Leaving the aldea :( (plus lots of aldea photos)

Leaving the aldea was really, really difficult. I know it sounds silly but it hadn't even occured to us that leaving the aldea was a possibility - we'd been there so long it was hard to imagine living anywhere else. So the day before we left we had our despedida - kind of like a leaving party - so the whole aldea had lunch outside together which was so lovely (especially since it was our favourite aji de gallina). It's always nice having lunch outside with everyone - to be able to spend time with all the kids together instead of all separately in the casas. So that was cute. Our wee baby Jandi kept running up to us and standing between our knees the whole time. I think that really made it hit home how long we'd been there because she's still really nervous around a lot of the kids and adults in the aldea that she doesn't know, but she's just spent so much time with us in our house. After having lunch the aldea staff all called us up and made what was a really emotional speech for us - saying how much work we've done and how we've helped them, how we've become such a part of the family that the aldea is. It was so sad, Amy and I were sobbing our eyes out it mustn't have been a nice sight. And we hadn't even left by that point!

Our despedida

Our despedida

With the directora

the whole aldea!

The day we left was possibly the hardest day in my life. We had to say goobye to Jandi, Fatima and Estrella, the three litte ones we looked after every morning for the majority of the year. That was really difficut, especially because they couldn't understand what was going on. Fatima kept saying to us can I come to your house, can I draw, can I do jigsaws, like we always did with them. That was probaly the most difficult part. It was also really hard to leave behind our Tia Carla, she's in the house directly opposite from our house so we saw her loads and she would always come over and ask for plastic bags (chicaaaas! quiero bolsas!) haha or just to have a wee chat with us. We miss her loads, her happy smiling personality, the way she is constantly in a good mood and laughing and having a joke with the kids.

Now that we've left I can see how much a part of the aldea we had become. I didn't see it then but now looking back on it more from an outsider's view I can see how much had changed since when we arrived back in August last year which seems like a complete lifetime ago, not just a year. I hadn't realised how comfortable I had become with looking after little children, 1, 2, or 3 years old - before I came I'd had no experience whatsoever of looking after wee ones.

About a month before we left we decided we wanted to make a tree with all the kids' hands painted on it, to stick up in our house. That was really good fun to do with all the kids, starting with the very littlest ones (it tickled some of their hands, cutest thing ever) up to the 17 and 18 year olds. It also meant we could spend some time with each and every child individually before we left the aldea, which was really nice.

Amy painting wee Jandi's hand!

putting Jandi's hand on the tree!

our tree before most of the kids' hands

We also had a Hawaiian themed week with the kids. We printed out tiki masks for the 4-5 year olds to colour in and we had a little sort of party in the house with them. That was really fun. They all love to draw and colour in and they also loved running about with their masks on (they got jelly out of it too, kids love jelly). We had a big hoola hoop so they all had bags of fun with that as well. We'd put decorations up and we had coconuts and grass skirts and it realy felt like Hawaii. Only problem was that none of the kids knew where Hawaii was or that these kinds of things are meant to be typically Hawaiian. We still had fun though!!

the kids colouring in their tiki masks

Renzo with his tiki mask

all the wee ones with their finished tiki masks!!

Alex having fun with the hoola hoop

The aldea also celebrated father's day so there were big celebations for that. The whole main office staff and the tias along with Amy and I had a nice meal together in the main hall and we celebrated and sort of congratulated all the male staff. There are 7 out of around 20 in total, including all the tias as well - so they work in the library, the storeroom, the guard at the main gate,or just general maintenance of the aldea. Then later on there was a big show with the whole aldea where every house put on a dance performance. That was really fun to watch (thankfully not participate in).

meal with all the admin staff and tias

casa 5's hilarious dance

casa 10 did a rendition of "Grease"

after lunch with Luis and Nicolas

Now that we've been away travelling it feels like our 10 months in the aldea was our year and now we're just kind of in limbo before we go home. It's a strange feeling, not having a home to go back to and constantly packing in and out of our big rucksacks (that is something I will definitely not miss!). I can't wait to go home and see all my friends and famiy that I've been missing so much for so long but I already miss the aldea and the kids so much it's unreal and I know I'm going to miss the general hustle and bustle of hectic Peruvian life. I love travelling by mototaxi when we can, that's definitely one of the truly South American things that you just don't get anything like  back home. They're like little motorbikes with a trailer/seat thing attatched to the back that take you everywhere just like taxis do (for a lot cheaper). Except half the time you're falling out because there's no sides to hold you in or you're worrying about your bag because it's behind the seat where you can't keep an eye on it and it's completely open to the people walking about right next to it. It's such a fun ride, I will never forget my first mototaxi experience. It's just one of the things you have to do if you're in South America at any point. I will also miss the food loads. I've acquired such a Peruvian taste for food. I am in love with ceviche, Peru's national dish which is raw fish marinated in Peruvian limes, chillies and onions. It is so beautiful oh my gosh.

Talking of food we looove this dish called aji de gallina. It's like shredded chicken in a pepper sauce, so yummy. So we decided we wanted to learn how to make it so we asked our lovely Tia Carla if she would teach us! It was so much fun, I love cooking so I really wanted to be able to make some traditional Peruvian food for when I got home - starting with this!

Tia Carla showing us how to prepare aji de gallina

the finished dish!

To finish I'll just leave you all with some photos of the aldea - sorry I've not been very good at uploading lots of photos up until now!!

(sorry half the photos are of Amy and not me, I was the one taking the photos!!)

Amy with Jandi and Matias

Amy with Matias and Renzo

Luis, Nicolas, Renzo and Matias when we went to the pool with the whole aldea

Amy with Matias at the pool - he was so scared to go in!!

Jandi with her adorable wee bib - meaning "do you want to play with me? go on, say yes!!"

what we spent our mornings doing with the wee ones - plastic bricks and barbies featured a lot

Amy with the little ones in the aldea pool during summertime

Me with Alfredo, Jandi, Fatima, Matias and Renzo

Fatima and Matias drinking their water which they would constantly ask for ("aaguaa!! quiero aaaagua!")

I'm so sorry I've not written about so many things that have happened. I only realise I've forgotten everything when I go through my photos and realise I've not put any of them up!! I'll try to cover as much as possible now though!

So for Valentine's Day we made little hearts with the 4-5 year olds for them to colour in and then we had a treasure hunt where they had to look for hearts we'd stuck up around the house.

A few weeks later we made little crowns and then fish made from toilet rolls. Even though it's a nightmare to have paintbrushes in 4 year olds' hands and going everywhere, they really love to paint so we always tried as much as possible to make sure they were able to do things on their own and didn't need too much of our help, they didn't get paint ALL over their clothes and that of course they had fun!!

Luis painting his crown

Matias and Alex with their finished crowns

Andrea and Alex with their fish

We also went to Huanchaco beach with the whole aldea during the summer holidays (December - March) which was really good fun. It's always good for the kids to get out of the aldea, expecially the ones that don't go out to go to school or anything. They enjoyed themselves so much, especially the wee ones of course.
(unfortunately it wasn't a very sunny day :( )

Renzo and Andrea at the beach

Fatima being adorable

some of the older kids stuck in the sand! (Miriam, Alondra, Junior, Kristell and Raquel)

 Other photos from our day to day aldea life...

Jandi being a wee cutie

Me and Matias (not looking very happy actually haha)

Me with Analy

Fatima is extraordinarily ticklish

Estrella, Jandi, Renzo and Fatima

Jandi and Renzo are possibly two of the cutest wee kids ever. They're both in casa 2 together, the only 2 little ones and they're literally like brother and sister. Renzo really looks out for Jandi which is the most adorable thing. She's always happy when he's around and they could play together for hours!!

Jandi and Renzo

One day in the aldea we looked out the window and saw all the little ones having a massive grass fight outside, throwing all the freshly cut grass at each other haha, it was hilarious. It's lucky hayfever doesn't really exist in Peru otherwise everyone would have been going mental!!

when they realised we were watching them...they turned on us

For Mother's Day we made little ice-lolly stick things for the kids to give to their tias.

Another day we made some dreamcatchers with the older girls which was so much fun and we all got a pretty dreamcatcher out of it! It was actually really easy to do once you get the hang of it.

Other aldea photos...

Estrella and Fatima

Me with Jandi

having fun with Alex (6) and Matias (3)

Jandi!!

Me with Fatima

Renzo and Leonel

A few weeks before we left the aldea we got quite a few new kids in. We got a new 3 year old boy called Juan David along with his big sisters Marilu (11), Janeth (13), and Vicki (14). Also a new little 2 year old boy called Ricardo (plus 2 older sisters aged 5 and 8) so they both joined in with our morning baby sessions with the other 1-2 year olds (Jandi, Fatima and Estrella). It was strange having little boys in the house since our drawers are all full of barbies and girly things to play with! (we had to root around for some cars).

Fatima, Ricardo, Estrella

Estrella, Fatima and Ricardo (they don't know how to smile properly)

Alex happy with his drawing in my scrapbook

Amy and I

Estrella modelling in front of our tree of hands (not quite finished)

About a week before we left the aldea wee Jandi had her nose bitten by something, she had an allergic reaction to whatever it was and her nose turned into a giant red tomato. It was absolutely hilarious just seeing her so small and oblivious to what had happened to her and everyone laughing at how adorably funny it was.

Ricardo and Jandi drawing (with her massive red nose of course)

Amy, Amelia, Me and Cass in Huanchaco after we'd left the aldea

Carnaval, travels, and Aldea updates

So I know this is late, very very late, so sorry sorry sorry for not writing...never seem to get round to it. There's always too much happening!!

Right so at the beginning of March there is this massive festival all around Peru called Carnaval. We celebrated carnaval in the aldea on the same day as our Desk Officer Felicity came to visit the aldea to see how things are going. So we were really stressed out about how it would go! She had to assess one of our activities, but things were a bit messed up in the aldea since everything was geared around carnaval so we got the wee ones in early to do some art - they kept saying ooh is this the new volunteer blah blah haha (as they almost always do when they see anyone white in the aldea). Thankfully they all behaved pretty well considering what they're sometimes like. I think they might have just been nervous because they didn't know her. They're a nightmare with us usually. So everything went smoothly, then after lunch carnaval started: i.e. everyone starts trying to soak each other in whichever way possible - water balloons were, of course, in high demand but most of the kids just filled buckets full of water from the outside taps and dumped them over people's heads. Charming. At some point people brought a bit of paint out and everyone went mad for it. We snuck into our house to get some supplies and to add to all the fun. Anyhow we all ended up soaked and covered in paint but having had the most fun time ever. After the water/paint fight everyone danced around this tree they'd put up with toys and plastic balls and things hanging from it - a real life piñata tree! The kids took turns to hack it down with an axe until it fell down and the kids scrambled aroud to get all the toys. After that it was pretty much over and we retreated back to our house to shower before we had to get our bags and go into Trujillo with Felicity. By that time we had completely forgotten that she was actually there to do a project visit since she'd just joined in with all the carnaval madness haha but we said our goodbyes and Amy and I headed off to get our bus to Cajamarca that night to continue the carnaval fun there.

(sorry my photos are so blurry, I had my camera in a plastic bag to protect it!)

the kids filling up their water balloons/buckets from our sink

Amy getting bombarded

Jesus, Ruben, Brayelin, Yuriko and Benjamin

Alex kept sneaking up behind Felicity to waterbomb her!

Amy and I after the paint had been brought out

Now we thought carnaval was madness in the aldea. We had no idea what was coming for us in Cajamarca. We had heard it was meant to be the best place in Peru to go for Carnaval, and I guess that's what we got! We woke up on the Saturday to bands playing outside in the street. Looked out the window and saw these bands of people already covered in paint, walking around playing drums and trumpets and carrying industrial size buckets of paint, throwing it at anyone who walked past. We got changed into clothes we wouldn't mind sacrificing for the sake of carnaval and when we ventured outside we were faced by a whole streetful of these paint-throwing bands. They seemed to like to target us gringas, especially at the beginning when we were completely bare of paint, which was fun apart from when they tried to put paint in your eyes and mouth...Anyhow we were a bit stupid that we went out unarmed, everyone was just throwing water and paint at us and we couldn't do anything about it. By this time the whole street was absolutely crammed full of people and we ended up walking along with the whole street along to the Plaza de Armas where the party continued. Once we had exhausted ourselves enough we went back to the hostal to sleep before we got up to meet Amelia and Cassie who had just arrived. The next day we went out ready for day 2 of paint fighting but were very disappointed that there wasn't any - Amelia and Cassie even more so because they'd missed it the day before! Apparently the first day is the only paint day - something we did not know and no-one told us...Anyway so we walked up this hill up to a pretty church where there were stunning views of all of Cajamarca - it's so beautiful! Also it was kinda cold which we weren't expecting...Yeah so on our last night we think it was the last night of Carnaval so there was this big procession in the Plaza de Armas of a coffin with a dummy in it going round the square and everyone following it. Anyway that was a nice way to end our trip to Cajamarca.

Carnaval madness in Cajamarca

Amy and Amelia in Cajamarca

In March we had a weekend in Lima where we actually got a little bit of touristy stuff done...We went to the Museo Rafael Larco, ate at La Lucha which does the most delicious sandwiches and is quite famous in Lima. Also found a SUBWAY which I must say has to be one of the highlights of the trip for me.

We also went to Piura to visit the volunteers there in their aldea and to see what another aldea was like. So the aldeas in Trujillo and Piura are pretty similar, apart from Amelia and Cassie have more adorable little babies who all stay in the one house together so they help out the tias there with looking after all the wee ones. Other than that it's pretty much the same as us, they do activities in the afternoon with the older kids in their house. The aldea itself is really similar as well, it's the same layout with separate houses scattered about. Also they have workshops for the older kids and a panaderia where some of the older boys learn to make bread which provides the aldea with their morning pancitos.

Back to some aldea updates. Forgot to mention that in March-ish the summer holidays stopped and the kids went back to school, so we were back to our old timetable of looking after the babies and toddlers in the mornings - before the summer holidays we had Fatima, Estrella (both 2) and Matias (3) but now Matias goes to nursery (cutest and weirdest thing ever) and little 1 year old Jandi is walking now so she's basically replaced Matias! Fatima and Estrella are the same as always, Estrella usually annoying the others...So we look after them in our house while the tias are busy cooking in the houses and don't have time to play with them like we can. In the afternoons we still get the pequeñitos in to draw and it's honestly amazing to see how much they have all improved since we arrived here. Little Renzo just used to scribble but a few weeks ago he drew something that actually resembled a person for once! It was so cute. We always stick up the kids' best drawings on our walls but we're running out of space now!

Amy with Jandi

It's June now and we have no idea where any of the time between January and now went. We now have only a week left in the aldea and we don't know how that's even happening. I can tell leaving is going to be possibly the most difficult thing I have done in my life. We've been here for over 10 months and this is our home here - the kids are like our family, the tias like our substitute mothers. I can't picture living somewhere else, having been here so long already. I can't imagine what it's going to be like travelling and not always having the aldea to go back to after a weekend away. We're just trying to make the most of what little time we now have left in the aldea.

Don't want to end on a depressing note - as sad as we are to leave the aldea we are incredible excited to be going travelling, to Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia and Chile, etc. I also can't wait to see all the fam and my friends back home. I just can't believe how fast it's all going!!

Anyway I am SO sorry for the lack of posts since January. It's been too long. I'll try to blog more regularly when we're travelling.

That's all for now,

Heather

Christmas, New Year and Ecuador

The Christmas period at the aldea was weird, it got sunnier and sunnier every day and the kids decorated a huge tree outside with Christmas decorations that all the casas had made. There were visitas almost every weekend (sometimes more) - visitors that came to give presents to the children, throw parties for them and share chocolate milk and panetone. The weekend before Christmas I think there were 7 visitas in total over the 2 days - we were so sick of panetone by then!! It was really nice to see people being so generous to the kids who don't really get anything else from the aldea.

All the focus at Christmas seems to be on Christmas Eve, so we had a special meal of pollo a la brasa (roast chicken) and chips for dinner. We had been promised a big build up party at night to celebrate Christmas but really what happened was we just stayed up until 12, said Feliz Navidad, hugged everyone and went back to our casas. Got to be honest, it was a bit of a disappointment, we felt really homesick and just wanted to have had a Scottish Christmas like back home. Thankfully though casa 2 invited us to their house for more chocolate milk and panetone. We sat for ages with lovely Tia Carla with some of the older kids and had a long chat about ghosts haunting the aldea. It felt a lot more like Halloween than Christmas!

On Christmas Day nothing really special seems to happen here in Peru, but our Directora invited us to her house for lunch which was really nice. It made us feel way less homesick, since we actually had something to do to occupy ourselves and we were in a family setting. We actually did have turkey and potatoes which were so good but different to at home - just not roasted so it felt a lot lot healthier! (Probably better that way though so as not to add to our expanding rice bellies)

On 27th December we left for Máncora, Peru to spend New Year there with the other Peru girls. Máncora is awesome, there's such a great vibe there and we met so many people just travelling round South America. It made me so jealous so I'm already planning a return trip to South America to travel (once I have the money)! Pretty much every second person you met were from Argentina (on a side note, they seem to have way too many incredibly stunning people in their country, it's very unfair) which was weird since we were in Peru,

We said goodbye to the other girls and then Amy, Cassie, Amelia and I had a one day stop in Guayaquil where we walked down the promenade and went to the craft market before heading up to Montañita - such a stunning place, right on the beach in and it was lovely to be able to properly chill out and not do anything apart from lie back and relax. It was SO hot there, in the red zone for malaria so we were extra careful about putting on 95% deet insect repellent and of course our mosquito nets at night. Topped up our tan nicely there, just as people at home were complaining of cold weather and winter and such.

After Montañita we headed to Quito, the capital of Ecuador. This turned out to be my favourite place we visited and I don't even know why! It is absolutely HUGE. From the top floor of our hostal as far you could look the city didn't stop. I just loved the feel of the city, it seemed so friendly and  Unfortunately we only had 2 days there so the first day we took a $0.20 cent bus to the equator line (Mitad del Mundo) and spent a very rainy day there - for some reason, being right on the equator doesn't mean it's going to be hot and sunny all the time, even in the height of summer...Anyway it felt more like we were back in the UK with all the rain!! Our second day we took a bus to Mindo (1-2 hours away) where we went ziplining which was so much fun, amazing views of the Rio Blanco from hanging upside down.

From Quito we went back down south to Baños. There we went canyoning which was incredible!! Basically just abseiling down waterfalls which sounds absolutely mad but which is SO much fun! I would so do that all over again. Also we went to the thermal baths - you can't not go to the baños when you're in Baños! Really really lovely and and hot (and one which pretty much burnt your skin off as soon as you stepped in) and relaxing...although we did get stared at as if we were monkeys in a zoo or something.

I loved travelling, getting to see new cities and do things I've never done before. In a way it was sad to come home back to the aldea, but I missed the kids so much, especially the wee ones. It made me realise how hard it's going to be when we leave here in mid June to go travelling again!!

We now have a new summer timetable in the aldea, which Amy and I both really enjoy. In the mornings we have the wee ones in for an hour - that's Jandi (1), Fatima and Estrella (both 2 years old) playing with dolls and plastic bricks and drawing a wee bit. Then from 10 until 12 we're in the swimming pool with the pequeñitos - the kids aged 3 to 6. After lunch we do art with the pequeñitos again which they love - every day without fail we have kids knocking at our door wailing "para pintaaaaaar, para pintaar".

In the afternoons we have also started English lessons with the 5 siblings that are going to be adopted by a family in the U.S at the end of February. I really wasn't sure how this would go because I do not see myself as a teacher, at all, but it seems to be okay. The 3 boys (11, 12 and 15 years old) seem quite willing to learn and they're improving. The twins are harder to work with, they're 9 years old and don't have as much enthusiasm as the boys but we're getting there (we think) and they are learning, little by little.

Also a big change in our aldea life is that Margarita and her 3 siblings have left to go and live with their parents. One of us was taking Margarita to the hospital every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for her therapy so without her here it's a bit weird! Unfortunately we're really worried her parents won't be able to take her into Trujillo for her therapy since they don't have much money, and that everything she's improved with will just go backwards. Of course she is with her family now and that's better for her, but we're just concerned about her development. She's just such a lovely wee girl!

I think that's everything for now, really sorry for the delays in blogging -I need to get back into the routine of getting a post done every 2 weeks or so!! It just depends though because some weeks it seems like nothing happens apart from our usual day to day aldea life, which I don't necessarily deem blog-worthy.

I'll leave you with some pics of our holidaying up North and in Ecuador.

Ciao for now!! Cuidate xxx

Máncora

Guayaquil

Montañita

Quito

Amy, me and Cassie on the equator line

At the thermal baths in Baños

Huaraz and Llanganuco Lakes

Right so first and foremost I am sorry it has been so long since I did a blog post! Too much happening and not enough money. So here comes news of our first bit of proper travelling! Only a short weekend and we were dying after arriving back in Trujillo at 4am Monday morning, but it was so worth it.

We took an overnight bus and arrived at 5am in freezing Huaraz - people had told us it'd be cold but we clearly hadn't really listened to them enough! Everyone else was in big warm blankets and jackets and there was us in our jeans and thin jumpers, used to warm sunny days in the aldea. Buying an Andean jumper was top of our list!

We spent most of the Saturday in the market - it was so fun to see another city's market since we've become so used to our own. Huaraz is so beautiful, surrounded by huge snow-topped mountains but still so sunny.

We couldn't wait to get up into the mountains so booked an organised walk for the Sunday, leaving at 6am. The bus journey up was so scenic even if rather bumpy, and we passed lots of cute wee Andean villages up in the mountains before getting to the Llanganuco Lakes - they are so gorgeous and so amazingly blue, even when it's not sunny! I spent a good 10 minutes in wonder at how beautiful it was.

The town of Huaraz sits at over 3,000m above sea level and we walked from 3,900m to 4,600m that day. Altitude sickness was not fun but manageable, I don't think either of us thought we would actually get it but we realised we must have when we were too out of breath for it just to be unfitness! We carried on and started the walk up to Laguna 69 - I must say it was most definitely not the easiest walk I have ever done, but it was so so beautiful, even more so that we had finally made it to the top!

Unfortunately as soon as we got to Laguna 69 our guide told us there was going to be a huge storm so we only had 10 minutes there before we had to practically run back down the mountain to avoid getting soaked and also to make sure we got the bus taking us back down!

Heather

Amy and I at Llanganuco Lake (in our Andean jumpers)

Laguna 69