Sunday 3 November 2013

Pickpockets, Halloween and Criolla dancing

On Tuesday 22nd October we got a bit of a shock when we were asked to look after pretty much all the kids that don't go to nursery (jardín) or school, because most of the tias were going off to some meeting or training in Trujillo. Jandi (11 months), Elvia (Jandi's mum), Fatima (2), Margarita (5), Esmeralda (6), Fiorella (11) and Cristopher (8) - the latter 4 because they're new and so don't go to school yet - were all in our house and we had no idea what to do with them or how to control half of them. Fatima kept crying and looking really unhappy and not talking at all, apparantly it's because Margarita can't talk and so she thinks it's okay for her to be silent too. (To explain, Margarita is 5 but can't speak or walk, we're not entirely sure why but we've been taking her to the hospital on Mondays to try and get an electroencephalography - they put wires on her head and it's supposed to see what happens when she sleeps I think - although both times we've been she's not been able to fall asleep so that's why she needs to keep going back.) Anyway we looked after all of them from 8 until 12 when the wee ones came back from jardín and most of the tias came back. However, the tia that was coming to look after casa 10 (where Fatima, Margarita, Esmeralda, Fiorella and Cristopher all are) was still not here and then Xiomara and Daniel from casa 10 also came back from school and had to wait in our house for like an hour before Tia Rosa eventually came back. Then we were asked to help feed Fatima and Margarita when we still hadn't eaten ourselves - it was heading for 2pm by this point and we were properly starving.

The day after that we were in the salon doing our dancing activity with some of the girls when Tia Gloria came in and demanded that everyone went to their casas immediately. So we did as we were told, went outside and started walking towards our casa and all the kids we saw were shouting"run to your casa, quickly, quickly!" We waited at the kitchen windo waiting to see what on earth was happening - which so far was nothing apart from one of the tios wandering round the casas, we presumed checking everyone was in their casas. Thankfully then we saw Leonel and so asked him what was happening, who told us there were pickpockets round the outside of the aldea. He motioned slitting his throat, said they'd been here before, which got us pretty scared from then on. We triple locked our front door and double locked ourselves into our bedroom with a food stash in case that was us in for the night. Stayed in our room for an hour or so probably making ourselves more scared than we should have been, until we saw José out of our bedroom window sweeping outside casa 5 and we deemed it safe to venture outside. Later someone told Amy that in fact there had been a crazy woman at the front gates and that's why everyone had been locked in their casa. We weren't really sure what to believe and still to this day have no idea what happened. 

That Thursday (24th) we also were incredibly stupid and got locked out of our house. Not only that, but we got locked out of our room too since we'd left the key in our room. Luckily we are able to get into the front door without a key by putting a sweeping brush through the gap at the top of the door, but there is no way into our room when the door is shut without our room key. It was after the Direccion (office/admin building for the aldea) had shut so we couldn't ask anyone apart from the tios at the front gate, who said that there was no master key for individual bedrooms, only the actual casas themselves. So we thought right, well we're scuppered. We'll have to break the glass at the top of our bedroom door to get in. However thankfully we decided to try and get in from our window since they don't shut very well and we were able to push one open and then open the other. That then presented another challenge because we didn't know where we'd left the key. It wasn't on our key hook we'd made - even if it had been, it's right next to the door and the window's right opposite from it and way too far to reach across even with the brush. Finally we saw it on Amy's chair by her bed which thankfully is right by the window and we were able (with difficulty lifting the chair up one handed through solid prison-like bars) to get the key and let ourselves in without breaking glass and shattering broken glass over my mosquito net. Event over. Now we always remember to ask each other who has the key before we leave the house!

So this week has been Halloween, and even though they don't celebrate Halloween here in Peru, we thought we'd do something fun with the kids. We divided the kids into different age groups and each day of this week (apart from Wednesday) we painted cauldrons (the bottom of plastic bottles, painted black by us) with ghosts and pumpkins and spiders with the younger ones and made cookies with them to take away in their cauldrons along with a few sweeties. We watched horror movies and made cookies with the older kids too. We felt pretty good we'd been able to do something good with the kids as it's really hard to come up with exciting things to do that keep the kids interested. 

On Wednesday we didn't do Halloween activities with the kids as it was the dia de la cancion criolla - National Day of Criolla singing. There was a competition where each casa presented a soloist and then a group act of criolla singing and dancing. It was really fun to see the kids dancing (some in traditional dress) to their country's traditional music. 

Hasta Luego, 

Heather

The boys' painted cauldrons

Gean Carlos and David with their Halloween cauldrons

Painting with Danery and Xiomara

Baking cookies with Fany, Dina and Blanca
The older boys' finished cauldrons

Maria Luisa and Angel in their traditional dress

Casa 10 dancing to Criolla music

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