LEAVING

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...