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