Adios Alex and Pierce, Bienvenido Salla and Suvi

As I am struggling with posting my jungle videos I decided to first give you an up-date of my day to day life. Last week was my last with Pierce and Alex.
It was a nice week with some great activities for the kids. We started up a pen-palls system with children in England -hope to have some letters back once Pierce and Alex are in England-, did junk band -STOMP idea of using everything as instruments, discovered that their rhythm needs a lot of work-, and ended the week with a treasure hunt.

Because we told them there would be a fiesta -farewell for Alex and Pierce- ladriella was packed friday afternoon, almost 50 children. Pierce stayed with the small kids and Alex was trapped by a dog when he went to get the camera so I ended up doing the trip by myself and 35 children.
Challenging but fun.
In the evening we had a farewell dinner in a restaurant specialized in cow hart and look-a-like donuts (more my thing).
Cullinair up-date of last week, the chaps ate cow hart and guinea pig, I learned to make pisco sour (is now my favourite cocktail) with wich I ate raw green beens -finish snack-.

The lads are now in Cusco and have rented a motorbike to go to Matchu Pitchu -probably the start of motorcycle diaries 2-

After a very quiet, relaxing weekend my finish roomies Suvi and Salla are now joining me to Ladriella. They both come from the hart -capital- of Lapland home of santa (apparently he really has a house their and loads of tourist come to visit him).
Tomorrow I will go to the orphanage with them for a few days to see what it is like. They will keep going to the orphanage as it is for their internship for school. Saturday a new volunteer should come to assist me in the future with Ladriella.

The picutures you see today are from our bingo -with pictures- and memory game. Both in an attempt to learn english names.

Tomorrow we go to the center to buy batteries for the music installation, also a good excuse to go to the cake shop, it has become a weekly ritual.

For the moment the weather is strange here, even more -wisselvallig- as in belgium, one minute you are sweating like crazy the next it s cold and windy. But in general the Peruvians -especially the older generation- always dress up like it s winter. Layers of wollen clooths when we are -puffen- in our t shirt. Patty told me it is because they believe that cold makes you sick. For instance you can't give children cold water, it will make them sick. Well it is perception propably because what they think is cold is a summer day in belgium. (Salla told me that an african friend said their green winter was bearable when he was he was talking about their summer...)

For some -unfortunate- under you the alarm clock will almost go 6h24. I am going to the land of the dreaming and hope to meet you soon in the virtual world.

slaapwel Bie

Daily route to and from home

Ladriella 16-09-08

Farewell Fiesta Ladriella and Home Crew -two girl are my roomies-

Last Day of Pierce And Alex, 12-09 , Treasure Hunt

Adres

To keep me from getting lost I have made mini address cards which I have put in everywhere. This to avoid having to tell the taxi left and right when trying to get home -which Alex had to do last time going home but which I would probably not be able to do anyhow-

Anyway if you would like to send something to my temporary home sweet home or if you would like to drop by -always welcome- you can find me here;

PASAJE VARALLAMOO
299 SIGLO XX
EL TAMBO
HUANCAYO
PERU

hasta luego

Ladriella

As you will read this should have been posted Thursday but the internet broke down. I have just gotten back from the jungle and it is my turn to have a break
down of my stomach. This is why I am not in Ladriella this morning. The jungle was amazing. Very "a l improviste" which made it surprising and adventurous. Will give you an up-date on this soon. If it works out I will have some film (the dancing with the tribes could be send in for funniest home videos, the waterfalls, the walk threw the river, coming up soon in part three of -Peru het leven zoals het is-) to show.

Buonas Dias and a super weekend for all!!!

3 hours ago we -or better the chaps- decided to go threw with the jungle plan. It took forever to -knoop door te hakken- as they are short on cash and they both dropped ill this week. But now it is certain that we are going but this is the only thing sure. For the moment nothing else is planned. Tomorrow at eight Juan Jose will give us a short briefing on transportation, guides ect. We can stay in the volunteer house which is cheap - the mission is to keep this as budget friendly as possible- and nice to get to know these people and their project.

So it was our last day in the Ladriella project this week. The project offers the children of the brick baking community the chance to engage in educational -mainly english-, artistic and sportive activities. It s a great initiative but not easy as boys and girls between 5-12 can come and often they bring their younger brothers and sisters. This means you can be walking around with a one year old while you are trying to stimulate other children in engaging in the planned activities. Also you don't know who is coming because they all go to school at different times and also need to work sometimes.
(When they start baking the stones it needs to burn non stop for 48 hours so somebody always needs to be present.)

But the kick off has been lots of fun, most children are very spontaneous, loving and once you motivate them to do something very enthuasiastic. They are also incredibly strong, we have already had nose bleeds, heads knocked against the floor but hardly any tears. Even the smallest are played with like dolls -on the toy car, on the cupboard, pulled around on mattresses and hardly give a scream (I am a lot more worried about it then they are)
I already helped with the first homework of children which was fun but challenging. The solar system in general isn't my cup of tea but in spanish,...
Started Spanish course so I hope this will pay of real soon.

Survivied my first dog attack pretty well, turned-started barking myself which scared him of enough. Did carry a rock in my pocket the rest of the way. Alex and me free styled to the center in our mission to find kite material and also important chocolate cake (this is one address that I won't forget,...)

We were also treated to the sauna this Monday as the showers hadn't worked that long. As a lot of Peruvian buildings it missed some parts, window on the last floor and closing doors towards the roof. Smelling fire I decided to take a look and discovered a camp fire underneath the water pipes. The essence was also still authentic having a half bush of eucalyptus stuck in the boiling water.

Ended the evening with Pierce as half of the house had a stomach infection. Decided to be a little adventurous and ordered a dish that I had never heard from with chicken. Decided this is my last chicken adventure for a while as it turned out to be either chicken nek -more pezen then meat- or chicken insides, neither of them sound realy appealing to me.

chao chao-peruvian ciao- Bie