I can't grasp the concept that it's been two full months since I left home, time flies when you're having fun!
The Aldea is finally starting to feel like a proper home where we have normality, as before everything was just all over the place. We have now sort of got a schedule however it's not working too well at all as we don't have a place to take the kids so that's still a work in process, however at least we're comfortable enough to go and intrude on houses to help or find something to do.
The kids haven't been at school for the past few days and the place has gone mental- every morning were awoken to Zarahi peering through the small gap in our home made curtains, where she can see me sleeping, yet she persists to carry on knocking.This doesn't sound too bad but she has the biggest eyes ever; a very strange way to wake up at 7 in the morning. The girl is mad, she painted her tooth with pink nail polish- definitely one of my favourites :)
We convinced her that Victoria in English is Pisa, Amber is Chomma and her name is Yomama and she uses the names religiously hahaa, it's so lovely having someone as crazy as we are though as majority of the kids spend their time calling us crazy rather than joining in.
On top of that they have all been desperate for our iPods, bearing in mind all the music is English. They all knock on the window, even after little Ricardo shattered one showing how feeble they are, and shout "Presta mi tu iPod por favor" however quiet often there isn't a por favor. It's crazy having the patience to not respond, there's once been around 15 children asking before 9am, Lord help us. It's got so bad that ambers has atchually broken and lots of the Tia's have had to come and ask us not to give them out anymore ooops
The week before last at the Aldea was so strange, it went from amazing to horrible. It was Renzo's birthday on Monday and the Tia's in the house decided to throw him a birthday party, even though the monthly birthday party was the next day. Since it was at casa dos we got to join in! They basically just invited all of the young children over to dance and eat snacks, snacks which they bought with their own money. This really does show that the Tia's here treat the children as if they were their own! It was cute seeing all the kids doing a konga line even though the house could barley fit them all in, they don't let that stop them! We made him a card and wrapped him up some snacks which we bought from this little boy begging, it turns out the snacks were awful bless his little soul.
The next day was the monthly birthday party as there's so many children they can't celebrate each birthday individually, so have a day for celebrations each month. It was really cute watching the kids get called up and being given a present and hugging all the Tia's and direction staff. There were some games for the little children which are great until one of them always gets upset when they lose hahaa! Basically the rest of the afternoon was spent dancing which is so much fun with the people there, however one of the Tios came over and made us dance with two boys who used to live at the Aldea and were visiting. This had to be the most awkward moment yet, as all the kids were laughing and taking the mick behind them, plus you couldn't really converse with the loud music so we were just kind of stood there. Some of them are still taking the mick out of us two weeks later - how lovely. But all in all it was such a nice day and I'm looking forward to the one next month!
Three weeks ago we had our first night out in Trujillo and stayed in a hotel which was only £3 for the night, love it. We were planning on getting a bit peeved then heading out but I ended up falling asleep till 11 so that didn't go to plan. We went to the club which the past volunteers mentioned called Ama in a taxi , turns out the club was in the middle of a shopping centre- as you do. We thought we paid VIP as it was 40 soles however it was just bloody expensive, hence only one drink for the night. It took rather a long time to absorb it all, as all the people there were very wealthy and well dressed, plus the dancing in pairs thing is not amazing. Eventually we let go and danced for the whole night without anyone caring that there were foreigners there, such a rarity! It was such a good night! We got a taxi back to the main square and it was almost empty apart from a comotosed man passed out on the floor. It was so lovely seeing it peaceful and walking back to the hotel without the streets being full of people; except the other man passed out in the plant pot. The Tia's would kill us walking alone at this time but, touch wood, I don't feel unsafe in this country at all since I've arrived here, goes to show you have to find out for yourself!
The Aldea has been chaos with the new houses, it turns out we're actually living in the same part as the kitchen where they cook the food for everyone, as well as everything previously mentioned in my last blog. It's quite difficult to keep the babies occupied on mornings as there really is nothing to do anymore, and no where to go. But we've realised that they loved being pushed around in wheelbarrows and would probably sit content for hours if our arms didn't get tired, such cuties.
Some of the children started giving us the middle finger claiming it meant love, and I genuinely believe that's what they think. It's not a great thing for me to mention but it really does emphasise the culture difference and it's too funny to not mention.
Adding to the chaos there have been three kids who have run away since my last post. Alhondra was the first, this was the girl who we shared a room with for our first five weeks here meaning we were really close with her. She literally got up one day and managed to go without being caught, this not being too difficult due to all the building work. This was a real struggle to come to terms with and two weeks later I still don't think I've got my head around it, but we've heard from some of the other kids that she's safe and happy which is all that really matters. It's just unfortunate for us to loose a friend, who we potentially had the strongest bond with, and who helped us through the hardest time of our journey so far. She had a boyfriend in the Aldea, Victor, and after a couple of days we realised we hadn't seen him, turns out he had run away to be with her (they love their romance over here), however it can't be an easy life for a 15 and 16 year old out there. To top this Victors sister Ana Lee left too as she realised that if they could then she could too. This was another bummer as she was the other girl who we were really close too, but it's about them being happy not us, it's just so different without them being here as they were such a similar age and our friends.
Oh and to top off that week, you're all going to love this, I got nits. After passing that age I never thought about getting them again! But I guess it's to be expected living in such an environment. I could have got them from a kid or Amber who unfortunately has them too. Thankfully there was some shampoo left from other volunteers so that solved the problem very quickly, but still it's horrible knowing this will happen again, banter though.
So much has happened but I don't have the time to write it all in detail, but: we had five puppies born, some of the boys managed to open our window during the night which is scary, went to a mall and had a Pizza Hut wow, Ambers been writing love letters to people for the banter, I now like bananas, went to the school for an event and two of the girls from the Aldea dressed like princesses, had possibly the best weekend of my life at Huanchaco, drank tea with a lizard called Lipton, and the only thing that's not been amazing this week was hearing that Marie Lou is leaving soon, other than that it's been perfect. I'm honestly having the time of my life and I'm so grateful for every second.
