Sand, wind, paint, paint and more paint....

Managed to survive a week of hard labour… if any of us ever see the colour blue again, it will probably be too soon! In addition to painting everything blue we have cleaned and scrubbed, polished and shined, The outside of the building should in theory be sparkling but in reality with the sand being whipped up by the wind continually and managing to get into every nook and cranny it doesn’t look a lot different!

Although we are working hard and the time does drag we are getting more used to it and the girls are enjoying spending time with the children. We are not getting used to the mosquitoes, which luckily around here do not carry malaria and even though we sleep under mosquito nets every night, still seem to get bitten everywhere!

Yesterday was the 9th anniversary of the orphanage being opened and there was a big celebration, hence the cleaning, mending and painting of the building. Jo and Mil were up by 7am to go and help the girls with their hair and getting ready. I did warn them that they would probably be crawling with head lice, seeings they live in such a close environment and they are young kids, but Mili was dismayed when she saw the reality! All the other long term volunteers were up nice and early getting ready for celebrations, I seized the opportunity of staying in bed for a bit and using the internet. After about half an hour Mili arrived with half a dozen girls who all walked in and said good morning Auntie (we are all Auntie’s) and all kissed me on the cheek, followed by the lead volunteer co-ordinator to say they were not allowed in the volunteer’s rooms, by which time of course I had been caught in bed! The celebration itself lasted for 2 hours, kids singing, lots of talking and about 40 minutes of the local pastor giving a sermon in very fast Spanish, towards the end of this time a man started to play the guitar and the pastor started rapping.. it was all very interesting! After the celebration meal (more rice) we escaped for the afternoon.. For me it really did feel like escaping, with the high grey walls, barbed wire and alarms every time you go near the walls.

We went into Trujillo and found what I imagined a proper Peruvian street market to be like, hustle and bustle and selling everything imaginable… once Mili saw all the cages of kittens and puppies and guinea pigs (unfortunately we know what happens to them!) she had a panic attack and we had to leave. We also couldn’t risk taking any photos as our cameras would have been stolen but it was an interesting experience. We then got a taxi and the driver told us that we shouldn’t have been there as it is far too dangerous for gringos. After we had bought a few essential supplies from the supermarket (not rice!) Jo and I put Mili in a taxi to go back to prison, while we then found the shoe market, the MOST beautiful shoes and so cheap, but they only go up to a size 6 here, so no shoes for us!

Today we went sand boarding up in the desert behind the orphanage and it was fun!! It was hard going climbing up but loads of fun boarding down.

I have booked a room in a really nice looking hostel in Mancora, which is up near the Ecuador boarder, it overlooks the sea and it will cost up £8 each a night. We are going Thursday night or Friday, we just have to sort out how to get there, it will take about 10 hours and just trying to research if it is same enough to do the trip at night.

On that note, just 4 days work to go…..

Hard labour!!

Weather has picked up a bit and we are well into working hard!

On Sunday we navigated the local buses, which is an amazing feat! If you want to catch a bus you stand by the side of the road and wait for a minibus that must be at least 30 years old to stop... it is the most bumpy ride imaginable and you sort of have to jump off while it is still moving when you reach your destination. We went to a local seaside town and the sun shone, there were huge waves with lots of surfers and we had a good day. They still use reed boats for fishing, the same as they have been doing for over 2000 years.

On Monday work began. We spent 7 hours painting and gardening and cleaning, it was pretty exhausting and the girls couldn't get their heads around why we are paying £10 a day to work so hard! Now the sun is shining, even though it is only about 23 degrees, being so close to the equator the sun really burns. About midday the wind begins to blow and being in a desert it is pretty uncomfortable... sand everywhere! Today we have spent the whole day painting. During the morning when the kids were at school it was OK but in the afternoon it was hell.. kids see paint = want to paint/ throw paint/ tread in paint / paint one another / paint us/ take paint /eat paint/ take brushes... you get the picture?? Obviously with these sort of kids it would be an issue anyway but not speaking the same language is not easy at all.. Thankfully we eventually got help and most of them were removed from the scene, but our hard work was ruined! I have to admit something at this stage, after working for virtually all my adult life with children in some capacity or another, a lot of them with difficulties, I've sort of had enough of them and prefer old people! The girls keep saying 'can't we just take one of them home?' and I cannot think of anything worse!

Evening times are a bit strange, there is no central point for the volunteers to sit around, so everyone just tends to go and sit in their rooms, which is all a bit of a shame. I'd like the girls to get to know the others, as they are their ages but so far it isn't happening. When work for the day finishes there is time to go and play with the kids for a few hours and Jo and Mili have done that a bit, obviously I prefer to sit and study the walls in the room with earplugs in!

We are fed three times a day and the meals are OK. The cooks are making a special effort to provide us with vegi food.. although this evening the girls have taken the brave step to go and risk a bus and go to a supermaket for extra supplies.. I think they are hoping that they can find a McDonalds somewhere to get some chips!!

Managed to get the local bus into Trujillo yesterday. It is supposed to be a really dangerous town but it seemed OK. The local men were a bit of a nusiance but nothing really bad. Everything is really cheap here, we somehow tracked down a vegetarian restaurant and for a meal and a drink it was £2.50. If we had have gone for the fixed price menu we would have got 3 courses and a drink for £1.25. At the moment we are sticking to bottled drinks and not eating salad.

I don't seem to be picking up any Spanish at all, not quite sure what I will do once the girls go back, I suppose I will just smile and point!

The sun did shine today which was a relief, although still not hot. Forecast bad for the next week.

Biggest drama of the day was that I had hand washed all my underwear and put it out to dry and when we got back everthing was gone... still trying to identify which kids may be running round with my pants on their head!

The children live in 4 seperate houses and have a house mother that lives with them, they also have a full time social worker on site. At the weekends the volunteers all seem to do their own thing. During the week the majority of kids go to school off of the site, whilst those with special needs and the very little ones are taught here. They do seem to have a lot of support. Most of the children have been removed from abusive families. The security is vey high, with guards on duty and it is in the middle of nowhere with high walls around the outside and barbed wire. Not the most friendly looking place but due to the amount of poverty and crime around it has to be like this.

I will try and upload a picture of the playground that we are going to start repainting next week.

In the desert but so cold!!

Have arrived in Trujillo at the orphanage. The bus journey was good, no hold ups, no muggings and a great service.. really comfy seats which fully reclined, a bus hostess who brought round drinks and snacks and then reclined you and tucked you in with a big blanket... it was great! Obviously we went for the more expensive bus service but it was still only about £15 each to travel for 10 hours. The whole of the coast is just desert and then the occasional really poor shanty town.

We got a taxi to the orphanage which is further out into the desert in the middle of no where. There are about 45 children here ranging from 2 to 17, they are like any other kids, noisy, playful but just want more cuddles. They don't speak English which is more of a problem for me than the girls. As always coming into a new situation feels a little awquard and we were very tired yesterday, the girls were expecting babies to cuddle so were a bit disappointed but it will be fine. There are 6 long term volunteers here, all young American kids and they are nice. We have the weekend off and on Monday we are starting a project of re painting the playground, I think it will be good to have a focus. Today we are going to go and have a look around Trujillo and try and get some more layers of clothes. I'm beginning to think bad weather just haunts me, I go to America and it is the worst weather for 30 years and apparently here it is 10 degrees colder than normal for this time of year! I suppose in reality it is climate change and I won't get too paranoid.

I recognise the feelings that I had when I was away last time of extremes of mood. At one point thinking 'why am I doing this' to the next of feeling really good.

Having problems up loading pics on here, just managed to put on the first picture of us leaving home and now it seems to have frozen, may just have to leave it like that for now and keep trying!

Last day in Lima.... very happy face!

After another freezing night actually the sun did come out today and it wasn´t so bad. We managed to get to the central market which was more like I imagined Peru to be. It was crazy and we saw no other westerners but surprisingly we weren´t hassled, lots to see and smell and experience. The most distressing sight was a very old lady begging, with her husband who was bigger than her strapped to her back, she was somehow managing to walk around.. after the initial shock the girls then couldn´t understand why I couldn't buy some sort of baby sling attached to my back and front for them to be carried around in!
I did think that people would speak english but virtually no one does, we are just about managing to get ourselves understood, although the Bolivian taxi driver that just brought us back could not stop laughing when Jodie said we were vegetarians and ate no meat, fish or chicken, unfortunately the word for chicken is very similar to penis! Jodie also managed to order a large portion of small girls!
It has been a bit strange where we have been staying, Percy our host , firstly brought round his girl friend to meet us, during the night she went and at 5am the following morning his estranged wife and son arrived, then last night during the night Percy and his son left and during the night another woman arrived, it has been a case of musical beds!
In a couple of hours we will be getting the overnight bus to Trujillo and then the next part of our adventure will begin, we have emailed the orphanage to say we will be arriving at 7am but heard nothing from them, so lets hope they will let us in!

Lima.. and apparently it is usually this grey!

And it is cold!! We survived the flight... it was a very long day but OK, we managed to watch a few films. Girls were dissappointed, no supersize meal in Miami, as there was only two hours between the flights we were given flourescent orange envelopes to hold above our heads and then every official that saw us herded us to the front of every queue, which we obviously liked and did feel like film stars!
Arrived late to Lima and found a taxi to take us to our hotel (very loose sense of the word!) We were sort of sleeping in a room in someones house, but the people were very sweet, although no one spoke English. I had been in contact with a guy through couch surfing, so he came and picked us up today and we are staying at his for the next couple of nights. The traffic in Lima is worse than Bangkok, very scary and huge traffic jams everywhere. Percy, who we are staying with is very sweet and has been showing us around and giving lots and lots of good advice. We have bought our tickets for going north on Thrusday night, it will take about 8 hours. Percy is very safety conscious which hasn´t helped Mili´s paranoia that we are going to be held up and shot on every bus journey we take!
Hoping the jet lag won´t last too long! No pictures today as have not been able to use my netbook yet.. mind you the only pictures we have are of the girls on the plane and in the airport doing the ususal pouty poses!

1 hour to departure...

At Heathrow, already all feeling exhausted and we have only come as far as London! It will be an interesting sociological experiment to see if we can actually manage to get as far as Peru and see if we are all still talking!! Chances are looking slim at the moment! Here goes......