Just some day to day stuff

Just wanted to put some pics on of around Ciudad! Getting into the routine of things a bit better - we've got to know one of the ladies at the market and she gives us free fruit now when we goo! The hermanas took me to the market yesterday to have my haircut as well, which was cool and we had some chaufa while we waited for it to open up. I cracked into my rocoto olive oil I bought at the market where Ciudad were selling their stuff as well. The boys got their school reports the other day - they all work really hard at school so generally get really good marks! They had to have a really formal collection of them though with the director which was kind of weird. It was nice to congratulate them, but they were expecting 3 - 6 year old boys to sit in silence for almost an hour while they waited for them all to be called up. They got a toy car each though and a bike, but I don't know how 26 boys are expected to play with one bike.

Yesterday we had our first hermanas meeting at Niño Jesus - just me, Ana Maria, Elisa and Tania - to go over what was going well and stuff. They're so sweet, saying we're a family and a team - starting to feel like I'm part of a community which is nice. Also, felt our first earthquake this morning! Not a big one, but I definately felt movement!

Just ouside the door to our apartment and you can see part of the farm

Some of the boys playing in the trees on the olympics day

Nino Jesus boys walking back from lunch

 

Niño Jesus' pabellon

Chau, Moffy xxx

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

First Week!

All the Peru girls at the airport

 Me and Ebay

So much to say, so little time! Bit of a kerfuffle at Miami airport on the way to Lima with immigration. I still have my American residence card from when I lived in America, and sent them an e-mail to check I didn´t need to apply for a waiver to pass through the US, which they said I didn´t. But when I got to the airport in London, they said I might run into some trouble at Miami so the head immigration guy put a note on the system to ok me going through as long as I surrendered my American residency card, which was fine by me. When I got to Miami, they took my passport off me and put it in a blue file and asked me to que up and wait to be seen by the lady. After I waited, answered some questions with her, she sent me into the immigration room. After another long wait followed by being taken into an interrogation room and questioned again for ages, I only had 40 minutes to catch the connecting flight to Lima, and Miami airport is fucking big. So I ran about 3 miles, got held up at security and ran from there on bare foot, arriving with 10 minutes left till departure. All the girls were waiting for me, it was very sweet, they'd said they decided to wait 5 more minutes before they boarded. I literally can´t believe my luck. Anyway, apart from bit of drama, that the journey was fine and all the girls ended up at a hostel in Lima. The next day we spent the morning at the British Embassy doing some last bits of paperwork, then to Claro to get Peruvian sim cards and credit, but I still haven´t figured out how to make mine work! All the girls went out for lunch then back to the hostel for happy hour! It was really nice to spend some time with all the Peru girls, because we'll probably not see them again until Christmas/New Year time.

Lima - taken from the top floor of British Embassy

We left for our projects on Sunday morning around 6.00am, which was a bit scary. As soon as we got there we just dropped off our bags, had breakfast with the boys and then had a grand tour from Hermano Hugo. Ciudad is massive, it´s more like a city than an orphanage. There´s roughly 300 boys there at the moment, who are split up into houses depending on their age. I´m working with Niño Jesus, which is boys aged 3-6 and Evies working at Sonrisa, which is boys aged 7-9. They´re so cute, I love them all already, but they´re obsessed with my watch and keep fiddling with the buttons so I´ll never know what time it is again. On site at the orphanage though there´s a church, a farm with pigs and chickens, a bakery, a cobblers, a babers, a carpenters, an amplitheatre, a tuck shop, a school with 1,000 pupils, housing for all the boys and a big dining hall. Me and Evie are staying in an apartment, which is quite nice, a lot better than I expected. We have a living room that doesn´t look lived in at the moment, but I´m sure it will after time, then a bathroom and a bedroom. There´s three bunkbeds in it, but at the moment it´s just me and Ebay staying there. Apparently there´s a German girl coming soon who´s going to live with us for most of the year.

Our monday to friday routine starts at 5.40am when I go to Niño Jesus for cleaning before breakfast, then breakfast, finish off cleaning, take the boys to school, then to morning mass. We get from around 8 - 1.15 for free time, then lunch, cleaning, folding washing, homework, showertime, naptime, dinner, mass then finish work around 8/9ish after they're all tucked in and have finished their homework. Saturdays we have free and then we´re back to work on Sunday at 5.00pm to get the boys ready for mass. Genearlly for breakfast we have two or three breadrolls and sweet coffee, or a runny porridgey type thing. Then for lunch it´s a sweet fruit drink, a soup and pasta, rice, beans or lentils usually with meat for main, and the same thing for tea minus the soup. The hermanas are really nice at Ninos Jesus! Anita is really keen to learn English so we´ve decided to do some lessons. A couple of boys have got something like chicken pox at the moment though, we haven´t figured out exactly what it is yet, so they´re pretty exhausted at the moment, but so lovely.

Tanya, one of the American volunteers that´s working at Niño Jesus has taken us under her wing and shown us how to do things properly and taken us to the market kinda thing. I think it was the third day we were here when we walked up to the local market. I thought we were staying in Miraflores but it turns out San Juan de Miraflores is a completely different area, and is one of the most dangerous in Lima, Lonely Planet advises travellers to avoid it! Feeling like a bit of an idiot! But to be honest, I´ve not seen anything dodgey at all and all the people have been really lovely so far. Touch wood. Everything´s pretty cheap, and DVDs are only 2.50 soles each! We got our first mototaxi back as well which was pretty exciting. We caught the bus up to the supermarket and bought some bits and peices - some bread, loo roll, that kind of thing. Then today, me and Evie caught the bus to Barranco for lunch. We´ve just had our first plate of Cerviche, which was yum yum, then later we´re going to a bar round the corner for some cervezas y pisco sours to celebrate our birthday!

Had a bit of a run in with Hermano Hugo on one of the first days here. He´d been on my facebook and seen I´m 'in a civil partnership' with Sammy and said it was inappropriate and could I please remove it - he said if I kept if on, it may give Ciudad a bad reputation and people would start to talk if they saw it. He didn't even stop to ask me if I really was in a relationship with her, just immediately that I had to take it off. I was pretty upset and shocked by that, because I´m just not used to that kind of unacceptance towards gay people. There's a fine line between a difference in  culture and just being homophobic. I told him he´d offended me, but that I understood, which in retrospect was probably a bit bold as he´s the director, I´d only just started, and I should respect the cultural differences, but I couldn´t just say nothing. So not too sure what I´m going to do about that yet!

I´ve not really got this whole being abroad and successfully contacting home thing down yet, but will try and sort that out. Was planning on sending letters to keep in contact with people but it's 7 soles just for a light letter or post card and the postal service is really unreliable here! If you do want to send anything here, my address is:

Hannah Moffatt
Ciudad de los Ninos
Av. Pedro Miotta 180
San Juan de Miraflores
Lima
Peru

Bottoms up to anyone who´s read up to here in my ramblings! Lots and lots of love, Moffy xxxxxx

Training week and Ciudad de los Ninos, Lima

Got back off our training week a couple of days ago, which was ace! Met all the Peru girls, and a few others, and they're all lovely! It was just rammed with lessons on spotting abuse, running a club, bereavement, child to child, politics, sex, drugs and alcohol, what to do if there's a natural disaster etc. We had some time to chill out a bit in the evenings and get to know the rest of the volunteers as well- Evie, Shannon, Kirsty, Harriet, Rosanna,  Alex, Aneesha, Emily, Louise, Frances and Wendy are the Peru girls and Alex, Jack and Helen are going to Bolivia. Also, got our dates for leaving - we fly out on the 26th of August, which is about 40 days away now!

Our new project is called Ciudad de los Ninos and is in San Juan de Miraflores, Lima. It's an all boys orphanage and is broken up into houses based on the kids' age i.e. 3-6 year olds, and we'll each be assigned to a house. We'll work 6 days a week starting at 6am to get the boys up, fed and to school and ends around 8/9pm, but we should get some breaks inbetween. It's run by Capuchin monks and nuns and the kids are all very religious, which will be interesting. We'll get paid around 200 soles a month for our work a month and live in an apartment (with a shower and flushing toilet!). We get two months holiday from December - mid Feb while the boys are off school when we can travel, which I'm really looking forward to! I'm feeling a lot better about the new project now we've got more information about it and actually can't wait to go! Just got some (a lot of) last minute things to sort out now before we go away!

Adios amigos,
Moffy xxx

Original project's fallen through

Unfortunately, I got a phone call last night saying that the Arequipa project has fallen through. Apparently the orphanage is prioritising spending money on construction rather than funding overseas volunteers. I'm pretty gutted because I was really looking forward to the Arequipa project but on the bright side, Project Trust have managed find us another project in Peru! It’s in Lima this time, the country’s capital, and it’s much more central so travelling will be made easier. The orphanage holds 300 kids, and they’re all boys! It was only a brief phone call so I didn’t get much information, but I also found out its run by monks and they go to church twice a day, which will be new as I'm not even slightly religious. It's all a bit confusing at the moment because it's a new project and only started in March '11 so PT don't know too much about it and the current volunteers haven't heard anything about construction so we'll just have to see what happens. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to get some more detailed information this weekend at our training. I’m still really excited about going to Peru; it’s just something slightly different to be excited about. Really excited about training as well and meeting the other volunteers going to Peru!

Moffy xxx

Fundacion por los ninos de Peru, Arequipa

Got my project details for Peru today in the post!! I'll be working at an orphanage in Arequipa which holds around 60 cihldren, each split up into 'family units' of about 8. I'll have my own apartment on the orphanage to share with my partner. Also, I'll be in the same city as Lauren, who's travelling with a company called GVI and doing a 9 month teaching course!! What are the chances that we'd be put in the same city!? I'm so excited!! Also, when I went to Peru in '09 Arequipa was by far my favourite city, it's just so beautiful!

(The rest might be a bit boring, it's just the information wich was written on my placement letter)

Background
Arequipa is the second largest town in Peru. It has a quiet colonial feel, as you wander round, never losing sight of El Misti, an awesome snow-capped volcano that towers above. Life in the town revolves around the central plaza, a large square surrounded by the cathedral and grand balconied buildings. There are lots of cafes and restaurants around here where you find tourists and locals alike taking time out to sit and watch the world go by.
Your project is located about 15 minutes by bus from the town centre. You will be working in a children's home for around 60 orphans and abandoned children. The home is split up into 8 different 'family units' with about 8 kids in each. Each group of children lives and eats in a small house with a 'house mother' to look after them. Your main role in the children's home will be helping with the day to day running of the centre, looking after the cihldren, and their general welfare. You will also be involved in organising activities for the children such as arts, crafts and music. An important role is encouraging the children to read and do their homework. As they will be studying English at school you will also be expected to help out with informal lessons and support.

Accommodation
You will live in a small self-contained apartment within the orphanage. The apartment comprises of a lounge area, kitchen, a bathroom and two bedrooms. The orphanage will provide all your food.

Life in Peru
Arequipa is a very lively town. It is located in the desert coastal belt about 15 hours south of the capital, Lima. From Areqipa it is easy to head up into the amazing Andes mountains or explore some of the wonder of the costal belt, such as the incredible Nazca lines and the town of Pisco, famous for producing the much loved Peruvian drink Pisco.
Beyond the Andes in the Amazon jungle with spectacular bird and animal life including the jaguar, caiman and anaconda.
The majority of Peruvians are Catholic, but you will still see evidence of people observing ancient Inca traditions and festivals, the most spectacular being Into Raymi in Cuzco, a celebration and worship of the sun. The two national languages are Spanish and Quechua, which is spoken in the Andes by about 45% of the population. Many people live a very basic subsistence lifestyle, farming corn and potatoes and herding llamas on the antiplano, or harvestinv Brazil nuts and growing papayas and yams in the jungle. This contrasts sharply with the proliferation of internet cafes and cashpoints in most main towns. The troubles with the Sendero Luminoso guerrrilas ended with the imprisonment of their leader in 1992, making Peru a safe and infinitely fascinating place to spend a year.

Moffy :) xxx

New Blog :)

Never done a blog before so I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to write! Hopefully, it'll keep people up to date with what I'm doing, mostly while I'm away really, but a few bits and bats before. I've started writing for grants, but it's early days and I haven't heard anything yet. I'm planning to do one big fundraising event, but I can't decide what yet! Running into the sea in winter or skydiving are possibilities, but not too sure yet.

Also, if anyone wants to donate, you can do it online at www.virginmoneygiving.com/hannahmoffatt and there's a bit more information about Project Trust on their website if you want to have a look. http://www.projecttrust.org.uk/

Moffy :) xxx