Time's a flying!

I know we're only just over three weeks in but time's going by so fast! On the 10th & 11th Cuidad had their Olympics, which is like sports day in England, except here it was a much bigger event. So the week leading up to that weekend I worked 90 long hours preparing for it! I made a massive flag with writing on, and went to into central Lima during two of our breaks to pick up things for the blue team - blue wigs, vuvuzuelas, blue face paint, two smurf outfits, blue hula hoops, ID cards for the kids, just about anything and everything we saw that was blue we bought. Then on the day I dressed up as the girl smurf, Daisy, and am still getting people asking if my name is hermana pitufina! The blue team ended up winning though, wooo! Although I have to say the highlight of the whole weekend was definately Evie's sunburn - she had go faster stripes in green facepaint and now has them tattoed on her face. Hehehe.

 Us smurfs

 

Blue team woo and the flag I made

Blue team

Then on the Monday after the Olympics was the XI Te De La Esperanza which is Ciudad's big fundraising dinner they do every year. It was in San Isidro at The Westin Hotel, literally the poshest builing I've ever seen, and the tallest building in Peru at 32 floors. Hermano Hugo said they were hoping to raise around $25,000 which doesn't even cover a months costs at Ciudad! So many of the women there were so scary looking though, me and Evie were playing spot the bad facial surgery until we realised it'd probably be better to play spot the women without bad surgery. They're so blunt here as well - there was a big raffle at the Te (me and evie won tea at a restaurant in chorillos!) and one of the prizes was a bikini. They called out the number for the winner to come up and as soon as she did she just laughed and said 'but she's fat, when is she going to wear this!?' There were a few bands there as well who are apparently famous here, San Jose did a dance and so did Nino Jesus, so cute! Hermano Hugo took us for lunch as well to a Chifa - Peruvian, Chinese food - which was nice, and for a maccys after! We didn't really do that much, we put lots of leaflets on the tables and helped usher people in, but the day started as normal at 5.40am and we didn't get back till 11.00pm so me an Evie felt pretty delirious after that.

 San Jose boys doing their dance at Te De La Experanza

  Nino Jesus boys doing their dance at Te De La Experanza

Probably the biggest thing that's happened though was our trip down south! I found out last Thursday that we were going to have a longer weekend than usual - the boys leaving for their salida at 3.00 Friday instead of Saturday. Me and Evie had spoken a bit about travelling down to Huacachina so as soon as I found out I went and okayed it with Hugo and emailed Samina to say we were going! Thankfully Evie wanted to go as well. So we spent a couple hours Thursday plannaing and after work we Friday we hopped on a bus to Pisco. We stayed at a hostel we'd booked over night then Saturday morning got another bus to Ica then a taxi to Huacachina. I was a bit worried it wouldn't live up to memory, but it was so much prettier than I remembered! Once we got there we had a quick look around, had a go on the pedelos and then went on our sand dune tour and sandboarding. We got back to the hostel just in time for a shower then happy hour and we had tea and some drinks with the people we met on the sand dune tour, and an american couple we met along the way. Our latest night by far yet, got in at half one - unfortunately I can't sleep in anymore so woke up at half six. After breakfast we headed over to Bodega El Catador, which was a pisco vineyard in Ica. We had a free tour and pisco tasting, then had some lunch and headed back. It was a lovely weekend!

Hucachina

 Sand dunes and buggy

 Sunset at Huacachina

Huacachina

 Bodega El Catador

 Bodega El Catador

Lots of pisco at Bodega El Catador

The German volunteer that's staying with us arrived here about a week ago as well - she's called Laura and when she's finished her language course she's going to be working with Evie in Sonrisa as well as living with us so they'll be spending a lot of time together. Nothing much else going on - work is same as usual. I bought a broom the other day though, and now we have a kettle! We have a date for our meeting with Hugo about time off finally - next Monday we should find out when we can travel and it should be the same for next years volunteers as well.

Love to you all, Moffy xxxxxxxxxxxxx